• Tonia Marek and Biram Ndiaye.
• Banque mondiale, AFTH2, Room J9-081, The World Bank, 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20433, USA. tmarek@worldbank.org
• Sante. 2002 Jan 1; 12 (1): 107-11.

AbstractThe number of malnourished children in Africa continues to increase. It has been proven that such tendency could be stopped or even reversed if the lessons learnt from successful community nutrition programs were applied. The authors do not deny the role that poor socio-economic conditions play on malnutrition, and that those conditions need to be improved for a long-lasting impact, but they also argue that it is possible to act in parallel and get positive results, without waiting for macro-economic improvements. Successful projects such as those from Tamil Nadu in India, Iringa in Tanzania, Secaline in Madagacar, the PNC in Senegal, the AIN-C in Honduras, Prosen in Cameroon all applied the same principles and a similar approach. To reach success, international nutrition experts identified eighteen principles which should be used when designing and monitoring a community nutrition program, and there are also five phases to follow during the design stage. Finally, the authors suggest that if nutrition seems to often be underfunded, it is mainly because nutritionists in general have not been able to come up with feasible and well-conceived programmes. A few ideas are provided on how to access financing from health sector programs, by ensuring that the community nutrition programme helps implement certain aspects of those health sector programs. The conclusion is that there is no excuse not to start improving the nutritional status of African children now.

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