SECTOR OVERVIEW
USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) is at the forefront of the humanitarian community’s efforts to prevent and treat acute malnutrition. USAID/OFDA-supported programs are community-based, linked to local health systems, and use evidence-based approaches that decrease morbidity and mortality resulting from malnutrition. In addition to supporting infant and young child feeding programs, USAID/OFDA funds nutrition education, initiatives aimed at improving nutrition systems, and operational research to advance best practices and build local capacity to treat acute malnutrition. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, USAID/OFDA provided nearly $67 million to support nutrition activities, including nearly $65 million for nutrition interventions in 16 countries and more than $2 million for global and regional nutrition initiatives. The majority of USAID/OFDA’s programs were based in the Horn of Africa and western Africa’s Sahel region—two areas where drought severely impacted communities’ abilities to produce and purchase sufficient quantities of diverse foods, thereby increasing the risk of spikes in acute malnutrition levels among vulnerable populations.