Global Nutrition Cluster

Global Nutrition Cluster

The Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC) was established in 2006 with a vision to safeguard and improve the nutritional status of emergency affected populations by ensuring a coordinated, appropriate response that is predictable, timely, effective and at scale. The GNC is currently made up of 37 partner organizations at the global level. More details are available within this website (about the GNC, GNC members, as well as country nutrition clusters).

GNC events

Upcoming: We are happy to announce that the next Annual GNC meeting will be held during the second week of July (8-12.07.2012) in Geneva, Switzerland. It is planned that the meeting will be held during three days with side meetings throughout  the week. The precise dates will be announced at later stage, but please for now book the whole week in your calendars. More information will follow later.

To see a full list of upcoming GNC events, please click on 'Agenda'

Updates from the GNC

13-May-2013: An inter-agency Survey Manager-level SMART training, organised by ACF-Canada and ACF-Spain, will take place in Madrid, Spain on June 17th-21st, 2013.  This training is intended for European-based headquarter staff involved in nutrition and mortality surveys.
The people who will benefit most from this workshop are:
• People from organisations / institutions directly responsible for the planning, supervision and/or data analysis of nutritional surveys.
• People from organisations / institutions with experience in conducting a nutritional survey, but who need to improve their capabilities by using the SMART methodology.
• People with a basic understanding of malnutrition and statistical principles.
As a result of this highest level of SMART training for survey designers and managers, you will gain knowledge in how to define survey objectives, determine sample size & sampling strategy, recruit and train survey teams, supervise field teams, assess data quality, interpret results, and, finally, formulate recommendations and policy measures.
In order to provide a positive learning environment for all of the participants, a mandatory pre-selection questionnaire has been devised which will be reviewed by the facilitators of the SMART training.  It is important to note that filling out this form does not guarantee your place in the training, as the number of spots is limited. Consequently, please make sure you have filled this form as soon as possible and no later than Monday, May 20th, 2013 by accessing the link below: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SMART_MADRID_2013. You will be informed by email if you are selected to attend.

08-May-2012: HelpAge released new guidelines “Nutrition interventions for older people in emergencies” which were uploaded to the GNC webste here. It is meant to encourage humanitarian workers to assess and treat malnutrition in older people. It also highlights older people’s vulnerability to malnutrition in emergencies. If you have any comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact Pascal Fritsh at pfritsch@helpage.org.

02-May-2013: Report on mortality among populations of southern and central Somalia affected by severe food insecurity and famine during 2010-2012 (press-release [pdf] and full report [pdf]) was uploaded to the website.

30-Apr-2013: "The management of acute malnutrition at scale: A review of donor and government financing arrangements" was uploaded to the website. This review considers the enabling and constraining aspects of humanitarian, transition and development financing, the contexts and rationale in which severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) are jointly addressed in CMAM programming; the role of key United Nations (UN) agencies in enabling programme integration and coordination; individual donor policies and strategies for supporting CMAM in emergency, transition and development contexts; and opportunities for achieving greater impact of efforts to manage acute malnutrition.

29-Apr-2013: World Food Programme, in partnership with Valid international, is currently undertaking a Global review of MAM programmes addressing both treatment and prevention of moderate acute malnutrition

29-Apr-2013: The fifth GNC partners conference call was held. Minutes of the call will be uploaded to the website.

29-Apr-2013: Minutes of the second SAG meeting were uploaded to the website.

28-Apr-2013: The European Union steps up its efforts to fight against world hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. This is the goal of a new policy, just adopted by the European Commission, which aims to improve the nutrition of mothers and children in order to reduce mortality and diseases, as well as the impediments to growth and development caused by undernutrition.

Nutrition is a strategic priority of the European Commission. In March 2013, two essential documents, setting the policy of the European Commission for the coming years have been adopted:

• The European Union Communication on 'Enhancing Maternal and Children nutrition in external assistance' a joint DEVCO and ECHO policy
• The European Commission Staff Working Document on 'Addressing undernutrition in emergencies' setting the strategic priorities for DG ECHO in the nutrition sector.

Both documents acknowledge the needs to adopt a multisector approach to address undernutrition, to scale-up nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions by supporting evidence-based approaches and programmes. The documents are available on the new ECHO webpage dedicated to Nutrition: http://ec.europa.eu/echo/policies/nutrition_en.htm

28-Apr-2013: Minutes of the fourth GNC partners meeting were uploaded to the website.

15-Apr-2013: Introducing the new Household Economy Approach & Cost of the Diet website! This exciting new web resource hosts over 200 Household Economy Approach (HEA) and 18 Cost of the Diet (CoD) reports produced by numerous organisations since 2005. These reports provide much needed information on aspects of food security, livelihoods and nutrition in over 30 countries that are not publicly available. Vital information such as this should be easily accessible to inform improved decision-making for policy and programmes.  It is the most up-to-date and comprehensive global resource for these innovative tools. The aim of this website is to bring HEA and CoD practitioners together by sharing reports, guidance, experience, and training opportunities. For more information about these tools, please see below. This website has been developed by Save the Children with support from the Food Economy Group (FEG) and with funding from ECHO.  The intention is that this will be a low maintenance website that will be updated largely by you, the practitioner. We hope that you will make use of this valuable resource and share your own HEA and CoD reports, assessments and training opportunities via the website.  
Visit www.heawebsite.org and create a log-in and upload reports, trainings and assessment dates or post a query on the CoD forum. 
Features:
•         Interactive map that hosts over 200 HEA and 18 CoD reports including four reports containing integrated analysis of HEA and CoD information to inform policy and programming (from Bangladesh, DRC, Nigeria and Niger)
•         4 new CoD baseline reports (from Turkana, Burkina Faso and Bangladesh) and 3 new HEA baseline profiles (from Turkana and Bangladesh) resulting from an ECHO funded project aimed at building capacity on integrated food security and nutrition analysis
•         Forums, FAQs and guidelines, including a French translation of the HEA Practitioner’s Guide (coming soon)
•         Training & assessments calendar where you can find and post upcoming opportunities to expand the number of people trained in the HEA and CoD methods
 
10-April-2013: Minutes of the first GNC SAG conference call and a final SAG TOR endorsed by SAG members were posted on the website.

09-Apr-2013: A blog discussion, written by Rob Bailey (Chatham House) and Andrew Seal (UCL, GNC partner), has been posted by PloS Med. It considers the context to the Somalia famine in 2011 and the reasons for the inadequate humanitarian response. There are also plans to follow this up with a longer article that will explore the issues in more depth. 

04-Apr-2013: The training section has undergone a major revision with eight pages providing 22 learning materials (training packages and online trainings). The training section now consists of the following pages:

• On the first page you will find training packages which cover more than one topic in addressing Nutrition in Emergencies.
• Harmonized Training Package (HTP) for Nutrition in Emergencies and complementary presentations. Note: the HTP now includes additional module 23 on nutrition of older people in emergencies.
• E-learning page with available online learning opportunities (with or without a certificate of competition) for Nutrition in Emergencies programming.
• Page dedicated to training materials on cluster approach awareness and coordination.
• CMAM-specific training materials.
• IYCF & IYCF-E training materials.
• Training materials in assessments.
• Training materials for addressing micronutrient deficiencies.
• Training materials addressing cross-cutting issues page is under development (will be included once materials become available, see also e-learning). 　

04-Apr-2013: A new SPHERE e-learning course has been launched by SPHERE project. The course is open to everyone and is free of charge. The full course takes about six hours to complete and at the end you will be given a certificate of completion. For the time being, the course is available in English only. Arabic, French and Spanish versions are expected in early April.

28-Mar-2013: GNC started recruitment procedures for Rapid Response Team members (Nutrition Cluster Coordinators and Information Management Officers). The recruitment is expected to be finished within one month. Please follow our vacancies page regularly. You may also wish to request more information from gnc@unicef.org.

28-Mar-2013: The information sharing call was conducted with GNC partners on Syria crisis.

25-Mar-2013: Based on the feedback from stakeholders, OCHA revised MIRA guidance. A feedback is requested by 3rd of April from nutrition stakeholders to aziolkovska@unicef.org.

25-Mar-2013: The report from the consultation "Mid Upper Arm Circumference and Weight-for-Height Z-score as indicators of severe acute malnutrition: a consultation of operational agencies and academic specialists to understand the evidence, identify knowledge gaps and to inform operational guidance" held in December 2012 was uploaded to the website. If you have any queries regarding this consultation or would like to submit a feedback, please contact Marie McGrath from ENN directly: marie@ennonline.net

21-Mar-2013: GNC partners conference call was held. Minutes of the call will be uploaded to the website.

21-Mar-2013: Minutes of the fourth NCCs' conference call, held on 28th of February, were uploaded to the website.

20-Mar-2013: Report of the results of the evaluation of a Blanket Supplementary Feeding Program (BSFP) implemented in the Turkana and Wajir Counties of northern Kenya between August 2011 and March 2012 was uploaded to the website.

20-Mar-2013: Minutes of the GNC partners and Mali Nutrition Cluster conference call were uploaded to the website.

19-Mar-2013: Minutes of the face-to-face meeting of GNC partners held from 24-25 January 2013 were uploaded to the website and are available here.

13-Mar-2013: The first Interim Strategic Advisory Group conference call took place on 13th of May 2013. Six SAG members were present during the call. Minutes of the call will be uploaded to the website.

07-Mar-2013: A final version of the Nutrition Cluster Handbook has been uploaded to the GNC website. Printing of the handbook is in process.

07-Mar-2013: An additional HTP Module 23 on "Nutrition of older people in emergencies" has been finilised and is available to download from the GNC website.

06-Mar-2013:   For the attention of all GNC partners! Through funding from the GNC, International Medical Corps is facilitating a training for GNC partners in Cluster Coordination and the Humanitarian Approach - April 30, May 1, and May 2, 2013, in Geneva (more...)

26-Feb-2013: Members of the GNC Interim Strategic Advisory grooup has been identified (more...)

15-Feb-2013: The conference call between GNC partners and Mali Nutrition Cluster was held.

14-Feb-2013: Links and information on a new manual produced by HelpAge International were addedd. This manual produced with funding from the European Community’s Humanitarian Office (ECHO) provides guidance for the implementation of three key action points to formulate an initial emergency needs assessment that includes older people.

• Collect sex and age-disaggregated data (SADD) of the population in emergency-affected areas from national population data sources.
• Make initial assessments ageing sensitive by using methods for estimating SADD in contexts where such data has not been collected during the preparedness phase. Take steps to ensure an age-sensitive approach to community-based primary data collection.
• Conduct an ageing sensitive analysis of the assessment data to provide a clear picture of the needs of older people and other vulnerable groups in the crisis.

The aim of this guidance is therefore to ensure that the specific vulnerabilities and capacities of older people in emergencies are fully taken into account as part of a thorough gender and age analysis of humanitarian needs.

It can be utilised whether agencies are engaged in coordinated assessments through the Multi-cluster Initial Rapid Assessment (MIRA) methodology or whether they carry out individual assessments applying any of the different existing methodologies within their organisations.

11-Feb-2013: GNC has created a members-only group/forum for Cluster/Sector Coordinators, Information Managers and Nutrition Specialists at global, national and sub-national levels who work in Nutrition in Emergencies. Based on the requests from the field, the group/forum was created with the following objectives:

• to create a forum for discussions and information sharing between Country Clusters;
• to strengthen capacity building of national and sub-national clusters by providing up-to-date information on issues related to nutrition in emergencies and coordination; 
• to ensure linkages between global and national as well as national and sub-national clusters;
• to share updates from the Global Nutrition Cluster with national and sub-national clusters (I will post regular updates, even those which will not be communicated through mailing lists).

It is hosted on linkedin.com  (discussions visible only to invited members). In order to join the group, please send a message to Anna Ziolkovska (aziolkovska@unicef.org) or directly on linkedin.com.

06-Feb-2013: Information on GNC Interim Strategic Advisory Group has been added.

30-Jan-2013: "MAM decision tool" has been translated into French and is available here

29-Jan-2013: The final (in terms of content, not design) version of GNC Handbook is now available at the GNC website

24 to 25-Jan-2013: GNC face-to-face meeting, Geneva, Switzerland. Presentations are available here. Meeting report will be uploaded soon.

23-Jan-2013: The GNC website has been updated. It now allows users to access more detailed, up to date information on all aspects of the nutrition clusters' work in emergencies. Some of the main updates are highlighted below:

• Vacancies page has been added. Please let us know if you have more advertisements to be posted
• IASC Cluster Reference Module was uploaded in both French and English
• All related documents for 'MAM: a Decision Tool for Emergencies' in both French and English were added
• New page on Inter-Cluster Cooperation, including information on gFSC and Nutrition WG, was added
• 'Cluster trainings' page was replaced with 'Upcoming events' page where upcoming meetings, trainings, workshops are advertised. Please send us relevant information which you want to be posted on the website
• More trainings added to 'Training packages' page
• 'Evaluation of IYCF programming' by Save the Children was added to 'Evaluations, reviews and lessons learned' page
• 'IYCF-E' page was updated with many new documents
• Information, documents and trainings on Coordinated Assessment were added to "Assessments" page
• Information and relevant links on communication with affected populations has been added to 'Advocacy and communication' page
• Minutes from GNC with NCCs meetings and calls are now available at `Country Nutrition Clusters` page
• Minutes from GNC partners meetings and calls are available at 'GNC meetings' page
• All countries' pages were updated with country-specific information. Please note that they will be updated further during following weeks.

Please visit our website on a regular basis as it is regularly updated. If you think that we missed some important information, documents, guidance, etc. as well as if you have any suggestions on a website improvement, please do not hesitate to contact us (aziolkovska@unicef.org) as soon as possible.