The Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance III (FANTA) project, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and managed by FHI 360, recently released Strengthening Nutrition in Ghana: A Report on FANTA Activities from 2007 to 2013.
The report summarizes FANTA’s work in Ghana over the past six years. This work, which focused on strengthening nutrition programs and services and on integrating nutrition services into the Ghanaian health system, was carried out in collaboration with the Ghana Ministry of Health, the Ghana Health Service and other stakeholders.
The project had three main objectives:
- Introduce community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) and scale up integrated CMAM services within the existing Ghanaian health system
- Introduce nutrition assessment, counseling and support (NACS) and scale up integrated NACS services within existing HIV and tuberculosis service delivery
- Strengthen maternal and child health and nutrition services through advocacy, coordination and the development of a national nutrition policy
By November 2013, 1,023 facilities were providing community-based management of acute malnutrition services, 15,025 children were treated for severe acute malnutrition and 18,688 people living with HIV received nutrition assessment and counseling — achievements that all resulted from FANTA training and programming.
In addition to describing FANTA’s activities and achievements, the report offers a description of the challenges that the project worked to address, as well as recommendations and lessons learned on improving service nutrition delivery and eliminating malnutrition in Ghana.