Guatemala takes up the challenge of the “Crecer Sano: Nutrition and Health Project” to reduce malnutrition

The Government of Guatemala is taking up the challenge of the “Crecer Sano” project, aimed at reducing malnutrition, which will be funded with a USD 100 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). “It is socially profitable to invest in children’s food security,” stated the Minister of Finance, Víctor Martínez, on Monday, as he explained how the loan, to be approved imminently through Congress, would be used.

In a press conference following the government’s weekly cabinet meeting, the Minister explained how the project’s resources would target children aged 0 to 3 years. He added that according to studies conducted by international organizations, “It is more profitable to invest in children’s overall health” because each dollar invested “can have an economic return of between 21 and 41 dollars”. Martínez commented that a number of countries implementing projects similar to “Crecer Sano” had managed to reduce malnutrition and he gave Senegal as an example where malnutrition fell by 10 per cent in eight years.

The Minister of Finance explained that the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare (MSPAS) would be responsible for project execution, while the beneficiaries would be the Ministry of Social Development (MIDES) and the Secretariat for Food and Nutrition Security (SESAN), who would deliver the inputs to the population.

The project’s aim, he said, was to reduce the malnutrition that is affecting 47 per cent of children in Guatemala, particularly in the dry corridor in the east of the country. Martínez added that this project would provide healthy food for children and that their families would have access to clean drinking water and to malnutrition prevention programs, among other things.

He explained that 46 million dollars of the loan would be devoted to improving six health areas in the country’s interior. The Minister clarified that this project did not envisage cash transfers as part of the strategy to reduce malnutrition.

It will support the actions of the 2016-2020 National Chronic Malnutrition Prevention Strategy and envisages a series of phased actions in different municipalities with the highest rates of malnutrition. It will initially be implemented in municipalities within the departments of Alta Verapaz, Chiquimula, Huehuetenango and Quiché, and later in San Marcos, Sololá and Totonicapán.