Acute malnutrition remains a major Public Health issue in South Sudan. In 2022 alone, it is projected that up to 1.34 million children under five years and 675,000 pregnant and lactating women will suffer from acute malnutrition. The complex emergency with years of conflict and flooding in South Sudan has destroyed health infrastructure and livelihoods leaving populations vulnerable. Inadequate consumption of food due to food insecurity and other shocks that destroy livelihoods have combined with the high prevalence of diseases to keep malnutrition high.
Nile Hope has an elaborate CMAM program that leverages on the other programs provided in the organization to provide a fairly holistic approach in tackling malnutrition and treats severe acute malnutrition, moderate acute malnutrition, acute malnutrition with medical complications, campaign –based immunization and health and nutrition education. The program has preventive measures that seek to capacity build communities to cope with potential shocks and build resilience. Further, there is an elaborate capacity building component that equips community healthcare workers with knowledge and tools to ensure continuous sensitization of community members and identification of malnourished children for treatment in established facilities, most of which are integrated within primary healthcare facilities. In the upper Nile region where the organizations run its nutrition program in 5 counties within 3 states, the Global Acute Malnutrition rates have remained above the Emergency Threshold for years. However, the organization has built a reliable network of community workers that provide services from the household level to the health facilities. Peer to peer learning platforms have been created to enhance Maternal Infant and Young Child Nutrition practices too. We remain committed together with our partners to enhance nutrition surveillance, prevention and treatment to curb the escalating malnutrition rates in South Sudan. The work done in this program contribute significantly to SDG 1,2,3 and to an extent 10, 16 and 17.
