Treatment of Moderate Acute Malnutrition among children aged 6-59 months as well as pregnant and lactating women Ongoing conflict induced insecurity, low coverage of basic services, extreme winter conditions coupled with the impact of natural disasters have exacerbated the existing vulnerabilities of communities and resulted to very high rates of acute malnutrition. The COVID-19 pandemic has further aggravated the nutrition situation with over 15% increase in admissions of malnourished children and women in treatment centres. According to the Nutrition Cluster 2020 humanitarian needs severity ranking of April 2020, two-thirds of the provinces in the Afghanistan are currently above the alarming threshold of acute malnutrition with a global acute malnutrition - GAM ≥10 per cent with aggravating factors. With the oncoming winter, it is expected that the nutrition status of the most vulnerable population groups (children and PLW) will be deteriorate as a result of decreased access to adequate diets and increased morbidity coupled with reduced access to health services. Children and PLW living in provinces with the highest levels of food insecurity (IPC 4 and above) are particularly facing the highest risk of a deterioration in the nutrition and health status. In order to combat the combined impact the aforementioned factors that will be aggravated by the oncoming winter, WFP plans to implement  winterization Nutrition assistance to treat the increased cases of moderate acute malnutrition among 34,000 children and PLW in 11 HRP priority provinces with a total commodity requirement of 560 MT. To do this WFP needs about USD 1.5million.
As WFP has already received some funding support from CERF and USAID that contributes to about 70% of the winterization needs mentioned above, this current AHF contribution will enable WFP to cover and additional 17% of the  winterization needs which will reduce the resource gap accordingly. With this funding, WFP will prioritize 4 provinces experiencing the highest food insecurity but having the lowest coverage of malnutrition treatment services. These include Daikundi, Badakhshan, Ghor, and Badghis.
In the above locations, a lot of malnourished children and PLW are often left with no treatment support due to limited resources. The funding from AHF 6th reserve allocation will not only contribute to the winterization resource needs, but also enable WFP to increase the OPD-MAM (TSFP) coverage in theses and selected provinces. 
WFP’s Targeted Supplementary Feeding Programmes (TSFPs) is an integral component of the Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition (IMAM). The TSFPs (OPD-MAM) are integrated with UNICEF’s supported Outpatient and Inpatient Therapeutic Feeding Programmes (OPD-SAM, IPD-SAM), whenever and wherever possible, with linkages from the community to health facilities,. WFP’s TSFPs (OPD-MAM) maximize the impact of IMAM by treating children with moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) before they become severely malnourished and malnourished pregnant amp lactating women thereby significantly reducing the burden on SAM treatment and health system in general. 
TSFP is implemented in partnership with national and international NGO Cooperating Partners who are delivering the Basic Package of Health Service. This proposal specifically focuses on the procurement of specialized nutritious foods (SNFs) for treatment of moderate acute malnourished children and PLW (Pregnant and Lactating Women) in the prioritized provinces. With the US$ 250,000 from AHF 6th reserve allocation WFP will procure approximately 38.8 MT supercereal and 50 MT RUSF. This quantity can cover the treatment requirement of 4,700 children and 1,500 pregnant and lactating women in the selected provinces.
Given the foreseen increase in vulnerability during winter and compromised access to several locations, WFP will prioritize prepositioning of MAM treatment commodities in the selected districts within the provinces prioritized under this grant.