Chad
While Chad’s Sahelian region frequently experiences high rates of acute malnutrition during the “hunger gap”—a period of routine scarcity between harvests—2010 was particularly harsh. Insufficient rainfall over the past two years helped push nearly two-thirds of families in Chad into food insecurity, and the lack of access to arable land, water, and health care also contributed to skyrocketing malnutrition rates.
Global Hunger Index
Extremely Alarming
Population
11 million
Malnutrition in Children under 5 Years Old
33.9% in 2004
Beneficiaries
363,127 in 2011
After finding that one in four children under five in Western Chad suffered from acute malnutrition, ACF scaled up its treatment programs. Already supporting 33 nutrition centers in the arid Kanem and Bahr El Ghazal regions, Action Against Hunger extended its programs to an additional 10 health centers in areas with soaring malnutrition rates. This significantly increased the accessibility and quality of care for severely malnourished children.
To help avert future malnutrition crises, ACF supported local markets and helped struggling families regain their livelihoods by setting up grain banks for farmers to store their excess crops, establishing vaccination and de-worming programs for livestock, and training fledgling female entrepreneurs in small business management. ACF also advocated for long-term investments aimed at bolstering the country’s health care system—crippled by insufficient funding, medicine, nurses, and administrative staff—and at strengthening the country’s resilience to food shocks.
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