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Community management of acute malnutrition

Intervention ID: int_cmat
Evidence strength: moderate
Causes: cause_nutrition, cause_global_health_wellbeing

Mechanism

Treat acute malnutrition with therapeutic foods.

Organizations in this catalog

• org_givewell_all_grants_fund
• org_taimaka
• org_alima
• org_happier_lives_fund

Citations (public evaluator pages)

• https://www.happierlivesinstitute.org/taimaka-summary/
• https://www.happierlivesinstitute.org/charities/

Evidence notes

HLI Promising Charity; rests on meta-analysis of similar nutritional supplements, one related RCT, and famine natural studies (HLI charities page / Taimaka summary).

Key uncertainties

• HLI describes CE estimate as extremely speculative; medium depth (HLI Taimaka summary / charities page).
• Long-term wellbeing effects of treating malnutrition less directly measured than mortality (HLI Taimaka evaluation framing).
• Estimates may move with further scrutiny (HLI charities page on Promising Charities).

Fungibility notes

HLI reports Taimaka funding gaps; unrestricted HLF funding noted in disbursement posts (HLI).

Cost-effectiveness notes (do not treat as verified without citation_urls)

HLI Taimaka ~66 WELLBYs/$1000; ~$15.15/WELLBY; ~$87/child.

Agents must look up data/claims_index.json and cite citation_urls before stating numbers.

Provenance

See docs/evaluation-provenance.md and data/graph/evaluations_graph.json.

last_reviewed: 2026-10-01