Programme overview
The Power of Nutrition has partnered with the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and expert implementing partners to deliver a multi-year, multi-phased programme that will address malnutrition in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – one of the world’s most vulnerable and conflict-affected countries.
The first phase began in January 2022 – an innovative, $9m programme led by GiveDirectly. The programme aims to address the immediate and longer-term needs of more than 5,000 vulnerable households in South Kivu, through providing cash transfers to support resilience, food security and improved nutrition outcomes.
Programme objectives
The programme will provide households with pregnant women or children under 5 at risk of food insecurity and malnutrition in South Kivu, with cash transfers. The case transfers will help to enable them to grow and/or purchase diverse diets, as well as invest in their livelihoods to be more financially resilient – with a view to improving immediate and longer-term nutrition outcomes for women and children.
It will address the short and long-term economic barriers to accessing nutritious foods by providing these households with monthly payments of $40 over the course of 24 months to support immediate food security needs, as well as one-time lump sum payments of $410 to invest in longer-term livelihoods interventions.
It aims to address a key driver of malnutrition: financial constraints to food security leading to inadequate access to sufficient, diverse, nutritious food. This will be complemented by the multisectoral, overlapping second phase of the programme (due to launch in 2023), which will support systems strengthening and an enabling environment for improved financial resilience and food security to thrive, maximising positive impacts on maternal and child health and nutrition (for example, by investing in complementary health services and food systems).
How will success be measured?