Integrating WASH, nutrition and health programmes to tackle malnutrition in Eastern Chad

While more and more research is conducted to assess the impact of WASH related interventions on the health and nutritional status of under-five children, Concern Worldwide is implementing an integrated programme aiming at reducing malnutrition rates in Eastern Chad. This intervention, Community Resilience to Acute Malnutrition (CRAM), involves a high level of coordination between different sectors including WASH, Health and Nutrition, Livelihoods and Disaster Risk Reduction. The present article analyses the preliminary results of this programme. It assesses the impact of the WASH intervention on the prevalence of diarrhoea and on Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM)rates. Although the GAM rate rose from 12.9% to 13.9%, the SAM rate decreased from 3% to 2.5% and the number of cases of diarrhoea was significantly reduced during the rainy season in 2014.This paper shows that while more research is needed, the preliminary results are encouraging.