Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies: Review the operational guidance on Infant Feeding in Emergencies (IFE) and workshop conducted in Indonesia March '08 which provides a regional forum that would facilitate information, resource, and experience sharing between a cross-section of actors and within the nutrition sector. click here for workshop report
Study of the new WHO Growth Standards: Funding was provided to the Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN) to commission academic papers looking at the impact of new WHO Child Growth Standards on prevalence of Global and Severe Acute Malnutrition using Z-score and % median; the impact on feeding centre admissions and performance; the impact on the average duration of treatment and weight gains required for cure using the different indices; and estimating the changes in number of children eligible for admission to programs. An informal consultation was held in Geneva 25-27 June culminating many months of research and consultation. Meeting report here
W/H and MUAC for estimating the prevalence of acute malnutrition: Research project to investigate the relationship between Mid Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) and Weight for Height (W/H) measurements of acute under nutrition. The project was undertaken by Save the Children UK and authored by Mark Myatt. Opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Nutrition Cluster or UNICEF. Section 1/2, Section 3/4, Section 5, Appendix 3.
Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP): Analyze the 'place' of nutrition in the CAP and their outcomes, assessing if there has been significant changes over time, since the cluster approach came into being, and how future appeals may look without the cluster in place. This project is managed by Tufts University.
click here for final reportNutrition Supply Chain Articulation (ART): MUAC for estimating Improve availability of emergency nutrition supplies with training tools. Analysis and improvement of two therapeutic food product supply chains. This project is managed out of UNICEF, Copenhagen.
click here for final report
Strengthening the Utility of the Field Exchange: The overall objective of the UFEX Project is to organize Field Exchange material so that it becomes more accessible to trainers, researchers and program staff by creating a searchable catalogue of
Field Exchange material available in a) hard copy, b) on the ENN and Nutrition Cluster websites and c) on CD-Rom.
Review of GNC Products and Tools: The Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN) was commissioned in early 2009 to look at the three tools to identify lessons learnt, gaps and impact of their use in areas of strategic importance to emergency nutrition response and preparedness. The review evaluated through analysis to what extend the tools were used, what was feasible to do with them, how they should be adopted, how they could maintain their relevance as well as how to generate support to use tools produced by the Working Groups.
click here for final report
Updating of NutVal Software: Update the NutVal database of food aid commodity nutrient content (click for commodities) and implement a ration optimisation function using linear programming. The project is undertaken by WFP in collaboration with UCL/ICH. NutVal.Net has been created to allow users to always access the latest version of the the software, to facilitate feedback and bug reporting, and encourage suggestions for new features and modifications. The latest version of the program is in a Excel Spreadsheet (Version 2) and was released in August 2008. There are a number of minor changes in this Version 2 over the 2006 Version 1 including the dropping of commodity price data and an adjustment to the energy contribution of breast milk. A further updated version will be available by the end of 2008. Please visit: www.nutval.net
Evaluation of WFP Targeted Supplementary Food Program (TSF) outcomes: The World Food Programme with support from the Global Nutrition Cluster recently completed an evaluation of the Targeted Supplementary Food (TSF) program in Ethiopia. The study was conducted in order to demonstrate how this approach to managing moderate acute malnutrition in light of capacity and resource constraints has impacted the nutritional status of children enrolled in the TSF programme. click here for final report
Revision of Selective Feeding Guidelines for the Management of Malnutrition in Emergencies: Revise the Guidelines for Selective Feeding Programs in Emergencies in order to produce an updated policy that takes into consideration developments in the field of management of severe and moderate acute malnutrition and other nutritional needs arising in the context of emergencies. This project is manged by UNHCR in collaboration with WFP, WHO and the SCN. click here for final report
Use of Lipid-based Nutrient Supplements (LNS) in emergency settings: A technical paper on the potential role of LNS to improve the nutritional quality of foods provided in emergency settings, and testing the impact of this approach. Paper will describe the optimal formulation of LNS for various target groups (infants and young children, pregnant and lactating women) in emergency settings. This project is managed by UC-Davies. click here for final paper
Initial Rapid Assessment (IRA) Tool
The Assessment Working Group of the IASC Global Nutrition Cluster, in collaboration with the Health and WASH clusters, have developed an integrated Initial Rapid Assessment (IRA) Tool intended to provide a quick snapshot of the situation in the first 7 days (preferably in the first 72 hours) after acute emergency onset. It is not intended to provide detailed quantitative information and should be used to help understand the situation and guide initial response. The tool is designed to collect data at the community and facility (not at the household) level. The assessment using the IRA tool at one site should take approximately 3-4 hours.
The tool is derivative of many existing tools used by governments, NGOs, donors and the UN, has been extensively peer reviewed and includes data entry and analysis software and annexes to help guide data collection and analysis. Both field level and country level guidance have been developed which includes pre-crisis secondary data collection checklists in the annex. The initial draft of the tool has been field tested in 6 countries in collaboration with the UN Country Team in each location (Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Chad, DRC and CAR). Based on the field-testing report and consultations with partners, a final version is now available. The accompanying IRA Guidance Note should be consulted when intending to use the IRA tool. In addition, as an improvement to the earlier version, the latest version contains a strategy of analyses and an excel data sheet that provides automatic results for reporting. Further when data is entered an automatic report will appear, amongst others, in bar charts.
The IRA toolkit is now available and can be downloaded here for Data Entry Tool and Field Assessment Form. The IRA is a living document and we are keen to know of its application and any recommendations for improvements, therefore we would request that when you do use it, you complete a very short feedback questionnaire also available here.
If you have any questions on the IRA please contact globalnutritioncluster@unicef.org, for more information
MAMI Project:
Funded by the GNC, the MAMI Project was implemented in collaboration between the ENN, CIHD and ACF. The MAMI Project 'core' team were supported by Research Advisory Group (RAG), an Interagency Steeering Group (IASG), UN Agencies, NGOs and Independent Individuals with relevant experiences. The aim of the MAMI Project was to investigate the management of acutely malnourished infants under six months of age (infants <6m) in emergency programmes, in order to improve practice by contributing to evidence-based, better practice guidelines. Several resutls have already been shared at the national and international meetings in the UK, Malawi and Bangkok. Please send comments to Marie McGrath, ENN, marie@ennonline.net
click here for summary; click here for full report
SMART
Part A: Operationalization of Standard Monitoring and Assessment in Relief and Transition (SMART). Coordinate activities and finalize version 2 of SMART; provide necessary institutional support and guarantee the processes of research, methods development, integration of the different modules and capacity building.
click here for final report. click here for project summary
All the information about the updates on SMART, new versions, training, activities, calendar, and forums of discussion can be found on the new website: www.smartmethodology.org http://www.smartmethodology.org.
Part B: Regional West Africa training of trainers on SMART. Improve the technical quality of nutrition, health and other outcome data in emergencies by training on the use of SMART methodology in West Africa. click here for final report.
An analysis of nutrition surveys in Ethiopia: Evaluate surveys conducted in Ethiopia since the new Emergency Nutrition Coordination Unit (ENCU) guidelines (established in 2002) to identify additional methods and indicators for non-anthropometric data that could be collected in future nutrition surveys. This project is managed by Nutrition Works. click here for report. click here for workshop report
Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC):
The study entitled "Review of Nutrition and Mortality Indicators for the IPC - Reference Levels and Decision-making", was originally commissioned by the SCN Task Force (TF/AME) and fully supported by the IPC Global Partnership Programme. The study was conducted by Tufts University and ODI. It provides guidance to IPC practitioners on the significance and use of nutrition and mortality indicators for the classification of different food security phases. A number of others participated in the preparation of the stdy, which provides a very rich basis for further work, including in strengthening linkages between food security and nutrition analysis and in revisiting the definition and interpretation of the reference levels of various indicators for the classification of the depth of food insecurity. The study and related workshop was funded by GNC and by ECHO through the Global IPC Partnership.
click here for final report