Past support to Afghanistan
Requester:
UNICEF
Background:
The northwestern part of Afghanistan has been severely impacted by drought in 2018. The drought has highly impacted nutrition due to reduced access to safe water, health concerns and food insecurity. An estimated 125,000 acutely malnourished children under five and 32,750 pregnant and lactating women (PLW) will need lifesaving emergency nutrition services across the 20 drought affected provinces. The nutritional trend analysis shows an increase of Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) prevalence by Weight for Height Z-Score (from 7.5% to 7.8% in Kunduz, from 11.8% to 14.4% in Kunar, from 9.4% to 11.2% in Zabul and from 6.8% to 7.1% in Logar province. In addition, IYCF practices remains a major problem in Afghanistan. SMART Survey in Ghor province (2016) identified that 99.6% of children 0-23 months are ever breastfeed and only 65.0% of children 0-5 months are exclusively breastfed. While complementary feeding for children 6-23 months of age is even worse due to poverty, drought/natural calamities, lack of diversified food availability and agriculture, poor knowledge & practice of IYCF, conflict/displacements etc.
The Request:
UNICEF requested IYCF-E tech RRT advisor to provide capacity development in the delivery of the increased coverage and quality of Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies (IYCF-E. The advisor will build on national IYCF strategy reviewed by consultants.
Key Achievements:
- Developed a report from program visits highlighting key strengths and weaknesses encountered.
- Developed a workshop report and recommendations based on discussions.
- Training report from practical trainings undertaken at field level and the training materials used.
- Training report from the Master Training.
- Final recommendations based on the outcomes from the meetings with the IYCF TWG at national level.
Resources:
Infant and Young Child feeding in Emergencies (IYCF-E) Training of Trainers training report
Requester:
UNICEF Afghanistan
Background:
A recent analysis of SMART survey data from Afghanistan has shown that 15.3% of infants under 6 months are wasted of which 6.2% are severely wasted. Poor maternal malnutrition, with 1 in 5 Pregnant and Lactating Women is underweight, is likely a contributing factor. However, the findings show that the highest prevalence of wasting is observed in infants 5 months of age, and therefore there are likely other factors at play such as poor IYCF practices. A high proportion of inpatient admissions to Stabilisation Centers are infants u6m, highlighting again, a significant burden of malnutrition in this age group in Afghanistan. Outpatient care for infants u6m with acute malnutrition with no complications were included in the IMAM National Guidelines revision of 2018. However, there is a lack of capacity and expertise within the country to implement these guidelines effectively. Find a report on wasting in Afghanistan here and the emergency nutrition network C-MAMI tool here.
The Request:
UNICEF requested MAMI advisor to contribute to the review and consolidation of potential causes of infantile malnutrition and design of an appropriate response. The MAMI Adviser was requested to guide how to integrate MAMI activities into existing services, strengthening the overall emergency nutrition response by building the capacity of stakeholders in the management of at-risk mothers and infants under 6 months.
Key Achievements:
- Situational Analysis for MAMI in Afghanistan
- Options for MAMI integration depending on existing services
- Action plan for testing MAMI integration in a number of selected areas.
Resources:
Requester:
Action for Development Afghanistan
Background:
Action for Development (AfD) is the lead organisation for the SUN Pooled Fund Grant, Afghanistan, ‘Strengthening the SUN Civil Society Alliance in Afghanistan’ (June 2019 – September 2020). As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, AfD was invited by the donor (UNOPS) to apply for a 3-month costed extension (October - December 2020) concerning, among other things, an introduction of new activities specifically related to the COVID-19 situation. Family MUAC training for CHWs and caregivers, aiming to address the recommendation to increase uptake of SAM and MAM treatment by increasing case detection and sensitisation at a household level, has been therefore included under the no-cost extension.
The Request
The purpose of the technical support was to enhance the technical capacity of AfD to deliver, monitor and evaluate CMAM adaptations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in five provinces of Afghanistan, including Family MUAC training and social behaviour change activities to increase presentation at clinics and overcoming the stigma associated with COVID-19.
Key Achievements:
- Reviewed all project documentation provided by AfD and gave recommendations, particularly with respect to training content for Community Health Workers (CHW)s and caregivers.
- Designed a MEAL framework for the Family Middle Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) project, taking into account global learnings from the implementation of similar projects.
- Developed a guide for the use of MEAL framework and all related tools.
- Provided remote, interactive training to AfD staff in the country and HQ.
- Analysed all qualitative and quantitative data provided by AfD staff and drafted a learning report to describe key learnings of the project.
- Extracted key learnings from the learning report as a basis for a PowerPoint presentation for Nutrition Cluster Meeting.