Community-based management of acute malnutrition: the case study of the NutriAction project in Esquipulas, Guatemala

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), malnutrition “refers to deficiencies, excesses, or imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and/or nutrients” and is one of the leading causes in infant deaths worldwide. One of the most effective ways to intervene is through the Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) framework, that shifts the focus during the management of severe acute malnutrition from rehabilitation centres to community-level treatments provided by primary health care centres and volunteer teams: the aim is to empower communities and not have them rely solely on the -often limited- resources provided by local rehabilitation facilities. The FAO’s Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has redacted a document that provides guidelines on how to deal with protracted food crises, that humanitarian organizations can use as a reference point. In this work I describe a case study of CMAM application: the NutriAction project carried out by the “Nutrizionisti senza frontiere” (Nutritionists without borders) association in the rural community of Esquipulas, Guatemala.