The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has handed over clinical equipment worth USD $110,000 to Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to be used for WFP’s Health and Nutrition programme.
According to a spokesperson, by providing nutritional supplements to vulnerable people, WFP helps approximately 43,000 people. The Health and Nutrition programme has expanded to cover 21 districts including the metropolitan provinces of Harare and Bulawayo.
In 2011, WFP tailored the programme to include modified selection and tracking. This modification requires clinics to use anthropometric measurements as part of the selection and discharge criteria. This system ensures that the outcome data is collected routinely by health staff and is reported monthly.
One major challenge noted from this data is the absence of functioning measuring equipment in several clinics. To address this issue, and with support from the Swiss Embassy and other donors, WFP then purchased scales and other measuring devices for the clinics. This equipment was handed over to the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to ensure adequate service provision and high quality data.
