About Action Against Hunger and its efforts to reduce anaemia
For Action Against Hunger, reducing anemia is not merely a medical intervention; it is a fundamental prerequisite for ending hunger and building resilience. We prioritize this battle because anemia acts as a silent engine of poverty and mortality, particularly in the fragile, emergency-affected contexts where we operate.
Our commitment to eradicating anemia is driven by three critical realities:
1. A Crisis of Scale in Fragile Contexts
While anemia is a global public health challenge affecting billions, its burden is disproportionately prevalent in the areas where we work. In the fragile and conflict-affected countries that constitute our primary operational areas, the rates of anemia often far exceed global averages. In these settings, food systems are disrupted, and health infrastructure is often collapsed, making the population uniquely vulnerable. We cannot claim to address malnutrition without tackling anemia, as it is pervasive among the most vulnerable groups we serve—women and children living on the brink of survival.
2. Protecting Human Capital and Future Generations
We believe anemia deprives human potential. It has devastating, often irreversible effects on the physical growth and cognitive development of children.
- Cognitive Impact: Iron deficiency anemia in early childhood impairs brain development, leading to reduced learning capacity and poor school performance.
- Long-term Economic Consequence: This cognitive deficit translates directly into lost economic productivity in adulthood. By allowing anemia to persist, we risk losing the "human capital" of an entire generation. To break the cycle of poverty and hunger, we must ensure that children have the physiological foundation to learn, grow, and eventually contribute to their communities.
3. Preventing Maternal and Child Mortality
The stakes are highest during pregnancy. Anemia is a direct cause of maternal and child morbidity and mortality, creating a dangerous cycle of poor health outcomes:
- Maternal Risks: Severe anemia significantly increases the risk of maternal death due to hemorrhage during childbirth. It leaves mothers too weak to survive complications that a healthy woman might withstand.
- Birth Outcomes: It is strongly linked to negative birth outcomes, including premature birth, low birth weight, and stillbirth.
- The Cycle: A child born to an anemic mother is often born with low iron stores, starting life at a disadvantage.
In summary, Action Against Hunger views anemia reduction as a high-impact lever. By addressing it, we save lives today (reducing maternal and child death) and secure the future (protecting human capital), fulfilling our mandate to not only treat malnutrition but to prevent it entirely.
How our organization is tackling anaemia?
Action Against Hunger tackles anemia through a holistic, lifecycle approach that integrates context-specific interventions into broader health systems rather than treating the condition in isolation. This strategy is exemplified by "Project Shubharambh" in India, which leveraged cultural platforms to drive massive behavioral change and awareness among adolescent girls, and is replicated globally to ensure "last-mile" delivery. Whether upskilling health workers in Tanzania to provide gender-sensitive counseling, mobilizing Mothers' Clubs in Nigeria to produce local nutrient-dense foods, or strengthening government supply chains in India under "Project Vruddhi," ACF consistently bridges the gap between national policy and community needs. By combining direct support with system strengthening, the organization ensures that critical nutritional support reaches the most vulnerable groups—from adolescent girls to pregnant women and infants—effectively reducing intergenerational malnutrition.
Why did we join the Anemia Action Alliance?
Action Against Hunger has joined the Anemia Action Alliance because we recognize that ending hunger requires a comprehensive approach that looks beyond caloric intake to address the quality of survival. Our decision to join is driven by four strategic pillars that align our organizational strengths with this urgent global priority.
1. Fulfilling Our Vision to Eliminate "Hidden Hunger"
Our vision and mission are rooted in the goal to save lives by decisively eliminating hunger. However, we recognize that hunger takes many forms. It is not just the absence of food, but the absence of essential nutrients—often referred to as "hidden hunger." By joining the Alliance, we are reaffirming that our mandate includes combating micronutrient deficiencies. Anemia is the most prevalent form of hidden hunger, and tackling it is essential to fulfilling our promise to the communities we serve.
2. Contributing to the Global Effort for the Vulnerable
We joined the Alliance to contribute our share to the global momentum against anemia. We recognize that no single organization can solve this crisis alone. By aligning with the Alliance, we ensure that the specific populations we serve—often those in the most fragile, remote, and emergency-affected contexts—are represented in the global response. We are committed to ensuring that global targets for anemia reduction reach the most vulnerable, leaving no one behind.
3. Leveraging Our Existing Operational Platform
We are uniquely positioned to turn policy into practice immediately. Because we already operate extensive nutrition programs managing acute malnutrition among children and Pregnant and Lactating Women (PLWs), we have a ready-made platform to deliver anemia interventions. We do not need to build new systems; we can integrate anemia prevention and management into our existing touchpoints, ensuring efficient and direct delivery of services to high-risk groups.
4. Applying Our Research Expertise to New Solutions
Finally, we bring a legacy of innovation to the Alliance. Action Against Hunger has a proven track record of using rigorous research to find viable, scalable solutions, most notably demonstrated in our pioneering work on the management of acute malnutrition in children. We joined the Alliance to apply this same research-driven mindset to anemia. We aim to test, refine, and scale evidence-based strategies that work in difficult environments, using our technical expertise to crack the code on anemia prevention just as we have for acute malnutrition.
What our organization can offer?
Action Against Hunger offers a robust technical and research platform capable of generating the evidence base needed to scale effective anemia interventions. As a leader in nutrition research, ACF offers expertise in conducting Link Nutrition Causal Analyses (Link NCA). This proprietary mixed-methods analytical tool allows donors and governments to go beyond generic prevalence rates to understand the specific, multi-causal pathways of undernutrition (including anemia) in a given context—whether driven by dietary lack, WASH-related pathogen load, or care practices. This granular data enables the design of highly precise, context-specific programs that yield better value for money than blanket distribution mechanisms.
Furthermore, ACF offers innovative, scalable delivery models designed to strengthen national health architectures. The organization is at the forefront of digitizing nutrition data, as evidenced by its pilot of digital diagnostic tools and the SMART+ initiative. For donors and partners, ACF offers the operational capacity to integrate anemia screening into existing digital and community health platforms. By bundling anemia control with its proven Community-Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) infrastructure—and aligning with national frameworks like India’s Poshan Abhiyaan—ACF provides a "last-mile" delivery system that ensures micronutrient commodities bridge the gap between national supply chains and household consumption.
Our specialty:
Action Against Hunger specializes in providing integrated, multisectoral services that include Nutrition, Health, WASH and Food security and livelihoods to save lives in fragile and development contexts, specifically bridging the gap between immediate humanitarian relief and sustainable local health systems.
