Commitment

Increase treatment by reaching 85% of children with wasting by 2025

Government / Kenya

Description

The priority actions are multisectoral (Health, Food systems and Social protection) and include:

Health System:

Scale up IMAM services across the target counties.

Strengthen and scale up nutrition care for wasted inpatients and clients with disease and/or co-morbidities.

Improve screening and referral for acute malnutrition at household, community, health facilities and institutional level. CHVs engagement through community units (such as ICCM), empower mothers/caregivers through family MUAC, growth monitoring at health facility, ECDs and at household level by CHVs. Strengthen nutrition screening and assessment for disease related malnutrition in health facilities.

Develop infrastructure and capacity of health workers and institutions for service delivery. Conduct trainings, on the job training, continuous medical educations

and mentorships, provision of technical guidelines and job aids.

Use available mechanisms for coordination of IMAM and to link IMAM services with other programmes (WASH, livelihood, social protection and food security).

These coordination forums include nutrition technical forums, emergency nutrition advisory committee (ENAC) and multisectoral coordination forums.

Scale up innovative approaches for nutrition education and communication such as Nutrition Improvement Through Health Education (NICHE), adoption of rapid-

pro and other SBCC strategies.

Strengthen MEAL to ensure evidence based decision making and accountability to service users. Conduct operational research for new approaches. Adopt community initiatives to promote community empowerment for accountability including complaints and response mechanisms, community conversations, community

dialogues and actions through community units.

Advocacy, resource mobilization and financing for nutrition service delivery including supply chain and ensuring this is covered by government health insurance such as NHIF/UHC. Inclusion of nutrition budget lines in county and national annual budgets, especially for nutrition commodities. Support the development of county strategic planning processes including CIDP, AWPs, CNAP.

Food System

Strengthen supply chain systems for the delivery of key commodities for the management and treatment of child wasting.

Improve reporting through online systems logistics management information systems, accurate projection and timely requisition of nutrition commodities.

Strengthen mechanisms to monitor safety, quality and adherence to standards for nutrition supplies for management of wasting, including end user monitoring.

Strengthen and scale up local production of nutrition commodities.

Social Protection:

Provide cash transfers to all households with pregnant and lactating women with children below 2 to five years, poor and vulnerable households taking care of orphans and vulnerable children (consolidated cash transfer (CCT) programme).

Support to scale up unconditional cash/food transfer during shocks such as drought. Floods and pandemics to reduce exposure to poor health and nutrition.

Overarching commitment (for commitments submitted pre-2025)

Title

Maintain child wasting at less than 4%

Description

Kenya is one of the front runner countries in adoption and customization of the Global Action Plan on child wasting. The multisectoral country action plan on child wasting is aligned to the GAP and 4 outcomes along the health, food, social protection and WASH systems namely: (i) Reduce low birth weight by improving maternal nutrition, (ii) Improved child health by improving access to primary healthcare, WASH services and enhanced food safety, (iii) Improved Infant and Young Child Feeding by promoting optimal breastfeeding practices and complementary feeding, and (iv) Improved treatment of wasting among children, pregnant and lactating women and people living with HIV by strengthening health systems and integrating treatment into routine primary health services.

Details on the specific interventions can be accessed on https://www.childwasting.org/

GNR assessment

Verification status
Unverified
Find out more
SMARTness index
Lower moderate
Find out more

Details

Global nutrition target(s)
Anaemia
Low birth weight
Exclusive breastfeeding
Childhood stunting
Childhood wasting
Nutrition Action Classification(s)
Policy > Nutrition care services
Find out more
Linked event(s)
  • 2021 Tokyo N4G Summit
N4G Summit theme(s)
  • Food
  • Health
  • Resilience
  • Data

Measurement

Key indicator Percent of children under five treated for acute malnutrition
Value Measurement date
Baseline 79% 2020
Target 85%

Share this commitment