Zambia

Due to the predominance of direct, specific interventions in nutrition for development, the health sector tends to own nutrition, with interventions customarily implemented through health programs. The premise that the agriculture sector should also be a vehicle for improved nutrition is intuitive, but this sector often delivers neither good nutrition nor food security to the most vulnerable in the population. The complex and multisectoral nature of malnutrition may explain why it has not been effectively addressed.

Data from the 2005 Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) and the 2007 Zambia Demographic Health Survey (ZDHS) were analyzed to examine the association between World Health Organization (WHO) recommended IYCF indicators and nutritional status among children 0-23 months of age in Ethiopia and Zambia.  A total of 1810 and 2512 children within this age group from Ethiopia and Zambia, respectively, were included in the analysis. Exclusive breast-feeding among children 0-5.9 months of age is low  in both Ethiopia (43  %) and Zambia (51  %).