The Procurement and Provision of Nutrition and RUTF Supplies for OPD SAM Programmes in the High Priority Provinces As part of the strategic response plan, the Afghanistan Nutrition Cluster has identified the provision of life saving comprehensive Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition (IMAM) programming in Kabul Province as a priority intervention in 2017. In addition to that, the cluster has also identified the need of RUTF for a number of nutrition partners for IMAM scale up in IDPs (Kabul/KIS, Herat and Helmand), refugees (Khost), returnees (Nangarhar) and white areas (Kandahar). Since Outpatient Department for Severe Acute Malnutrition (OPD-SAM) is an integral component of IMAM, hence the OPD SAM programme will be implemented simultaneously with the OPD -MAM in the targeted areas in an integrated manner through CHF funding from this proposal. 

Hence the current CHF proposal aims to address RUTF supply and non-consumable items for IMAM scale up in Kabul province, both in rural and city districts  where currently there is no IMAM services and for RUTF for  IPDs, returnees and refugees in Herat, Kandahar, Helmand, Khost, Paktia and Nangarhar provinces. The estimated RUTF supply for Kabul province is around 18,000 cartons, 50 boxes of  Measuring Boards, 100 electronic scales and 100 packs of  MUAC tapes and similarly 15,000 cartons of RUTF for IDPs, Refugees and returnees nutrition response in Kabul, Helmand, Kandahar, Herat, Nangarhar, Khost and Paktika provinces. 

As part of the nutrition response UNICEF is seeking USD 2,420,631 from CHF to provide live saving therapeutic supplies of RUTF along with the required anthropometric equipment for treatment of 33,000 (17,820 girls and 15,180 boys) Severely Acute Malnourished under five children.  

UNICEF will procure the nutrition supplies through it is own mechanism.  These supplies will be stored at national and regional UNICEF warehouse. Based on agreement between UNICEF and Public Nutrition Department (PND), 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 IPs until provincial level. The implementing NGO partners (ACF, Medair, ACTD, AADA, WV, MOVE and HNI-TPO) will be fully responsible to make sure that RUTF and other nutrition supplies are used in the OPD-SAM  sites and report to PND, nutriton cluster, UNICEF  and OCHA as per agency requirement. The activities will be implemented through the health facilities (list attached) in the targeted provinces. The overall objective of the intervention is to contribute to the reduction of morbidity and mortality amongst children 6 – 59 months. UNICEF will closely coordinate with PND and implementing NGOs partners for supply RUTF and other nutrition supplies management including distribution and monitoring. This coordination includes the co- management of supply release through PND request with great involvement of all Provincial Nutrition Officers at provincial level. The IPs for OPD-SAM in Kabul city (ACF and Medair) are identified by PND-MoPH, for Kabul rural the  IP is MOVE, the existing BPHS NGO by MoPH and for other provinces the IPs are the also the BPHS IPs  providing health and nutriton services through MoPH contract (all BPHS IPs have a singed contract with MoPH for provision of  health and nutrition services in the country)