Enhancing Skills for Improved Infant and Young Child Nutrition : Baby Friendly Village Approach, Takhar Province, Afghanistan
Afghanistan has high rates of malnutrition and a high infant mortality rate of 77/1000 births. Infant and young child feeding practices are a key determinant of malnutrition in Afghanistan, and thus far, relatively little attention has been given...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2014
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/08/19402486/afghanistan-enhancing-skills-improved-infant-young-child-nutrition-baby-friend-village-approach-takhar-province-case-study http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18699 |
| Summary: | Afghanistan has high rates of
malnutrition and a high infant mortality rate of 77/1000
births. Infant and young child feeding practices are a key
determinant of malnutrition in Afghanistan, and thus far,
relatively little attention has been given to this issue.
This report was prepared to inform the scaling up of infant
and young child feeding through the Government of
Afghanistan's Basic Package of Health Services. The
case study outlines the Baby Friendly Village Project
intervention objectives, the project's approach,
monitoring and evaluation issues, findings, and lessons
learned. The overall goal of the Project was to promote
early and exclusive breastfeeding for children under 6
months old and to encourage families to offer
age-appropriate complementary foods to children 6-24 months.
Despite several monitoring and evaluation issues, the pilot
has generated a number of important lessons for policymakers
and program implementers in Afghanistan. The Care for Afghan
Families intervention shows that for future similar
projects, sufficient technical support should be provided to
assist the implementing agency with the overall planning of
the intervention, including conducting the needed formative
studies to guide the education, communication, and social
marketing messages and approaches for the various target
groups. Special assistance would be needed to help with the
design and implementation of an appropriate and feasible
program monitoring system to track the quality and coverage
of the intervention and to assess its anticipated impact.
Finally, it is important to pretest the intervention
strategy as well as the data collection methodology prior to
full-scale implementation. Public health impact from an
intervention can be achieved by ensuring its quality and
sustained high population coverage over time. While many
unknowns exist in a country such as Afghanistan, this report
illustrates some of the lessons learned from the Care for
Afghan Families pilot intervention on infant and young child
feeding, Baby Friendly Village Project, and provides
recommendations for future initiatives. |
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