Community Mobilization in Mali: A Practical Guide to Operational Activities

Implementing genuine community mobilization to improve the coverage of acute malnutrition programs requires a reevaluation of the strategies employed by both donors and field operators. This text is a summary of operational guidelines aimed at adopting a community health approach applied to interventions to combat acute child malnutrition in Sahelian countries, including Mali. Various coverage surveys conducted in this country are helping to foster the emergence of a new approach: the barriers to access to care that have been identified stem, in part, from the quality of care provision. Nevertheless, a number of social and cultural factors significantly impact the treatment of children suffering from malnutrition. This is all the more pronounced in the context of outpatient treatment administered daily at home by the families of sick children.