Emergency Nutrition Response for Drought Affected People in Surro, Dugada Dawa, and Melka Soda woredas of West Gujji zone in Oromia region. The proposed project aims to strengthen and maximize the geographical coverage for Community Based Management of Acute Malnutrition      (CMAM) including Infant Young Child Feeding (IYCF-E). The action will prioritize prevention and early treatment of acute malnutrition by supporting the local health systems. Activities will focus on enhancing the quality of nutrition services and ensuring the availability of Severely Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and Moderately Acute Malnutrition (MAM) treatment supplies. Technical support to Health Workers (HWs) and Health Extension Workers (HEWs) will be provided during regular MUAC screening and, in parallel, awareness of acute malnutrition among the community raised. IYCF-E will be reinforced, integrated and implemented with CMAM. The target population will be under 5 year-olds and Pregnant and Lactating Women (PLWs) for the overall CMAM services. These targeted nutrition beneficiaries will also receive water treatment chemicals and NFI. 

In addition to direct support for the target groups, food distributions sites will also be renovated and/or opened wherever they are in close proximity to the beneficiaries with an aim to further strengthen the Out-Patient Therapeutic Feeding program (OTP) in Health Posts. The project will also build the capacity of targeted district Health Offices through the provision of technical and logistical support to enable them manage the treatment of severely malnourished children in health institutions. In total, 44 Out-Patient Therapeutic Feeding (OTP) sites and 10 Stabilization Centers (SCs) will be strengthened. Furthermore, the project aims to build the capacity of HWs, and HEWs on CMAM for improved quality SAM management service in SC and OTP respectively. These interventions will benefit the entire target communities in the 3 target woredas.

Gender will be mainstreamed and gender concerns will be further analyzed during the project’s implementation period and appropriate measures to ensure equal participation and men and women adopted. The nutrition component specifically targets pregnant and lactating women and under 5 year-old children in the CMAM component. All targets and indicators will be disaggregated by age and sex: where available this will reflect available woreda data, but otherwise an assumption will be made based on the zonal average of 51% male and 49% female population. All venues (nutrition and education sessions, support groups, and community mobilizations) will be utilized to create awareness on the importance of taking children to the nutrition centers for monitoring or treatment regardless of their gender. Health and nutrition education campaigns/awareness raising will be tailored for both male and female caretakers with strong emphasis of men’s involvement in child caring practices. Community awareness activities will cover both men and women to ensure practical applications are done at household level.

Child protection is a core value throughout the project implementation period. All training activities include a child protection module that presents the risks and issues children face during times of crisis, including sexual and gender based violence (SGBV), child labour, child marriage and separation.