Hi Nicki Thanks for your detailed response its quite helpful. As you mentioned that GOAL has been implementing cooking demonstrations at the communty level. I was just wondering about the positive impact of cooking demonstration on addressing the malnutrition or lowering GAM & SAM rates. Kindly share if any positive impact has beed observed from such activities.

Hi Junaid As I mentioned in the first response: 'Finally the extent to which it addresses malnutrition depends on the causes of malnutrition in that community. Arguably there are multiple causes of malnutrition in most places in South Sudan, so it is important to identify all causes and address them holistically with a multi-sectoral approach, if a reduction in malnutrition is to be seen overall.' Relating the impact of cooking demonstrations on reducing malnutrition is extremely hard when so many other factors are related to GAM and SAM. GOAL never conduct cooking demonstrations in isolation, they are part of a wider response with multiple health, nutrition, WASH and food security interventions in the same areas, so to attribute any changes in GAM and SAM rates observed to cooking demonstrations alone would not be appropriate. In the South Sudan context you also often have wider uncontrollable issues such as conflict, flooding, drought etc. which will all impact on the rates of GAM and SAM, which usually results in cyclical high levels of GAM and SAM no matter how successful your programme is. However carrying out cooking demonstrations is still a good way to ensure communities know how to prepare different optimal recipes, the success of which is further enhanced if home visits are made to follow-up on whether knowledge is turned into practice, and if not what the barriers are. Many thanks.

Hi Nicki Causes of malnutrition in the context of South Sudan are almost the same as mentioned in UNICEF causal framework for undernutrition i.e., food insecurity and high disease burden and infact some other factors which includes natural and manmade disasters. I agree that integrated interventions required. In order to bring this chronic GAM & SAM prevalence below the emergency threshold level; Concern Worldwide endeavour its efforts by Food Security and broader Health & Nutrition Programs. And I hope activites like cooking demonstration will show its impact after continous integrated interventions.

Thanks Bami it was helpful and thanks to all those who responded. Further replies are welcome.