Dr. David Backer (Associate Director, Center for International Development and Conflict Management Research Professor, Department of Government & Politics University of Maryland) is presenting the last project of this workshop. For the project MERIAM, Action Against Hunger and the University of Maryland partnered up.
"We are trying to understand which areas, especially which children will be affected by malnutrition", Backer explain. An important factor of the project was to identify the indicators of a future risk of malnutrition, like:
- above-average temperatures
- below-average vegetation
- higher frequency of conflict
- violent attacks on civilians
MERIAM aims to forecast acute malfunction outcomes months into the future, using available data. Therefore it uses the historical data of acute malnutrition phases from the past.
Josephien Albrecht