Issues in the evaluation of nutrition interventions.

Malnutrition in developing countries is essentially a problem of poverty and low food consumption. Thus, its alleviation rests in integrating nutrition interventions with socio-economic development measures. With this orientation, evaluation is becoming increasingly necessary. However, the methodology available for assessing nutritional status places unreasonable demands on the human and financial resources of any programme. There is also a serious lack of knowledge of the effect of malnutrition on the physical capacity and mental functioning and on the relationship between malnutrition and income. Evaluation may, with advantage, be built into the framework of the intervention project design, and be introduced at the appropriate time when impact is likely to be detectable. Of concern are such operational aspects as the relation of evaluators to operation staff, the involvement of project participants and the management of evaluation ata. In addition, the political and ethical implications of evaluating nutrition interventions need to be kept in focus in order to maximize the value of evaluation efforts.