Staff with USAID/OFDA partner Save the Children measure a boy's middle upper arm circumference (MUAC) to test for acute malnutrition at a nutrition awareness event in rural Niger.

Johs Pierce, USAID/OFDA

USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) is at the forefront of the humanitarian community’s efforts to prevent and treat acute malnutrition. USAID/OFDA-supported programs are community-based, linked to local health systems, and use evidence-based approaches that decrease morbidity and mortality resulting from malnutrition. The majority of USAID/OFDA’s nutrition programs were based in the Horn of Africa and western Africa’s Sahel region—two areas where drought severely impacted communities’ abilities to produce and purchase sufficient quantities of diverse foods, thereby increasing the risk of spikes in acute malnutrition levels among vulnerable populations.   

Nutrition Archive

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