Liberia – Strengthening Integrated Systems for Management and Prevention of Malnutrition in Greater Monrovia

In April 2011, Action Contre la Faim (ACF) launched an integrated food security and nutrition programme with the aim of reducing of morbidity and mortality from malnutrition in children under five years old in Greater Monrovia. The project focused on three main levels of intervention:

-Community and Family Level: Gardening and ENA 3 promotion activities were combined with the prevention, early detection and referral of malnutrition ensuring the promotion of health, nutrition and hygiene.

-Health Facility Level: ACF supported the local NGO ANDP (Aid for the Needy Development Project) to provide nutrition training and mentoring in an attempt to develop the capacity of the health facilities for delivery of nutrition based initiatives. The treatment of acute malnutrition was carried out through the existing health system in Out-Patient Therapeutic Programmes (OTPs) and/or In-Patient Therapeutic Programmes (IPTPs).

-County and National Level: County Health Team and Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) were strengthened to supervise, monitor and support the management of acute malnutrition at both OTPs and IPTPs and to adopt appropriate nutrition policies.

Whereas prevention activities at the household level were intended to reduce the underlying and immediate causes of malnutrition (inadequate dietary intake, inadequate care for children and women, unhealthy environment), activities in Health facilities and at county and national levels such as advocacy, technical assistance and nutrition training aimed to directly tackle the outcome of malnutrition.

A short case study has been developed to present the innovative approach used for this project, in order to raise awareness and share good practices on how Food Security interventions can contribute to the prevention of undernutrition.

The document part of a set of studies on nutrition-sensitive interventions developed by the ACF “Aligning Food Security and Livelihoods (FSL) with Nutrition” Working Group to show how these interventions can effectively contribute to a better nutrition, by using a nutrition lens at different steps of the project cycle. The aim of the “Aligning Food Security and Livelihoods with Nutrition” Working Group is to promote and scale up nutrition sensitive FSL interventions, through documenting lessons learnt, building evidence, developing tools and guidance and building capacity.