USAID Office of Food for Peace Burkina Faso Bellmon ... - CiteSeerX

Prevalence of Malnutrition in Children
Prepared by Fintrac Inc.
While analysis of livelihood strategies may allow food insecurity to be assessed on the basis of
the availability of and access to food, the analysis can ignore other effects including the degree
to which food is effectively utilized. The relation between income and food security is context-
and location-specific, with livelihood strategies as intervening variables. Such factors as
disease, social customs and food storage and preparation practices can all influence the extent
to which available food is effectively utilized and will contribute to the ultimate level of nutrition.
Where wealth and nutrition outcomes are strongly and positively correlated, improving food
access will help to improve nutritional outcomes. Conversely, where wealth status and
nutritional status are only weakly correlated, increasing access alone will very likely be an
insufficient intervention to reversing malnutrition. Where intra-household resource allocation,
poor feeding practices, or disease burdens are a significant underlying cause of malnutrition,
distributed food aid will be more effectively used as an incentive to attend nutrition and health
training.
The direct determinants of child malnutrition (lack of breastfeeding and complementary food,
disease incidence and lack of access and utilization of healthcare) may be more important
factors in determining the prevalence of child malnutrition than household food security.
Integrated Phase Classification (IPC)
The Integrated Phase Classification scheme represents a collaborative effort of CARE, Joint
Research Center of the European Union (JRC), FAO, FEWS NET, Oxfam, Save the Children
UK, Save the Children United States and WFP to create a common classification system to
represent food insecurity. The IPC scale classifies areas as moderately/borderline food insecure
based on key reference outcomes including indicators of food access and availability, crude
mortality rate, acute and chronic malnutrition, water access and availability, dietary diversity,
hazards, coping strategies, livelihood assets and structural hindrances to food security.
Assessing “Additionality” in Burkina Faso
The GOBF Permanent Agricultural Survey (Enquête Permanent Agricole, EPA), an annual
report based on household surveys, reports the percentage of the population, by region, with
insufficient food access uses two measures of cereal poverty: "percent not self-sufficient in
cereals" using the "autonomous food poverty" criteria, and "percent in cereal poverty" using the
"apparent food poverty criteria." Chronic malnutrition rates, by region, are reported in the 2009
ENIAM.
BEST ANALYSIS – BURKINA FASO 87