Bolivia Desnutricion Cero

Bolivia's Multisectoral Zero Malnutrition Programme, known as Desnutricion Cero, targets children under the age of five, with particular emphasis on children under two, prioritizing the 52 municipalities the government has identified as most vulnerable to food insecurity, home to some 665,000 people including more than 20,000 pregnant women and over 100,000 children under five. Working with support from UNICEF, the programme built out strategies to improve nutritional knowledge and practices, hygiene, sanitation and solid waste management among families and communities, and it established a network of 52 Integrated Nutrition Units alongside 16 hospitals designated as Mother and Child Friendly for their care of malnourished children and their mothers. Applying the World Health Organization's ten-step protocol for managing severe malnutrition, the programme reduced the mortality rate among children with severe malnutrition from 25 percent to under 5 percent within five years of its implementation, a marked improvement in a country where roughly one in three children has suffered from malnutrition.