Alive & Thrive Cote d’Ivoire NetCode Monitoring in Abidjan Health Facilities

In 2013, Cote d’Ivoire adopted Decree No. 2013-416 to regulate the marketing of breast milk substitutes (BMS). However, there is limited implementation and enforcement of the decree, and few health workers are familiar with the contents and requirements of the decree. Since the adoption of the decree and in the context of limited knowledge and enforcement, there have been no studies on violations of the decree. Alive & Thrive (A&T) in collaboration with the National Nutrition Program and STP-CNN undertook cross-sectional surveys to document violations of Decree No 2013-416 and The International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes.
The overall objective of the study was to assess violations of the national decree in health facilities in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire and to estimate the prevalence of exposure to the marketing of BMS among mothers of children under 24 months of age.
The study followed the methods developed by the Network for Global Monitoring and Support for Implementation of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and Subsequent Relevant World Health Assembly Resolutions (NetCode) and published in the NetCode Toolkit: Monitoring the Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes: Protocol for Periodic Assessments. Quantitative surveys were undertaken in French with (1) mothers of children aged 0-23 months and (2) health providers and utilized the tools provided in the NetCode Toolkit.