Motivation
Source: flickr (Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World). Child on mother's lap in Debriga, Haiti.
Is it better to treat child undernutrition or prevent it? To answer this longstanding policy question, IFPRI and Cornell University compared the impact on childhood nutrition of two different models of providing food assistance and health and nutrition interventions in the context of a USAID-funded program implemented by World Vision in Haiti. The first program provided nine months of assistance to underweight children aged six months to five years, whereas the second program targeted all children between the ages of six months and two years. Both approaches also targeted pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers. The study, concluded in 2006,found that preventing infants and young children from becoming undernourished is much more effective than treating children who are already moderately malnourished.
Outcomes
- Results of this study contributed to new thinking about how to address the widespread problem of child undernutrition well beyond the borders of Haiti. Prevention has become the accepted standard among aid agencies and NGOs for dealing with child undernutrition. For example, all organizations that were part of the 2008 USAID Title II Program adopted the preventive model (blanket targeting of all children under two years of age), as recommended in IFPRI’s evaluation. World Vision has adopted this same model for their programs in other countries in Central America and in Ethiopia.
- The findings provided evidence that the first one thousand days are a critical window for investing in nutrition. This is the fundamental basis of the 1,000 Days initiative launched by the US and Irish governments in 2010.
