Abstract/Description
Despite remarkable progress in reducing undernutrition, Ethiopia still has one of the highest rates of undernutrition amongst children under five years of age (U5) and women of reproductive age (WRA) globally. The country’s stubborn problem of undernutrition coexists with a rising challenge of overweight/obesity and diet-related noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), particularly amongst WRA in urban areas. Both undernutrition and overweight/obesity share common causes, including poor diet quality. Yet, undernutrition and overweight/obesity have traditionally been considered as distinct problems requiring different solutions. The need to reshape public health nutrition to address multiple forms of malnutrition simultaneously through double-duty actions (DDA) has been recently highlighted. Shifting policies and programmes to address multiple forms of malnutrition requires a deep understanding of the problem and of stakeholders’ views, a conducive policy/programme environment, and a careful analysis of the problems and potential ways of addressing them.
The study aimed to: i. assess whether existing national nutrition-relevant policies and programmes align with recommended DDAs, and if they do not, explore how they could be reshaped to tackle multiple burdens of malnutrition, and ii. determine how the enabling environment could be strengthened to enhance implementation of the recommended DDAs. Read more >>