Provision of Integrated Health, Nutrition and WASH Services by Establishing Integrated Emergency Response Teams (IERTs) supported by a network of Community Volunteers (CVs) in the underserved population of Waajid district and IDPs in Baidoa of South West State, Somalia. The humanitarian situation in Somalia remains precarious. Contributing factors include high acute malnutrition, high disease burden, severe food consumption gaps, and protracted displacement, loss of livelihood, and ongoing conflict and insecurity. The project aims at reducing morbidity and mortality of underserved communities of Waajid district and IDPs in Baidoa with focus on children under 5 years and pregnant and lactating women through the provision of life saving emergency health, nutrition and WASH services by establishing three Integrated Emergency Response Teams (IERTs) supported by a network of Community Volunteers (CVs). Waajid district is home to thousands of underserved communities as result of protracted conflict and recurrent drought. According to Protection amp Return Monitoring Network (PRMN) October 2017 report, Baidoa town host the highest IDPs in Somalia (251,111 individuals). The project builds on INTERSOS’ prior and on-going experience in Somalia implementing similar projects

The proposal follows on the priorities set by the Humanitarian Technical Clusters and Somalia Humanitarian Fund (SHF) for emergency integrated interventions: integrated health, nutrition and WASH services provided by 5 IERTs supported by a network of 30 CVs (3 IERTs and 18 CVs in Baidoa and 2 IERTs and 12 CVs in Waajid). Through this project, a total 193,320 individuals in Waajid District and Baidoa will have access to a package of Emergency Primary Health Care (EPHC) integrated with nutrition and WASH services in a one-year period. The Integrated Health, Nutrition Package includes Reproductive Health/Maternal, Neonatal, Child Health (RH/MNCH), including antenatal, and postnatal care for mothers new-born care, immunization (for both routine and supplementary vaccines), deworming, vitamin A supplementation, screening for malnutrition, treatment for Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) cases, health education, sanitation and hygiene promotion, distribution of hygiene kits, distribution of Chlorination tablets, Outpatient Consultation and treatment for common aliments for both adults and children. INTERSOS will integrate components of Infant young Child Feeding (IYCF) in nutrition treatment and prevention. UNICEF and WFP would provide nutrition supplies for both SAM and MAM management respectively.

In addition, INTERSOS will construct/rehabilitate latrines with complete hand washing facilities in health facilities Waajid District and IDP site in Baidoa in order to minimize the prevalence of sanitation and water borne diseases. Hygiene kits will be distributed to cases with Acute Watery Diarrhoea (AWD)/Cholera and SAM cases and will also be prepositioned at health and nutrition centres for distribution to beneficiaries.

Adding basic ambulance equipment to the 5 IERTs vehicles converts it to a Basic Life Support (BLS) ambulance. The BLS ambulance will provide referral services from Waajid/Baidoa IDP sites to referral health facilities in Baidoa or Hudur ensuring rapid transportation of critical cases to secondary health care level (priority will be given to under 5 children and pregnant women). It is estimated to provide BLS services to over 1,000 critical/emergency medical cases. The project will establish an efficient outreach and referral mechanism from community level to primary health services and for primary to secondary health services, through a network of CVs and through the BLS capacity of the IERTs vehicles for the transport/stabilization of critical patients.