UNICEF - United Nations Children's Fund

Published purpose

This project seeks to save the lives of 17,500 girls and boys under five by helping to identify and treat severe acute malnutrition, a major cause of death and illness in children. The project supports the scale-up of Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) services in Malawi. CMAM is a globally accepted system for treating severe acute malnutrition that involves early detection through community screening, treatment of most cases on an out-patient basis using ready-to-use therapeutic foods, and referral of complicated cases to specialized in-patient care. The project aims to target critical gaps in the scale-up of CMAM in Malawi identified by UNICEF in collaboration with Malawi’s Ministry of Health. The project also seeks to support innovative measures that can be taken in the short term to improve the capacity of Malawi’s Ministry of Health to effectively and sustainably manage CMAM as a public health program. Some project activities include: (1) procuring 220 metric tonnes of ready-to-use therapeutic food; (2) training health workers, including administrators, front-line health workers and community volunteers and leaders, in the new World Health Organization guidelines for identifying severe acute malnutrition; (3) ensuring a more effective and timely supply of ready-to-use therapeutic foods; and (4) providing technical assistance and training to help the Malawi Ministry of Health to produce the first, fully costed five-year forward operating plan for CMAM.