Past support to Haiti
Requester:
WFP
Background:
Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti on October 4, 2016, and devastated homes, harvests, and infrastructure. The Governmental Directorate of Civil Protection (DPC) of Haiti confirmed that 75% of the population was affected, with more than 546 deaths and 438 injured. A total of 1.4 million people required humanitarian assistance, including 546,000 women of reproductive age and 112,500 children under five. In some affected communities, up to 100% of harvests were destroyed by the hurricane, threatening household food security. The World Food Program (WFP) announced that there were nearly 806,000 people at extreme levels of food insecurity due to the impact of the hurricane. This, coupled with water supply shortages and cholera epidemics, increased the risk of disease and malnutrition, especially in children under 2 years of age.
The request:
A Tech RRT Advisor was requested to help design the Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergency (IYCF-E) response through assessing priority needs and to strengthen the capacity of nutrition stakeholders to deliver the response.
Key achievements:
- A joint IYCF statement was developed and disseminated in coordination with stakeholders and the nutrition cluster
- A rapid IYCF Assessment was conducted to better understand the impact of the hurricane on infant and young child feeding practices. Results helped pinpoint priority needs for IYCF emergency interventions and identify the most effective measures to improve IYCF practices for children under two years of age
- Results of the assessment as well as the key IYCF messages were presented to health officials and NGO partners for validation and discussion
- An IYCF emergency response plan and a key IYCF messages cheat sheet was developed and shared with all partners.
You can find out more about IYCF-E on our website or submit any questions or technical queries you may have through our request page.
Requester:
UNICEF
Background:
A powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake and tropical depression hit Haiti in August 2021, exacerbating the already fragile situation due to gang related displacement, food insecurity and climate shocks. The earthquake caused a death toll of more than 2200 with a lot more missing. On top of that, Tropical depression Grace triggered floods affecting more than 500 homes and delaying humanitarian response in some regions. Before the crisis, breastfeeding in Haiti was already poor with only 40% of children exclusively breastfed and during the earthquake children lost their mothers and were at risk of death requiring urgent interventions. The nutrition cluster identified several interventions to promote children's nutrition such as management of non-optimal infants and young child feeding, no untargeted breast milk substitute, identifying and targeting infants under 6 months who are not breastfed and lipid-based nutrition supplementation.
The request
There was a lack of capacity in Haiti to support the Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergency (IYCF-E) solutions as such the nutrition cluster in collaboration with UNICEF requested GNC technical support.
Key achievements:
- Developed ToR for the IYCF-E technical working group with clear action plans for 3 months
- Conducted a 20-minute orientation meeting during cluster meetings to explain the difference between IYCF and IYCF in Emergency situations.
- Revised the PCNB guideline
- Developed BMS management guidelines, BMS labelling flyer and national IYCF-E operational guideline.
- Conducted IYCF-E orientation session with managers at national level
- Conducted a 3-day online training session with frontline workers
- Developed IYCF-E capacity mapping reports highlighting policy gaps as well as human capacity.
Resources:
Capacity Mapping Assessment in Haiti
Operational guideline for Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergency (IYCF-E)
Haiti Online IYCF-E orientation for Technical Working Groups