Aid agencies in West and North Darfur, Sudan, reported that nutrition rates worsened in 2008, and subsequently malnutrition rates rose. Most of the malnourished were children between the ages of 12 and 29 months.
The area is desert for eight months of the year, with four months of rain from June to September. In the long, dry season, the soft sand makes transport difficult. In the rainy period, roads are often cut off for days due to flooding. In 2008, there were floods in July and August. The local economy depends almost exclusively on agriculture and animal husbandry. Low moisture crops such as millet, sorghum, sesame, and okra generally survive the harsh conditions.
Women have, on average, six pregnancies during their life time. In general, 4% of all pregnancies miscarry and 9% of offspring die in the first year of life.
Water is transported in jerry cans from local wadis – water holes. Few communities have hand pumps on wells, boreholes, or elevated tanks.
The aid agencies reported that some of the causes for the rise in malnutrition in 2008 were due to:
(1) Increased food costs, partly due to reduced food production and partly due to the global food crisis;
(2) Increased fuel costs to transport food;
(3) Poor food storage methods, leading to spoiling of food due to pests;
(4) Decreased vitamin A from reduced consumption of seasonal mangoes and leafy green vegetables;
(5) Increased cases of diarrhea (about a third of the time any one family member was depleted by diarrhea), predominantly due to unclean water;
(6) The distance to health and nutrition care (on average it was two hours to the nearest clinic); and
(7) Flooding which contaminated the water supply leading to diarrhea.
Aid agencies in 2009 therefore focused more activities on the following:
(1) cross-sectoral nutrition education and follow-up (i.e. providing nutrition information in their agriculture, health, education etc programs);
(2) assisting families to cope with food production challenges by maintaining livelihood and income-generation programs;
(3) increasing female staff to work directly within local communities for a whole-of-community approach to better nutrition;
(4) increased distribution of donkeys for the transport of food;
(5) increased distribution of seeds and agricultural tools;
(6) increased supplementary feeding programs;
(7) continual monitoring of the health and nutrition situation in the region; and
(8) forecasting the needs of vulnerable groups.
I will be conducting a nutrition and food security study from 20 September 2009 in three targeted regions in West Darfur. The goals will be to assess:
household food supplies and the nutritional health of families;
the supply of clean drinking water;
sanitation and hygiene education and information; and
the provision of community primary health care.
The overall purpose is to provide current information on the needs of the beneficiary populations to guide future activities and multi-sectoral emergency and transitional programming, especially for internally displaced persons and conflict-affected communities.
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