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MAMI Global Network Coordination and Governance

The MAMI Global Network Strategy for 2021-2025 is now available here. An overview of the Network’s governance structures and ways of working is available here.

The MAMI Global Network is coordinated by ENN. Nicky Dent is the MAMI Global Network Coordinator, working on formalising and scaling up the MAMI network to strengthen policy, research and programming for the management of small and nutritionally at-risk infants under six months and their mothers.

The Network’s Steering Committee has been appointed for the current two-year period (2021-2023). It is co-chaired by ENN and LSHTM, with representation from NGO, UN and MAMI experts from across the globe.

Co-chairs

ENN, represented by Marie McGrath. Marie has been a Technical Director with ENN for 17 years and is also a member of ENN’s Board of Trustees. Marie has been working on MAMI since its inception and is now co-lead of the MAMI Global Network. She is also ENN’s lead on process evaluation of an upcoming randomised control trial in Ethiopia in a LSHTM/GOAL/Jimma University partnership. Marie is Chair of the Advisory Board of the Eleanor Crook Foundation and also the coordinator of an established UN/NGO interagency collaboration on infant and young child feeding in emergencies (IFE Core Group), co-chair of the Wasting Thematic Working Group of the Global Assistance Mechanism on Nutrition (GTAM), and a member of the Council of Research & Technical Advice on Severe Acute Malnutrition (CORTASAM) of the No Wasted Lives Initiative.

LSHTM, represented by Dr Marko Kerac. Marko is a clinical associate professor and programme director for the “Nutrition for Global Health” MSc at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Initially trained in paediatrics, he did a PhD on severe malnutrition based in Malawi before finishing specialty training in public health in London. He has been working on MAMI since 2008, when he was lead researcher on the original MAMI project. He currently co-leads the MAMI Global Network and is chief investigator on a cluster RCT of the MAMI approach in Ethiopia, working in partnership with ENN, GOAL Ethiopia, and Jimma University. He particularly enjoys the challenges of GRIPP (‘Getting Research into Policy/Practice’): working together in multidisciplinary groups from the very start of a research process to together identify high-priority issues; frame the scientific questions/studies to be of maximal help towards future policy; focus on practical (and thus hopefully scalable!) interventions. https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/aboutus/people/kerac.marko

Members

Save the Children, represented by Sarah Butler O' Flynn. Sarah is the Global Head of Humanitarian Nutrition for Save the Children International (SCI), leading the nutrition in emergencies strategy and portfolio and contributing to the organisation’s commitment to accelerate progress on infant wellbeing and survival. SC joined the MAMI SIG in 2013, leading research (2013-2015) and a programming pilot (2016-2018) in Bangladesh. In 2017, SC piloted the approach in the Rohingya Response and led an evaluation of Version 1 of the MAMI Tool in 2018, contributing to the continued improvements of the tool. In 2019, SC translated this operational experience into a MAMI Toolkit and video to support partners in implementation. In 2020, SC’s team grew to include a dedicated MAMI Advisor to provide technical expertise to SC and partners through the GNC Technical Alliance. SC now operates MAMI programs in Bangladesh, Colombia, Somalia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, NW Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan. Further information on SC’s MAMI work can be found here: https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/article/mami/ 

Action Against Hunger, represented by Adélaïde Challier. Action Against Hunger (AAH) was involved in raising the issue of acute malnutrition among under six months and participated to the first MAMI report. Along with its participation in the MAMI SIG, AAH contributed to develop the MAMI tool – especially for maternal mental health. AAH has first implemented the MAMI approach with a pilot in Mali in 2019. In Niger, with partners, AAH aims to implement a research on enhancing the MAMI with homebased nurturing care and psychosocial support by CHWs. In addition to raising the capacity of AAH staff, our ambition is also to continue supporting, scaling up or piloting the MAMI approach in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Adélaïde Challier is the AAH-France nutrition and surveillance advisor. She is the MAMI focal point for AAH-FR and will seek involvement from the wide range of AAH expertise: nutrition, health, mental health, and research.

Grainne Moloney is based in UNICEF HQ in New York as Senior Advisor – Early Childhood Nutrition. Previously, Grainne worked at the UNICEF East and Southern Africa regional office in Nairobi providing technical oversight for the prevention and treatment of wasting in children, as well as nutrition in emergencies in the region. Before that, she spent 6 years as the Chief of the Nutrition with UNICEF Kenya. Prior to UNICEF, Grainne served as the Chief Technical Advisor for the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit, (FAO) Somalia and previously with ACF, Oxfam GB and the National Health Service in the UK.

Fatmata Fatima Sesay is based in UNICEF HQ in New York as Nutrition Specialist – Infant Feeding. Previously, Fatmata worked at UNICEF Somalia, providing technical oversight on maternal and infant and young child feeding and micronutrient programming. Prior to that, she worked with Helen Keller International, Action Against Hunger (ACF), and Child Fund leading and managing programs on maternal, infant, and young child nutrition and micronutrient nutrition.

World Health Organisation, represented by Dr. Kirrily de Polnay. Kirrily is currently working at WHO in the Nutrition and Food Safety Department with her main current focus being the development of the guidelines on the prevention and treatment of wasting and the associated operational guidance. Kirrily is a UK-trained medical doctor with a background in paediatrics. She also has a Bachelors in Biological Anthropology and a Masters in Population and Development. She first started working in low-income countries 20 years ago in a rural outpatient clinic in India and has remained interested and committed to improving the quality of medical care for marginalised populations ever since.

She started work with Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in 2011 as a field doctor in a number of missions and countries with a predominant focus on the treatment of malnourished children. She also spent two years in the Child Health and Nutrition Unit at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium working on impact evaluations of nutrition programmes in two different countries. After a stint back on the paediatric wards in Brussels, she returned to MSF in 2016 as a nutrition adviser and then from 2018 until 2021 was the leader of the MSF Nutrition Working Group.

Dr Martha Mwangome (Independent). Martha is a research scientist at KEMRI/Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kilifi, Kenya. She is currently a Wellcome Trust Intermediate Fellow, also funded by the Africa Research Excellence Fund (AREF) and Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Martha has a Master’s degree in Global Health from Oxford University and a PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Over the past 10 years, her work has largely focused on studying undernutrition in infants aged below 6 months old (u6m) within two main domains: Exploring the potential of using Mid-Upper arm Circumference (MUAC) as a strategy to simplify the identification of at-risk infants aged below 6 months; and enhancing growth and development of malnourished infants recovering from a serious illness. She is currently funded to estimate body composition in malnourished infants u6m, assess breastmilk composition consumed by malnourished infants u6m and develop post-discharge package of care for malnourished infants u6m recovering from hospital treatment. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4806-1307.

Dr Praveen Kumar (Independent). Dr Praveen is a Paediatrician working as Professor of Paediatrics in Lady Hardinge Medical College & Associated Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital, New Delhi, India. He is also lead coordinator of National Center of Excellence for SAM Management which is providing technical support to Ministry of Health & Family welfare, Govt. of India, and different States. He has played a key role in organising two national level consultative meetings to adapt MAMI care pathways for strengthening identification and management of infants under six months with early growth failure. He has a special interest in the areas of paediatric gastroenterology, hepatology & nutrition, paediatric HIV, and public health.

Amanda Murungi Eunice (Independent). Amanda is a Nutritionist with the Ministry of Health (MoH) Uganda, deployed at the Mwanamugimu Nutrition Unit, Mulago National Referral Hospital. She is involved in programming and implementing of Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition, Maternal Infant, Young Child and Adolescent Nutrition, and Early Child Development. Amanda is a member of the National Nutrition Technical Working group at MoH, where she provides technical support and contributes to the development and revision of guidelines, policies, and work plans. She recently supported the revision of the Uganda IMAM guidelines 2020, chapter of management of infants under six months that was informed by the CMAMI tool (version 2). Amanda is passionate about health system strengthening and has been involved in various consultancies ranging from auditing of IMAM and IFE services and the revision of the National Nutrition Service Quality Assessment tools. She also sits on a panel of health experts at the School of Public Health, Makerere University that designs and delivers evidence-based messages on appropriate maternal, new-born, infant, child health and nutrition practices.

Reference this page

MAMI Global Network Coordination and Governance. www.ennonline.net/mami/globalnetworkcoordinationandgovernance

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