Ethiopia is the second-most populous country in Africa with a population of 87 million. In just over 20 years Ethiopia has reduced the prevalence of stunting (chronic under nutrition) in children less than five years of age from 67% to 40%. This has been a major contributing factor to Ethiopia’s impressive performance in reducing child mortality. However, even if this trend continues, Ethiopia will still fall short of its own commitment to reduce stunting to 20% by 2020 and 0% by 2030.
The European Union with the 20 EU Member States plus Norway (EU+) share a long-term vision for supporting Ethiopia’s development. In preparation for the joint programming of their development cooperation, the EU+ partners agreed to launch a pilot joint action in a priority sector of common interest. The theme of nutrition was selected as the pilot joint action to test the feasibility of joint, collaborative programming for enabling coordination, coherency and complementary of their interventions.