Emergency Nutrition and Health response through the deployment of Mobile Teams in hard-to-reach districts, along with enhanced coordinated humanitarian assessments, data quality, sharing and utilisation for humanitarian response planning in Afghanistan The proposed action’s objective is to contribute to reducing child and women morbidity and mortality related to malnutrition by the establishment of Mobile Health Teams (MHTs)) in targeted provinces, along with enhanced coordinated humanitarian assessments, data quality, sharing and utilization for humanitarian response planning through Rapid Nutrition Assessments. 

This proposed intervention will be implemented around two axes:
-	The Mobile Health Teams will be implemented in Jawand and Bala Murghab districts of Badghis Province for the Nutrition part, Western Region
-	The Rapid Nutrition Assessments (RNA) will be launched in the allocation priority areas for assessments, i.e Sar-e-Pul and Faryab (Northern Region), Wardak (Central Region), and Farah (Western Region) provinces (locations to be confirmed with Nutrition Cluster)

Badghis Province is, according to several assessments done in Afghanistan (HNO/HRP 2020, IPC, Smart Surveys) one of the most affected provinces in terms of undernutrition. According to the SMART survey conducted by ACF in 2019, chronic malnutrition (expressed by HAZ) (31.6% (26.3-37.4 CI95%) was considered ‘Very high’ (≤30 %) according to WHO (World Health Organization) cut-offs and Poor rate of GAM by WHZ (9.9% (7.6-12.8 CI 95%) which is considered as ‘Medium’ (between 5% and 10%) by WHO cut-offs. GAM by MUAC (10.1% (7.6-13.3 CI 95%) and combined GAM (15.6% (12.6-19.2 CI 95%) were categorized at serious level which indicates a significant number of children with acute malnutrition. Also, under-nutrition among pregnant and lactating women (PLWs) based on MUAC lt230mm 24.8%. A situation which is likely to deteriorate with the impact of the conflict and poor access to health facilities. 
Thanks to multiple assessments, the nutrition situation is monitored and evaluated regularly up to district level in Afghanistan, and this permits to qualify it as worrying. Most nutrition assessments are done by key Nutrition NGO although SEHATMANDI IP need to be empowered to do so. Indeed, according to the 2010 BPHS guidelines, implementing partners bear the primary responsibility for conducting regular nutrition assessments to estimate the prevalence of under­nutrition as well as conducting Rapid Needs Assessment. However, very few SEHATMANDI partners have conducted nutrition surveys, for (i) lack of ownership of the nutrition package, (ii) lack of financial resources, and (iii) lack of technical capacity. Therefore, for nutrition assessments to effectively support prioritization of resources and informed programming decisions, it is recommended that they be conducted at least once a year. In Afghanistan however, due to lack of financial resources and technical capacity, nutrition surveys are conducted on a multi­year basis, which significantly undermines their contribution to ensuring that the national nutrition response is meeting the needs of the population.
To address the acute needs of vulnerable malnourished girls, boys and women, AAH will provide nutrition services through the setup of Mobile Health Teams (MHTs) targeting boys, girls and Pregnant and Lactating Women (PLW) in the selected locations. These Mobile Health Teams will also have a health component with the provision of Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) for boys and girls 0-59 months and provision of i Antenatal Care (ANC) to pregnant women, Post Natal Care (PNC) to women after delivery and  and family planning services to women of reproductive age (15-49 years old). 
To support the humanitarian response planning based on accurate and updated nutrition data, AAH will conduct 4 RNA referring to rapid SMART methodology in hard to reach districts, focusing especially on Sar-e-Pul, Wordak, Faryab and Farah provinces considered as priority areas. RNA not only will respond to information needs of emergencies but will also inform follow up large scale and full SMART surveys which could be conducted in the future.