Nutrition coordination in Ukraine: Experiences as a sub-cluster of health

This case study is one of six case studies produced through a year-long collaboration in 2015 between ENN and the Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC) to capture and disseminate knowledge about the Nutrition Cluster experiences of responding to Level 2 and Level 3 emergencies. They each provide very rich insights into the achievements of the cluster approach and the challenges of working in complex environments.

This case study underlines how the lack of nutrition coordination and information management capacity in conjunction with limited expertise of partners on the ground made it difficult to implement a comprehensive response, even though activities were costed in the response plan. It also highlights the lack of nutrition capacity to address nutrition issues beyond acute malnutrition in the Ukraine response, i.e. IYCF, Complementary Feeding, stunting and non-communicable diseases (NCD). In addition, there was a failure to programme for all vulnerable populations (i.e. older persons) or advocate across sectors and with local NGOs to consider nutrition as part of their responses.