Nutrition : surveys and surveillance

The project was implemented by the U.S. Center for Disease Control/Division of Nutrition; University of California at Los Angeles/Nutrition Assessment Unit; and Cornell University/Nutritional Surveillance Program (CNSP). Evaluation covers the period 6/82 to 6/89. The project sucessfully conducted a large number of surveys throughout the world. These surveys provided baseline data useful in documenting nutritional status worldwide and in formulating policies and programs in several countries. The project also helped increase the priority given to nutrition during planning and policy analyses in the health, agricultural, and economic sectors, and maintained the scientific standards needed to assess nutritional status and train host country personnel. Further, CNSP did an outstanding job of providing TA to governments in the establishment of nutritional surveillance systems. In a follow-on project, greater focus should be placed on food security at the household level as part of early warning systems and policy analysis. In addition, nutritional anthropometry should be used as a means to substantiate information developed through other more readily obtainable measures. The project provided three valuable lessons. (1) Degree of success was a function of the input from Missions and host country institutions. (2) The relationship of global nutrition surveillance activities sponsored by A.I.D., UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization needs to be clarified. (3) Activities to design a national nutritional surveillance system took longer than anticipated and were often specific to each country. The attempts to generalize a system were less successful.