Resilience to child malnutrition ACF DRC 2017-2020

General

To prevent child malnutrition in Kalomba health zone, DRC, Kasaï Central, during 2017-2020, through water and sanitation, nutrition and support to livelihoods, and by mainstreaming gender and environment. Linked to a previous humanitarian support in 2014-2017.

Objectives

For more than 20 years, the security situation in the DRC has led to a multitude of successive new crises, the severity and scope of which have increased over time. This ongoing crisis has caused immeasurable human and material damage, plunging a large part of the population into a situation of extreme vulnerability. In this context, the Kalomba health zone, in Kasai Central province, experienced a massive population displacement, a significant number of protection incidents, and the destruction of socio-economic infrastructure and livelihoods. The factors aggravating the impact of food and nutrition insecurity in Kazumba Territory include: socio-economic vulnerability, new armed conflicts between armed groups and the absence of a cessation of hostilities agreement, the limited capacity of state security services to provide protection to the population, impunity and the weakness of the legal system, inter-community, customary and identity-based tensions, and land conflicts. The causes of vulnerability to food insecurity and malnutrition are complex and multidimensional. They are linked to a set of intertwined factors, such as poverty, health, hygiene, access to basic social services, eating habits, socio-cultural norms, the level of knowledge of improved agricultural techniques, the weakness of production, access to markets, as well as climatic hazards and other recurrent shocks, which result in a large number of people being in a state of quasi-permanent fragility. ACF's project objective is to sustainably strengthen nutrition security and resilience to malnutrition in communities and health system in Kalomba Health Zone in Kasaï Central province in DRC, from April 2017 to December 2020, through a gender-sensitive, community-based approach. The project is articulated along two axis: the health system and the community. It includes three result areas: (1) Structural strengthening of the integrated health system for sustainable service delivery; (2) Strengthened capacity of health personnel for outreach and sensitization through a gender-sensitive approach to nutrition security; and (3) Improved household nutritional security through gender-sensitive behavior change, access to safe water and livelihood support Given that malnutrition and WASH often correlate, the project includes substantial WASH related activities both in communities (according to the so-called "community-led total sanitation" approach) and in health facilities.