Briefing Paper: Twin peaks: the seasonality of acute malnutrition, conflict, and environmental factors

This briefing paper highlights major new findings on the seasonal patterns of child malnutrition and their links to climate variability, conflict, and livelihood systems in Chad, Sudan, and South Sudan.

Contrary to long-held assumptions about acute malnutrition escalating in the lean season, our data show that there are two peaks of acute malnutrition. The first and larger peak occurs at the end of the dry season, followed later by a second, smaller peak after the lean season. Our analysis demonstrates a significant relationship between acute malnutrition, conflict trends, and environmental factors.

The findings underscore the importance of environmental variability and the persistence of climate, conflict, and other shocks in relation to livelihood resilience and transformation over time. The findings raise specific considerations for data collection, future research, programming, and policy, which are detailed in the report and briefing paper.

ASSOCIATED PROJECT

SUBJECTS

PUBLICATION TYPE

LOCATION

RELATED PUBLICATIONS

Brief cover thumbnail

This learning brief explores the continuity and changes to livelihoods in select sites in Isiolo and Marsabit Counties, Kenya, and reviews the implications of the continuity and the changes on the drivers of child acute malnutrition.

Brief cover thumbnail

This learning brief presents preliminary findings on strategic mobility and its nutritional benefits to pastoral and agropastoral communities in select sites in Isiolo and Marsabit Counties, Kenya.

Brief cover thumbnail

This learning brief presents preliminary findings about the cause (drivers) of persistently high rates of child acute malnutrition in select sites in Isiolo and Marsabit Counties.

Thumbnail of Report "Do Famine Declarations Really Lead to Increased Funding?

This policy brief examines the relationship between famine declarations and funding since 2011. It shows that, with that one exception, there is little evidence that famine declarations actually result in a rapid increase in funding.

Image of Brief Cover: Actingin in Advance of Flooding

In 2022 UN OCHA led a pilot anticipatory action intervention in South Sudan. This brief presents UN actors’ perceptions of this intervention.

Report cover thumbnail

This report provides insights and perspectives from participatory workshops with displaced female youth in the Kurdistan region of the Republic of Iraq (KRI).

Load more