Multisectoral Child Nutrition and Health Project

The Multisectoral Child Nutrition and Health Project is a $500,000, World Bank-funded nutrition and family planning research project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) designed with the goal of reducing malnutrition, stunting and other health issue.

Working with nutrition researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s International Health department, the qualitative research seeks to better understand attitudes, practices and beliefs toward family planning, exclusive and continued breastfeeding, complementary feeding and more in four provinces in the DRC: Kasai, Kasai Central, Kwilu and South Kivu.

The research will allow CCP to design a responsive and customized social and behavior change program to support mothers and families in the DRC that addresses the specific challenges that they face. The goal is for this new research to be applied and followed by an 18-month implementation project, which has not yet been funded.

CCP will interview pregnant women and new mothers along with community and religious leaders, health care service providers and even food vendors to discuss the access to and availability of a variety of healthy foods in the community. The interviews will help CCP to understand how women and families think about their children’s eating as connected to normal growth and development in the first few years of life, since improving feeding during this period is central to reducing childhood malnutrition.