Nutrition
Good nutrition is the foundation of child survival and development
The challenge
Zambia faces a significant burden of malnutrition, taking a toll on the health and quality of life of the population, slowing progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and threatening the country’s economic growth and development. According to 2024 ZDHS findings, stunting affects 32% of children under five while 3% suffer from wasting. Micronutrient deficiencies are widespread among children, pregnant women and lactating mothers, compromising health and development. Anaemia affected 28% children under five and 21% women of reproductive age.
Key factors driving malnutrition include poor diet quality, inadequate feeding practices, limited access to clean water, poor sanitation, insufficient health and nutrition services and persistent poverty. In 2022, 60% of Zambians lived in poverty, compounded by rising food prices. Food inflation increased to 17.6% in the 3rd quarter of 2024, up from 12.7% in the same period in 2023, driven by staples like maize and vegetables.
Climate change exacerbates these challenges, with a 20.6% drop in agricultural output worsening food insecurity. Emergency food insecurity (IPC Phase 4) surged from 58,400 people in 2023-2024 to 236,000 in 2024-2025, while 3.62 million people are projected to face crisis-level food insecurity (IPC Phase 3).
The solution
UNICEF’s nutrition programme aims to prevent malnutrition throughout a comprehensive life cycle approach, starting in the mother’s womb through maternal health, and continuing throughout infancy, childhood and adolescence. This approach involves implementing a multi-systems strategy, activating the five key systems - food, health, water and sanitation, education, and social protection - that possess the greatest potential to deliver nutritious diets, essential nutrition services, and positive nutrition practices for children, adolescents, and women.
Political will to address the challenges of poor child and maternal nutrition is essential and is evident in Zambia national plans and programmes, including the National First 1,000 Most Critical Days Programme (MCDP). UNICEF supports the Government of the Republic of Zambia’s efforts by:
- Fostering collaborative leadership, partnership and collective actions
- Coordinating and supporting the implementation of the multisectoral nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific programmes within the context of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) programme (Phase 2) in 17 districts
- Providing technical support for the review and updating of strategic plans, guidelines and programme documents
- Supporting public and policy advocacy for increased investment in the nutrition sector in Zambia
- Strengthening nutrition information system and supporting evidence generation to inform programme planning and policy decisions, and capture best practice and learning
- Improving the coverage and quality of essential nutrition services at facility and community levels
- Assisting parents, caregivers and communities to improve their nutrition, with healthy, diverse and sustainable diets, good care and hygiene practices and with a focus on the first 1,000 days of life
- Setting up monitoring and planning systems on the nutritional status of children.
- Ensuring that nutrition is part of emergency preparedness and response and is guided by UNICEF’s Core Commitments to Children in Humanitarian Action and UNICEF’s commitments as the cluster lead agency for nutrition