The diversity of urban areas presents substantial challenges to the validity of information from rapid assessments, yet CARE's experiences in Bangladesh and Tanzania suggest a number of ways that rapid assessment procedures can be strengthened to address these concerns.

Faced with limited resources and the need to feed 90 million more people every year, governments and donors want to know whether they should invest in regions with inherent potential to be highly productive, or in less-favored areas where large numbers of poor farmers live and increasingly...

"Fortified donated cereal blends can greatly contribute to improving the nutritional quality of complementary foods, but are not sufficient to completely close the iron and zinc gaps at current fortification levels in Haiti, even when combined with locally available foods." from Text

"This paper summarizes findings from a formative research study conducted in Haiti to develop a behavior change communication (BCC) strategy to improve infant and child feeding practices and to reduce childhood malnutrition. It describes the methodology used and the tools developed to facilitate...

"This report describes the methods and results of an operations research undertaken to assess the effectiveness of World Vision (WV)'s food assisted maternal and child health and nutrition (MCHN) program in the Central Plateau region of Haiti. The research had three main objectives: (1) to...

Life in urban areas presents special challenges for maternal child care practices. Data from a representative survey of households with children less than 3 years of age in Accra were used to test a number of hypothesized constraints to child care, including various maternal (education,...

"For a number of reasons, progress in improving child feeding practices in the developing world has been remarkably slow. First, complementary feeding practices encompass a number of interrelated behaviors that need to be addressed simultaneously. Child feeding practices are also age-specific...

Urban-rural comparisons of childhood undernutrition suggest that urban populations are better-off than rural populations. However, these comparisons could mask the large differentials that exist among socioeconomic groups in urban areas. Data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for 11...

Although dietary diversity is universally recognized as a key component of healthy diets, there is still a lack of consensus on how to measure and operationalize it. This paper focuses on the issues of dietary diversity in developing countries. It also draws upon experience from developed...