Geographic location
Ethiopia is found in the north eastern part of Africa also known as Horn of Africa. It is bordered by the Sudan in the west, Kenya to the South, Djibouti to the east, Somalia to the North east and Eritrea to the North. It lies between 3 and 15 degrees north latitude and 33 and 48 degrees east latitude. It covers an area of about 1.13 million sq. km.

Topography
Ethiopia has rugged topography featuring the vast central highlands separated from the eastern highlands by the Great Rift Valley running from the north east to the southern part of the country. The altitude ranges from the highest peak of Ras Dashen 4330 MT. in the north to 110 meters below the sea level at Afar depression.

Climate
There are three distinct ecological zones – "Kolla (lowland), "Dega" (highland) and "Woynagega" which is in between the two ecological zones.

Rain fall
The highland receive more rain than the lowlands with annual rain fall of 500mm-2000mm for the highland and 300mm-700 mm rain fall to the lowland. Hence irregularity is characteristic of Ethiopian rain fall; the country is prone to drought and famine.

Population
The latest population report released in 2008 by Central Statistics Agency revealed that Ethiopia is the second populous country in |Africa next to Nigeria with an estimated population of 73,918,505 in 2007.The average growth rate is 2.7%. Majority of the population (83%) live in rural area and the urban population increases by 4.1% per annum. Population density is high in highlands and low in lowlands. In the average about 23.2 % of the population is concentrated in 9% of the country putting pressure on cultivable lands and contributing to environmental degradation. On the other hand 50% of the land is sparsely populated and occupied by pastoralists and semi pastoralists living in arid or semi-desert environment. Nearly half of the population (49.7%) is female.

Economy
Agriculture is the mainstay of the Ethiopian economy which contributes 46-48 % of the GDP for the year 2000-05. Different studies indicate the agricultural sector has immense untapped potential, which is estimated about 100 million hectares representing 65% of the total land surface area. According to Central Statistics Agency, Statistical Abstracts, the major agricultural products are cereals followed by pulses and oil seeds. The total production in 2005/06 for cereal was 11,624,000 tones, 1,271,000 for pulses and 486,000 tones for oil seeds. However this sector has been exposed to external shocks such as droughts which occurred every three years in the last decades and as result a sharp decline was observed in 2003 and rebounded in 2005.

The World Bank Group reveals that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has increased from 7.8 billion USD in 2000 to 11.2 billion USD in 2005 with growth rate of 12.3% in 2004 and 8.7% in 2005. A similar growth trend has also been registered for the same year 2006.which is about 11%. Remarkable and substantial contribution has been made by the merchandize trade, which had shown a very sharp increase from 22.3% of the GDP in 2000 to 44.8% in 2005. For the same year contribution of industry, services exports, imports to the GDP was 13.3%, 39%, 16.4%, and 39.1% respectively.

Political Administration
Ethiopia has a parliamentary federal government administering nine regional states and two administrative councils. The federal state has a bi-cameral parliament, the house of people's representative elected by their constituency and the House of federation whose members are designated from their respective region.

Health and Nutrition
The adverse effect of early under nutrition includes but not limited to reduced physical and mental development during young child hood, impaired resistance to infections, chronic fatigue blindness, complication in pregnancy, delivery and low birth weight.

Sight and Life Magazine a joint initiative of UN, World Food Program and DSM in its issue N0 3/2008 , indicates that of the 550 million children under five years of age in developing countries,112,million(20.2%) are under weight and 178 million(32%) are stunted while 55 million(10%) are wasted, including 19 million(3.5%%)who are severely wasted The number of preventable under five deaths due to under nutrition is at least 3.5 million per year. The responsible factors for these deaths include stunting; sever wasting, intra-uterine retardation, micronutrient deficiencies and suboptimal breastfeeding. Sadly enough much of the damage caused by early childhood under nutrition is irreversible especially when the circumstances and diet with which the child grows up remains largely similar. The magazine continues to state that the prevention of maternal and child under nutrition is a long term investment that will benefit the present generation and its children. It recommends that it becomes necessary to focus on interventions on the prevention of stunting and micronutrient deficiencies and the prevention and treatment of wasting.
Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSDP III) published in 2006 states that Ethiopia has poor status of health relative to other low income countries.

This is largely attributed to preventable infectious ailments and nutritional deficiencies. Infectious and communicable diseases accounts for 60-80 % for the health problem of the country. Wide spread poverty along with the general low income level of the population , low education levels, especially among women, inadequate accesses to water and sanitation facilities and poor accesses to health services have contributed to the high burden of ill health.

Guarantying food security, proper mother and child care practices, adequate health services as well as maintaining appropriate hygiene and sanitary conditions are essential to optimal nutrition. There is high level of micronutrient and macro-nutrient deficiencies in the country and the statistics are staggering. Not only shortage, but other factors such as improper feeding practices, poor maternal and childcare practices, as well as social and traditional factors contribute to malnutrition.

Average life expectancy at birth is 48(47 for males and 49 for females). The overall potential health service coverage in 2004/05 is estimated at 72% .The per capita health service utilization has reached 30% in 2004 from 27% up until 2000.

It is now more than two decade since HIV/AIDS epidemic started in Ethiopia. Health and
Health related indicator published by Federal Ministry of Health in 2007 shows that national HIV prevalence rate is 2.1%(1.7 % for male and 2.6 %for female) There are about 977,194 people living with Aids out of which 61 ,813 are children and 898,150 are AIDS orphan. Out of 127,544 pregnant women tested for AIDS, 6,655 were tested positive and 71773 are currently on ART.

Mother and Child Health
In addition to occurrence of diseases in the general public, women and children are more affected due to their sex and age respectively.

• Poor nutritional status, infection and high fertility rate coupled with low level of accesses to reproductive and emergency obstetrics services contribute to one of the highest maternal mortality rate which is 671/100,000 live births.
• Infant mortality rate is 77 per 1000 live births
• Under 5 mortality rate stands at 123 per 1000 live births

Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey of 2005 revealed that:-

• 57% of children less than five years of mortality are attributed to malnutrition.
• 47% of children under the age of five years are stunted and 24 % are severely stunted.
• 11 % of children under five are wasted and 2% are severely wasted.
• The weight for age indicator shows that 38% of children under 5 are underweight and 11% are severely underweight
• Nationally 18% of children under five had diarrhea ,
• More than half of Ethiopian children aged 6-59 months are classified as anemic with 21% mildly anemic, 28% moderately anemic and 4% severely anemic
• Twenty seven percent of women aged 15-49 are anemic, with 17% mildly anemic 8% moderately anemic and 1% severely anemic.
• Other study conducted by EHNRI 39.9% of children aged 6-12 years and 35.8% of the mothers age 15-49 had goiter in Ethiopia

The underling causes of the above malnutrition problems are consequences of little or no intake of protein and calories rich food and micronutrient deficiencies in their diet.

Cognizant of the problem, Federal Ministry of Health in collaboration with stakeholders has formulated a National Nutrition Strategy in 2008,The main objective of the strategy is to ensure that all Ethiopians secure adequate nutritional status in sustainable manner, which is essential requirement for healthy and product life. The strategy gives more attention to the vulnerable groups such as, pregnant and lactating mothers, infants and children under the age of five, people living with HIV/ AIDS and food insecure households. It calls all stakeholders to work together for one common goal and save the lives of millions of mothers and infants for a healthy and productive life.