Save theChildren’s Hunger Reduction and Livelihoods Team
Hunger Reductionand Livelihoods is one of four strategic priorities for Save the Children (UK),along with Health and HIV, Education and Child Protection, supported bycross-cutting work on Development Policy including Child Rights. We are a dual mandate organisation, workingin emergency and development contexts. Our work in Hunger Reduction aims to reduce malnutrition among children under 5, through a combination of innovative programmingand operational research and advocacy for policy changeat national and international levels based on our field experiences. The HungerReduction and Livelihoods team in Londoncomprises eight staff, including four technical advisors on nutrition, foodsecurity and livelihoods and social protection policy adviser, a teamCoordinator and the Head of Team. Wework closely with two technical advisers in the Humanitarian Technical Unit,two advocacy and policy advisers in the Advocacy division, as well as threeregional technical advisers; together forming a wider, and growing, global thematicteam.
The globalthematic team’s nutrition work emphasises sound situational analysis utilisinginnovative approaches, including Household Economy Assessment and Cost of Dietassessment. Based on a thoroughunderstanding of the causes of malnutrition, our work promotes a broad basedprogramme and policy oriented approach that addresses short and longer termneeds of children. In particular weemphasise work to remove economic barriers for families to achieve food andnutrition security, particularly social protection and safety nets. In support of this work, we also advocate for andsupport the implementation of evidence based direct nutrition interventions, asoutlined in our Hungry For Change Report. We strive to learn from our programming andto undertake operational research to add to the evidence base, and to improvepractice.
The Minimum Reporting Package for emergencySupplementary Feeding Programmes
The MRP is a goodexample of one of Save the Children UK’s operational research projects. It is based on a desire to improveaccountability to our child beneficiaries through maximising the quality of SFPprogramming. It stems from aretrospective analysis of the efficacy and effectiveness of emergencySupplementary Feeding Programmes (SFPs) undertaken in 2005/6 by CDC, ENN andSave the Children (UK); the findings of which were published in 2008[1]. A key problem identified by the reviewwas that inadequate reporting standards were being followed among thosedelivering SFPs, so that it was difficult to assess the efficacy of programmeswithout considerable re-analysis of data. An unexpected number of information gaps, inaccuracies and statisticalerrors were found. These issues raisedconcerns over the quality of the interventions themselves and implications forimpact on and accountability to beneficiaries and the capacity of agencies tolearn from experience.
Given the worryingfindings a key recommendation from the study was to clarify, define andimplement minimum reporting standards for emergency supplementary feedingprogrammes. As a result, ENN and Save the Children (UK) obtained funding fromOFDA in October 2008 to develop the MRP. A steering group of agencieswere convened to agree a common set of discharge definitions and contextualdata to aid in their interpretation, which formed a common set of reportingguidelines for the MRP. These guidelines were subsequently converted intouser-friendly software, piloted in four countries (Zimbabwe,Kenya, Thailand and Ethiopia) by Care, World Vision andDanish Refugee Council.
Meanwhile, therehas been growing interest, questions and concern surrounding the utility ofnovel fortified nutrition supplements for treating and preventing malnutrition,including moderate acute malnutrition. Many of fortified nutrition supplementsbeing introduced into SFPs are still undergoing clinical trials and in somecases different products are being compared and it is unwise to extrapolatefindings to the range of contexts commonly found in emergencies. This has created an extra impetus to increaseboth the quality and standardisation of SFP reporting.
For these reasons,Save the Children (UK) wishes to support the ECHO funded introduction of the MRP among10 implementing partners, delivering up to 30 SFPs in the coming 18 months; witha focus on SFPs using fortified nutrition supplements. SCUK will be one implementing partner. Other key stakeholders will be additionalECHO implementing partners who voluntarily agree to apply the MRP, as well asthe Ministries of Health and WFP in the countries of SFP implementation, bothof whom are partners in SFP implementation alongside the NGO lead.
It is hoped thatby introducing the MRP, Save the Children’s and other implementing partner’sreporting will improve. This will allowreal-time and retrospective analysis of SFP performance leading to measures toimprove performance during programme implementation and a greater understandingof when and how emergency SFPs should be implemented to best effect; includingthe utility of novel fortified nutrition supplements.
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