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USAID Awards URC Project for Nutrition Interventions in Uganda
URC has been awarded a three-year Cooperative Agreement from USAID to support the Food and Nutrition Interventions for People Living with HIV/AIDS (PHA) in Uganda. The agreement, valued at $6 million, took effect January 1, 2008. Peggy Koniz-Booher, URC’s long-term Senior Technical Advisor for Nutrition and Behavior Change Communication, will serve as the project’s Director, and oversee a partnership involving URC, Save the Children, ACDI-VOCA, and SUSTAIN. The new team will work closely with the Food Technology Department of Makerere Univeristy and several collaborating organizations, including Bega Kwa Bega, HIV/AIDS Alliance, PSI, TASO, World Food Program, and the Uganda Manufacturers Association (UMA).
The goal of the project is to improve the quality of life of PHA and increase utilization and adherence to anti-retrovirals (ARVs), as well as improve the effectiveness of AIDS treatment through food and nutrition interventions that complement anti-retroviral therapy. In this era of potent anti-retroviral therapy, malnutrition has been recognized as a significant problem and correlates directly to mortality for HIV patients. Optimizing nutritional status is a key objective in comprehensive management of HIV clients.
The new project builds on URC’s prior work in Uganda under the Quality Assurance Project (QAP) and USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) related to nutrition and HIV. These efforts included technical assistance for development, adaptation, and implementation of guidelines, protocols, training materials, and assessment and referral tools for treatment of pediatric AIDS; treatment of severe acute malnutrition among infants and young children; and the prevention of mother to-child-transmission of HIV.
Under the new project, the URC-led team will:
- Provide technical and financial support to the Ministry of Health (MoH), community-based and non-governmental organizations, PHA Networks and USG implementing partners and district health teams to integrate food and nutrition interventions in HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment programs;
- Develop nationally acceptable Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods (RuTF) using locally available ingredients; and
- Establish a system for effective development and delivery of RuTF to severely malnourished people living with HIV/AIDS, including orphans and other children affected by HIV/AIDS.
For more information please contact Peggy Koniz-Booher, Chief of Party, at pkoniz_booher@urc-chs.com.
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