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You're watching UNICEF Television.

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A baby suffering from severe malnutrition.

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Two years after Niger's severe food and nutrition crisis,

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the sight of undernourished children may be less common here.

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Nonetheless, chronic malnutrition still affects nearly half of the country's young children,

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in part because of annual food shortages.

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At this UNICEF-supported health centre, severely malnourished children are fed

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with an easy-to-use therapeutic food called Plumpy Nut.

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Plumpy Nut is, they call it a magical product.

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It can recover children very quickly when they become malnourished.

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And here in the Sahel region, in Niger, which are amongst the poorest countries in the world,

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children can become malnourished very quickly.

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This factory near Niamey is the only one in West Africa to produce the high-protein,

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high-energy peanut-based food, up to 40 tonnes a month.

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Thanks to the financial support of ECHO, the European Commission's humanitarian office,

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last year UNICEF purchased about 130 tonnes of the Plumpy Nut produced here.

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Plumpy Nut helped treat more than 63,000 severely malnourished children last year.

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The vitamin-rich food can reach many children,

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since it can be taken home as well as given in feeding centres.

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Plumpy Nut is really very effective and useful for the treatment of severely malnourished children

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who are not necessarily in health clinics, and therefore we can reach many children at once.

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As Niger looks towards a long-term solution to the malnutrition crisis,

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today Plumpy Nut is saving children's lives.

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In Niamey, Niger, this is Sabine Dolan reporting for UNICEF Television.

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Unite for Children.