Nutrition for every U5 child and PLW in Sangcharak, Saripul The basic problem of pregnant and lactating women and under the age of five children is “inaccessibility to nutrient food”. 

For two decades, international organizations including the UN have been continuously trying to ensure that vulnerable people of Afghanistan have access to sufficient food ensuring that no one is deprived of nutrition – with a particular focus that children under the age of five and pregnant and lactating women are prioritized in programs to eradicate malnutrition. But in addition to these efforts, according to UN-WFP, currently, more than 3.5 million children in Afghanistan need nutritional support. UNICEF estimated that half of the children under the age of five in Afghanistan will suffer from acute malnutrition by 2022 due to the food crisis and insufficient access to drinking water and health services (UNICEF Afghanistan/2022). The recent reports published by UNICEF and WFP indicate that the increase in cases of malnutrition among children under the age of five, as one out of every two children in Afghanistan suffers from acute malnutrition – and this situation is to continue over time if no urgent action is taken.

However, UNICEF has said that it will try to treat 1.1 million children suffering from malnutrition by 2022, and other national and international agencies have pledged to take serious measures in order to significantly reduce the malnutrition of children under the age of five and pregnant and lactating women, but apparently given the current administrative and financial problems under the de-facto government it will be difficult to follow all the pledges and there is a need to take more urgent measures in this field.

To take part in this large mission of scaling down the nutrition cases in Afghanistan, CICA proposes this project to contribute to reduce “morbidity and mortality” due to malnutrition among under the age of five children and pregnant and lactating women in Saripul (Sangcharak) through three Mobile Health and Nutrition Teams (MHNTs). Each mobile health and nutrition team (MHNT) is composed of one MD doctor, one midwife, one nurse, one psychosocial and nutrition counselor, one community mobilizer and one vaccinator. The mobile health and nutrition teams (MHNTs) will practice anthropometric measuring for providing treatment and preventative services through providing specialized nutritious foods (SNFs) for sever acute malnutrition (SAM) and moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) cases of under five children and pregnant and lactating women in the target areas. For MAM cases, the Targeted Supplementary Feeding Program (TSFP) and for SAM cases, the Blanket Supplementary Feeding Program (BSFP) will be implemented.
Under targeted supplementary feeding program (TSFP), the under five children and pregnant and lactating women will be provided with Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF+Super Cereal) and under blanket supplementary feeding program (BSFP), they will be provided with complementary basic foodstuffs Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food (RUSP+Super Cereal).

CICA will implement the project in close coordination with DoPH, UNICEF, WFP, Nutrition Cluster and other operational implementation partners in the target area. A community development council health sub-committee be established and will work for each health facility. The project team will provide orientation sessions to community influential figures including Health Shuras (HSs).

First, the community will be informed about the project by health shuras (HSs) and secondly the mobile health and nutrition teams (MHNTs) will go to the villages on daily bases 6/7 days’ week. 

The project progress with achieved targets will be shared up by CICA on weekly bases for Health Management Information System (HMIS) data-base and the narrative report that includes the details of project’s outputs and outcome will be submitted to donor on monthly and quarterly base.