Nutrition Information Projects for Southern Africa (NIPSA) and the Horn of Africa (NIPHORN) 

  These projects are sponsored by UNICEF and carried out in close collaboration with the UNICEF Regional and country offices.  They involve analysis of recent trends in child nutrition, and linkage of these to causes, especially drought and HIV/AIDS.  The Southern Africa projects cover Lesotho , Malawi , Mozambique , Swaziland , Zambia , and Zimbabwe .  The Horn of Africa (or Greater Horn, GHA) covers Eritrea , Ethiopia , Kenya , Somalia , Southern Sudan , and Uganda .

The first project was in early 2003, in response to urgent concerns for the effects of drought at that time, based in the UNICEF regional office in Nairobi .  The results were first presented at a regional meeting in Johannesburg in April 2003, and issued as a report by UNICEF; subsequently some results were published and presented at the International Conference in Durban.  A second round of analysis based in Johannesburg was done from June to December 2004.   This was written up as report to UNICEF, which is presently being printed for publication as a UNICEF report.  A third round of analysis to update trends is currently underway.

Persistent drought in the Horn of Africa led to compilation and analysis of trends, along similar lines to the work in Southern Africa .  The report is being circulated as of February 2006, and a draft version is available here.

Proposals are being developed to continue this work, through brokering agreement in the region on methodology, and in particular to build the capacity within the region through a set of training initiatives.

Related publications available from our resources page