Provision of lifesaving therapeutic supply (RUTF) for severely acute malnourished children age 6-59 months in districts affected by conflict, natural disaster, and for cross-border arrival through fixed health facilities and mobile nutrition teams. As part of 2018 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), the Afghanistan Nutrition Cluster has identified the needs for provision of nutrition lifesaving activities in prioritized areas including 120 districts affected by natural disaster, conflict and cross border arrivals and 25 priority districts for the deployment of mobile nutrition teams. The severity of population in need of lifesaving nutrition services classified by nutrition cluster in five categories (category #4 and 5, identified as most sever categories). In addition to that, the cluster has also identified the need for essential nutrition supplies for treatment of severe acute malnutrition (RUTF, therapeutic milks [F-75 and F-100] and ReSoMaL) services delivery by different partners. Since Outpatient Department and Inpatient Department for treatment of Severe Acute Malnutrition (OPD-SAM and IPD-SAM) are an integral component of IMAM, hence provision of both services will be implemented simultaneously with the OPD -MAM services, where applicable in some areas as an integrated manner through CHF funding from this proposal. 
Hence the current CHF proposal aims to address RUTF need for IMAM/ SAM implementation by both BPHS/ EPHS and CHF partners for the portion of SAM under five children in 86 districts of Hilmand, Kabul, Kandahar, Kunar, Kunduz, Nangarhar and Paktia (category #5) Baghlan, Ghazni, Ghor, Herat, Laghman, Nimroz, and Uruzgan (category #4) provinces that affected by natural disaster, conflict and cross border arrival and in 25 prioritized districts of Baghlan, Herat, Kunar, Kandahar, Kunduz, Laghman and Nengarhar provinces for deployment of mobile nutrition teams.
The RUTF to respond around 40% of HRP target in the mentioned districts are estimated around 41,668 cartons of RUTF in the mentioned districts. Thus, as part of the nutrition response UNICEF is seeking USD 2,657,554.61 from CHF to provide lifesaving therapeutic supplies (RUTF) to partners for treatment of 41,669 (22,918 girls and 18,751 boys) Severely Acute Malnourished 6 - 59 months children in targeted districts/ provinces through fixed health facilities (OPD-SAM) and mobile nutrition teams, while for the supplies (F-75, F-100 and ReSoMaL) required for IPD-SAM services, UNICEF is committed to use the current available resources without replenishing purpose in the CHF targeted districts/ provinces.
UNICEF will procure the RUTF through it is own mechanism. These supplies will be stored at national and regional UNICEF warehouses. This project is meant to cover the therapeutic supply needs of CHF funded projects 12 months long in prioritized 86 districts, as the procurement and delivery of supply will not be manageable given the limited storage capacity of partners/ provinces to be take place in six months. Based on agreement between UNICEF and Public Nutrition Directorate (PND) of Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), PND is responsible to receive, review and forward the supply requests to UNICEF on quarterly basis. Afterwards, UNICEF review the requests and process the delivery of requested supplies to implementing partners (IPs) until provincial level. The implementing CHF partners (AADA, ACF and HNI-TPO) and BPHS/ EPHS partners (BRAC/ AYSO, MRCA/ CHA, BDN, OHPM, SCA, CRDAID/ AHDS, PU-AMI, ORCD/ MMRCA, and BARAN) will be fully responsible to make sure that RUTF is used in the OPD-SAM sites and report to PND, nutrition cluster, UNICEF and OCHA as per agency requirement. The activities will be implemented through the fixed health facilities and mobile nutrition teams in the targeted districts/ provinces. UNICEF will closely coordinate with PND and implementing CHF partners for RUTF management including distribution and monitoring.