Topic: Fragile and Conflict Affected States (FCAS)

In this episode of the Emergency Nutrition Network (ENN) Podcast, Eilise Brennan and Philip James of ENN talk with nutritionist Masud Rana of Save the Children about cost of the diet modelling and how it was used in Nigeria to develop culturally acceptable recipes from local food items that met the nutritional needs of children aged 6 to 23 months at the lowest possible cost. You can read more about this work in the article “Affordable and nutritious child feeding in Nigeria: Applying Cost of the Diet modelling”.

In this podcast, accompanying the second special issue of Nutrition Exchange South Asia, Dr Charulatha Banerjee talks to Dr Mohammadullah Noorzad, Senior Officer for the Community Based Nutrition Programme in the Public Nutrition Directorate, Ministry of Public Health, Afghanistan.

They discuss the article Scaling up a community-based nutrition package in Afghanistan to improve complementary feeding practices in children 6-23 months of age. 

In this podcast ENN’s Technical Director Jeremy Shoham talks to Natalie Sessions, the Global KM coordinator for the SUN KM Project within ENN, about the SUN Movement Networks in Africa and Asia. They explain why they chose to focus on networks in fragile and conflict-affected states, and unpack the methodology used to gather the information, as well as sharing some of the key findings. 

On the 15 November this year, the Niger government took a big step forward in tackling malnutrition by adopting its first ever nutrition policy known as the “national multisectoral nutrition security policy”. The policy aims to achieve the vision of the citizens having adequate nutritional security, in order to ensure the development, resilience and prosperity of the country as a whole. Notably, the policy aims to make nutrition programmes part of development and resilience work in the country, rather than simply being seen as emergency focused interventions. Furthermore, the policy sets out roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders (such as donors, technical assistance providers, non- governmental institutions, civil society and the private sector) in relation to improving nutrition security in the country, thus emphasizing the importance of everyone playing a role in reducing malnutrition.  

Over two decades of civil conflict in Somalia interspersed with periodic droughts and floods have profoundly changed what used to be one of the most beautiful countries in east Africa to a nation which regularly receives huge amounts of humanitarian aid.   The latest humanitarian response plan (HRP)(2018) comes in at around one billion dollars. 90% of all aid to Somalia is humanitarian and the small amounts of development aid it receives means that the country is stuck in a cycle of humanitarian crisis and response.   The country has regularly teetered on the edge of, or experienced, full blown famine in 2017 and 2011 respectively. Rates of acute malnutrition (mainly wasting) have consistently been over the international emergency threshold and in 2018, a relatively good year, prevalence is estimated at 18%.  These depressing facts are one reason why ENN determined to carry out a country study in Somalia as part of its ongoing work to identify ways to increase the nutrition resilience of vulnerable populations in fragile and conflict contexts through strengthening the humanitarian development nexus (HDN). Somalia is ENN’s second country case study, (after Kenya), with a further three or four country studies planned until the end of 2019.

ENN’s Azaria Morgan joins Dr. Fatima AK Sallam, a Project Manager at Soul for Development and Charity Zvandaziva, a Nutrition Specialist working for UNICEF Yemen to discuss community engagement and leadership in enabling increased access to nutrition and health services. The podcast highlights the work of the Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) in pioneering the project and supporting the Village Development Committees in achieving self-sufficiency.

Lillian Karanja-Odhiambo, ENN’s Knowledge Management specialist for East Africa speaks to Mueni Mutunga the Chief of Nutrition from UNICEF’s Sudan country office about the experience of scaling up CMAM in Sudan. The podcast captures UNICEF’s perspective on the evolution in CMAM programming; successes in garnering government ownership; the role of information systems in informing programming and how scale up was achieved in a low resource setting. The interview provides useful insight into the interplay of humanitarian and development programming in approaching the Management of Acute Malnutrition.

Dans cette interview Dr Kanta Malam Issa, coordinateur général de l’ONG ALIMA au Mali, discute avec Ambarka Youssoufane sur l’initiative URENI  école pour la formation des agents de santé sur la prise en charge de la Malnutrition Aigue Sévère au Mali. Cette interview complète l’article « Projet URENI Ecole de Dioïla »Formation des personnels de santé à la prise en charge de la Malnutrition Aigüe Sévère (MAS) en milieu hospitalier, paru dans Field Exchange 55.

In this podcast join Ali Dino Kunbher from Welthungerhilfe is in conversation with ENNs Dr Charulatha Banerjee (Asia Regional KM Specialist) discussing his article in Field Exchange 55 titled 'Multi-sector, nutrition-sensitive response to drought emergency in Pakistan'. The article and podcast capture experiences of an ECHO funded multisectoral nutrition project implemented in drought affected Sindh Province of Pakistan, the successes of this complex project and the numerous challenges faced in doing nutrition sensitive programming in an emergency setting. 

In this podcast, Tarig Mekkawi, Nutrition specialist with UNICEF Sudan, speaks to Salwa Sorkti, the Director of the National Nutrition Program in the Federal Ministry of Health of Sudan about the experience of CMAM scale up in the country. The podcast captures the perspective of the Ministry of Health’s on the evolution in CMAM programming; successes in garnering government ownership; the role of information systems in informing programming and how scale up was achieved in a low resource setting. The interview provides useful insight into the interplay of humanitarian and development programming in approaching the Management of Acute Malnutrition. 

Join the editors of Nutrition Exchange (NEX) Judith Hodge and Carmel Dolan as they give an overview of the latest edition, Issue 7. This is the first NEX edition that focuses on learning and experiences around nutrition scale up and specifically learning from the SUN Movement. This work is part of ENNs 5-year Knowledge Management project to support SUN.