Findings from the Whole Village Project in Tanzania: Food insecurity, malnutrition and food aid – identifying opportunities for systems change

Background: The Whole Village Project (WVP) in Tanzania is designed to assess the longitudinal impact of a variety of health, agriculture and economic development assistance projects. In this presentation we present baseline data from 15 villages in northern Tanzania collected in 2009-2010. Methods: The WVP uses a longitudinal study design that combines surveys from 60 to 75 randomly selected households per village with focus groups and key informant interviews. Baseline data are being collected in 55 villages in northern Tanzania in 2009-2010. Key measures include socio-economic status, education, height/weight measures for children under-5, nutrition, food security, breastfeeding and child weaning practices, livestock resources, and agricultural production. Data are collected at the individual, household, and village level and reported back to villages within ten months of the initial visit. Results: The 2009 drought had a significant impact on pastoralist/agropastoralist communities as compared to agriculturalists included in this analysis: 7 to 24% of children under-5 were identified as moderately to severely malnourished as compared to 5-9% in agricultural communities; similarly 42-82% of pastoralist households went to bed hungry at least once in the past month compared to 10-20% among agriculturalists. Most of the villages – both pastoralist and agriculturalist – reported some outside food assistance. Other than occasional food aid there was little evidence of government or others addressing the broader systems issue of food insecurity. Discussion: Rural villages in Tanzania are at significant risk of food insecurity. Alleviation of this risk is inconsistently addressed by international agencies and local and national government.