Community-driven Strategy to Reduce Malnutrition: Experience from Tanzania and Sri Lanka

Abstract

This article describes nutrition programmes in Sri Lanka and Tanzania which were able to achieve significant reductions in the rates of serious malnutrition among the under-5 target population. In Sri Lanka, more than half of the programme sites reported more than a 25 per cent reduction in severe malnutrition in a population of over 1.5 million; in Tanzania, the reduction was approximately 70 per cent in 40 per cent of the country's population. Community mobilisation and animation were essential elements in both the programmes. Both the efforts involved the entire com munity in the identification of the causes and nature of their nutrition problems and the most appropriate ways to solve them. A distinction is drawn between com munity-directed (active involvement of the villagers) and community-based (pas sive) programming.

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David F. Pyle is Senior Associate, JSI, Acting Deputy Director, Evaluation/MIS, BASICS Project, John Snow Inc., 1616 N Fort Myer Drive, 11th Floor, Arlington, VA 22209, USA. Fax: 617 482 0617. E-mail: DPYLE@basics.org.