Citizens Voice and Influence for Nutrition Service Delivery in Turkana Kenya

The overall impact of the project was to contribute to a reduction in mortality and morbidity associated with acute malnutrition amongst children under five and women in these arid and semi-arid lands of Kenya.   World Vision implemented the ENSURE (Enhancing Nutrition Surveillance and Resilience) project from November 2012 to March 2016 in Turkana Central, South and East sub- counties in Kenya. Turkana County is an arid and semi-arid county located in North of Kenya. It’s a county with limited access to quality nutrition services and persistently high levels of child wasting1 as high as 30% in 2016 and 33.5% in 2011. Malnutrition in Turkana county remains unacceptably high over the last 6 years since the Horn of Africa drought emergency in 2011.

Within this context, the ENSURE project aimed to build resilience of the health systems and increase access to treatment for severely malnourished children. Under the devolved system of government in Kenya, health and nutrition services are managed by the 47 counties in the country. ENSURE was a multi- year humanitarian programme funded by the UK Department for International Development to respond to the high levels of global acute malnutrition and build resilience of the health system to treat severe and moderate acute malnutrition 2 in three arid counties i.e. Turkana, Wajir and Mandera. The project duration was 3 years running from November 2012 to March 2016. World Vision Kenya worked with 34 health centres, dispensaries and the Lowdar county referral hospital.