Mathare Sentinel Surveillance

Urban food insecurity has become a growing humanitarian problem in most developing countries due to population increase, rural-urban migration, widespread poverty and increasing cost of food. In Kenya, an estimated 12 million people live in urban areas of which 5.7 million (about 48%) reside in slums or informal settlements. The slums are particularly at high risk of vulnerability to food insecurity and child malnutrition and therefore require close monitoring of the situation. Building on its experience since 2005 in monitoring the nutritional and food security situation in the North Eastern Province through annual nutritional surveys, ACF undertakes a Food Security and Nutrition Surveillance system in Mathare, the second largest slum in Nairobi.