Publications

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Open Letter to Dr. Margaret Chan - Director-General of The World Health Organization (WHO)

This open letter to Dr. Margaret Chan calls for the WHO to continue it's commitment to the fight against malnutrition. ACF and the other signatories have identified the up-coming International Conference on Nutrition +21 (ICN+21) as an important time to continue engaging and uniting the international community in the global fight against malnutrition. The open letter also expresses concern at the lack of attention given to the barriers to the scaling-up of nutrition.

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Aid for Nutrition: Mobilizing Innovative Financing for the fight against undernutrition

This paper delves into the benefits and efficiencies of mobilizing innovative financing in the fight against undernutrition. Undernutrition is a major public health concern in many developing countries. Globally undernutrition is responsible for the deaths of millions of children and causes 35% of all deaths of children under the age of 5. Effective solutions are well known, as are the costs of implementation. Undernutrition has considerable human and economic costs. The current funding going towards undernutrition is insufficient and requires scaling-up. Innovative funding mechanisms for nutrition are able to raise new resources and improve aid effectiveness.

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Muttur: 6 Years of Impunity

This article delves into the tragic massacre carried out against 17 ACF workers in 2006 in Muttur, Sri Lanka. The article discusses the situation that has played out over the past 6 years, namely the lack of a proper investigation into this horrendous crime. The article looks at the numerous mechanisms which have the ability to bring justice to the victims of the Muttur massacre, but have thus far failed to do so. The article outlines the conclusion that without an international and independent investigation followed by fair prosecution, justice will never be served.

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ACF International Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Policy

This new publication highlights key challenges and ACF expertise in the water, sanitation & hygiene sector. Over the past decade, the humanitarian landscape within which ACF operates has become more complex. New hazards have emerged that complicate long-term efforts to extend water and sanitation services—challenges such as urbanization, environmental degradation, climate change and migration, as well as population growth and economic marginalization. These factors provide a new sense of global urgency to Action Against Hunger’s water, sanitation & hygiene (WASH) interventions and this latest publication addresses these key challenges in light of ACF’s three decades of expertise in the sector.

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Hunger & Insecurity: Field Analysis of Volatile Global Commodity Food Prices, Food Security, & Childhood Malnutrition

Rapid price increases in early 2008 led to riots in over 30 countries that sparked international calls for action and repositioned as global priorities the need to combat hunger and reinvigorate local agriculture. Action Against Hunger’s in-depth field study, Feeding Hunger & Insecurity, reminds us the crisis is far from over and that urrgent funding is needed to translate global policy into effective, targeted responses addressing the needs of those most affected.

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Feeding Hunger & Insecurity: The Global Food Price Crisis

Action Against Hunger’s latest Hunger Watch briefing paper, this publication surveys households in Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Central African Republic in the wake of the global food crisis and finds that inflated food prices may not have an immediate impact on acute malnutrition at the national level, but that they have a significant and consistent impact on livelihoods and dietary diversity in all four countries.

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Acute Malnutrition: A Preventable Pandemic

Acute malnutrition, a devastating disease of epidemic proportions, affects some 55 million children with moderate acute malnutrition; 19 million are afflicted with severe acute malnutrition—the most dangerous type of hunger. Each year, between 3.5 and 5 million of these children die because they lack access to treatment—even though these deaths are entirely preventable. Read more about this disease and Action Against Hunger’s proven approach to addressing its symptoms and underlying causes.

One Crisis May Hide Another: Food Price Crisis Masked Deadly Child Malnutrition

A Briefing Paper by Action Against Hunger and Doctors Without Borders on the occasion of the UN High Level Meeting on Food Security For All in Madrid, this briefing paper lays out the commitments that government representatives, UN leaders, and institutional donors must make in Madrid if we are to have an impact on global malnutrition.

Seasons of Hunger: Briefing Paper

This Action Against Hunger briefing paper argues that planning for seasonality is an important, though often ignored, principle of smart development. Most of the world’s poor live in rural areas and work in agricultural and livestock economies. For these households, poverty, hunger and illness are highly dynamic phenomena, changing dramatically over the course of a year in response to production, price and climatic cycles. As a result, most of the world’s acute hunger occurs not in conflicts and natural disasters but in that annually recurring time of the year called the “hunger season,” the period when the previous year’s harvest stocks have dwindled and little food is available on the market, causing prices to shoot upward.

Myanmar: Water and Sanitation Assessment, Ayeyarwaddy Delta, Feb. 2008

Ayeyarwaddy division is a delta region in the south of Myanmar that constitutes the country's most important river system. A low-lying region subject to severe flooding, frequent storms, and other climatic hazards, it suffered major setbacks during the '04 tsunami, and more recently from Cyclone Nargis. ACF’s survey identifies the water and sanitation problems confronting local populations and proposes a range of solutions.

ACF's Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Policy

In its fight against hunger and malnutrition, the Action Against Hunger International Network (ACF-IN) pursues Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) activities that emphasize both treatment—water as a tool in curing acute malnutrition—and prevention—with public health, livelihood, and environmental resource concerns. This paper establishes ACF's positioning and course of action for the Water, Sanitation, Hygiene sector and serves as a platform for contributing towards a technical strategy for the sector.

The Right to Water: Emergence, Definition, Current Situation, and Stakeholder Positions

The concept of the “Right to Water” has emerged over the past few years, emphasizing a human-centered approach to meeting basic needs among vulnerable populations. The concept's scope gathered momentum in 2002 when the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) adopted General Comment No. 15, which, for the first time, recognized the right to Water as a fundamental human right.

The Human Right to Water: An ACF Positioning Paper

This ACF positioning paper consolidates and clarifies ACF’s approach to water, sanitation, and hygiene through a comprehensive understanding of the UN's Human Right to Water (HRTW). This was undertaken to increase the impact and sustainability of ACF’s programs in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector, and to use the HRTW as an advocacy tool in the service of saving lives by combating hunger and disease amongst vulnerable

Water and HIV: Working for Positive Solutions

A striking relationships exists between the HIV pandemic and the impact of inadequate water and sanitation resources. Infectious diseases stemming from poor sanitation and contaminated water sources complicate malnutrition and illness; for those with HIV, the impact and risk is even greater. Yet, as outlined in this report, Action Against Hunger’s ongoing research and field work offer a range of proven, cost-effective solutions.

Local Voices: A Community Perspective On HIV and Hunger in Zambia

This report documents the findings of Local Voices, a six month research project that provided HIV orphans, vulnerable children and their caretakers with the opportunity to voice the difficulties they face providing food, water and healthcare for their families. Through detailed interviews and discussions, the project carried out a dialogue with 20 families from four areas of Zambia.

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Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Manual for Populations at Risk

An instructional manual for both emergency and development settings, this authoritative book condenses ACF’s three decades of expertise in extending water and sanitation improvements to populations in need.

Research for the Most-at-Risk

Scientific research at Action against Hunger tackles the operational needs which arise in the field. It produces tools and methods to be used in highquality and sustainable actions. Research includes carryng out studies, capitalisation, dissemination and valorisation of know-how towards missions and local partners.

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Hunger and HIV: From Food Crisis to Integrated Care

As part of a humanitarian effort to address the AIDS pandemic, Action Against Hunger works to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on vulnerable communities. HIV has complicated the treatment of severe malnutrition, challenging traditional approaches and requiring substantial investments in field-based research. This publication makes an important contribution to understanding the linkages between HIV/AIDS and hunger by highlighting Action Against Hunger's vital research in Malawi.

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Beyond Any Drought

Commissioned by the Sahel Working Group –- a network of high-profile international agencies including Oxfam, the British Red Cross, CARE International, Save the Children, and Action Against Hunger -- this report examines how vulnerability is understood and addressed in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Concerned that the specifics of the 2005 food crisis have obscured its persistent underlying causes, this report calls for smarter assistance if cyclical emergencies are to be overcome in the Sahel.

Women and Hunger: Women play a central role in the fight against hunger

As the principal providers for families around the world, women are key partners in the struggle to end hunger and agencies must incorporate such realities into the very design of their humanitarian programs.

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Food Security and Livelihood Policy

By publishing this document, the ACF-IN Department of Food Security and Livelihoods aims to achieve three objectives:

ACFIN Position Paper - Research Policy

This document presents the ACF-IN research policy.

Mainstreaming HIV in ACFIN Programmes

The goal of this document is to define an organisational policy on HIV / AIDS, create a base model for defining program strategies and make recommendations on how to implement policy and the strategy.fee

Agricultural Programs: From Initial Assessment to Programmes Implementation

This book is part of a series of food security books developed by Action contre la Faim (ACF-IN1) and
is based upon a consolidation of experiences and investigations led over the past ten years on the
field. This series looks at and develops specific aspects of the different food security programmes,
especially the technical tools that can be used within the scope of precise projects.

Introduction to Food Security Intervention Principles

Food security and livelihood programmes are an important part of our varied response to this plague
and this booklet covers some of our action in this area:

• Understand the concepts of food security
• Better understand the project cycle and the analysis of food security
• Reinforce prevention by establishing surveillance systems.
• Have coherent responses to emergencies with food aid and cash-based programming
• Develop the capacities of the populations in the medium term by providing the opportunity to
engage in income-generating activities and in the longer term to develop their means of agricultural
production and self-sufficiency.

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How To Make WASH Projects Sustainable and Successfully Disengage in Vulnerable Contexts

A practical manual of recommendations and good practises based on a case study of five ACF-IN Water, Sanitation and Hygiene projects.