Prevalence of Child Malnutrition in North Kivu, DRC: Evidence from Bunyuka Parish

Sky Barlow
Zike Chen
Gavin Finnegan
Blaise Pascal Furaha
Brandon Pichanick
Cait Stadler
Julie Swensen
Leslie E. Ruyle
Kishore Gawande

Abstract

Sub-Saharan Africa is the second most undernourished region in the world, with an estimated 265 million people in 2009. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the highest percentage of undernourished people in the region, 75% from 2004 to 2006. The Kivu region in Eastern DRC, in particular, has suffered through decades of conflict and lack of security and infrastructure obstruct data collection in this region. The main contribution of this paper is to present primary survey evidence on the prevalence of malnutrition in the village of Bunyuka in North Kivu. From a sample of over 700 mothers and 1400 children, we find significant prevalence of malnutrition and high dependence on nutritionally deficient food sources.