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Field Article
Table 3: Monthly beneficiary number and proportion of
malnourished children enrolled in IBSFP in North Delta area,
May – July 2011
Month IBSFP centres Total < 5
children
Registered
May
June
July
August
role in ensuring successful implementation and
outreach of the programme. Initiation of the project
through the community leaders created strong link
between the targeted community and the SMoH.
The community change agents took ownership of
the project and felt a sense of responsibility towards
the community members. Use of the change agents
eased the task of convincing the community about the
need for behaviour change and also facilitated the task
of the health staff in the health centres. Food for work
played an important role in motivating change agents
The SFP centre attracted children and women from
beyond the usual catchment area of the health centres.
The toys made available at the health and social
club assisted the nutrition educators to entertain children
while women were discussing and listening to
the nutrition education and take accurate measurements
of children by making them relaxed during the
measurements and consequently increasing the accuracy
of the measurements.
Cooking demonstrations of various recipes of
complementary foods from locally available
commodities and CSB at the health club gave the
chance for women to learn proper food preparation
and hygiene practices while also keeping women
interested while health and nutrition messages were
delivered.
Community club meetings provided opportunities
for women to discuss a wide variety of topics beyond
food, feeding, food safety and food hygiene.
Intensive monitoring by the MoH and WFP as well
as the community leaders was important for the overall
outcome of the pilot.
61
Total
MAM
Cases
Total
SAM
Cases
GAM
rate
Umalguraa 402 47 22 17%
Britani 352 40 14 15%
Hadalia residents 391 50 10 15%
Hadalia IDPs 301 35 15 17%
Total/average 1446 172 61 16%
Umalguraa 498 34 10 9%
Britani 356 31 7 11%
Hadalia residents 200 25 5 15%
Hadalia IDPs 305 28 9 12%
Total/average 1359 118 31 11%
Umalguraa 442 22 7 7%
Britani 428 21 8 7%
Hadalia residents 361 28 12 11%
Hadalia IDPs 305 16 6 7%
Total/average 1536 87 33 8%
Umalguraa 442 13 6 4%
Britani 428 9 7 4%
Hadalia residents 361 21 6 7%
Hadalia IDPs 305 11 12 8%
Total/average 1536 54 31 6%
Conclusions
Changing harmful infant and young child feeding
practices requires active participation of the community
in the learning process. When food availability
and quality is enhanced through the provision of
small quantities of highly fortified food combined
with the intensive engagement of the community
around harmful feeding practices, the impact of food
aid is significantly increased. The size of the
programme allowed intensive monitoring by SMoH
and WFP. The challenge lies in taking the pilot to scale.
For more information, contact: Pushpa Acharya,
email: Pushpa.Acharya@wfp.org
Roisin Gallagher/Concern, Haiti 2011
Signs at the water stand encourage people to drink chlorinated water
– prior to the painted signboards being erected, people were not
convinced that the water was safe to drink
Evaluation of Concern’s
response to the Haiti
Earthquake
By Andy Featherstone
Andy Featherstone is an independent humanitarian research and policy consultant.
With significant experience working for NGOs and interagency networks, he
specialises in helping agencies learn from their work and in bridging the gap
between policy and practice.
The earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010 did so with devastating
consequences. More than 200,000 people were killed, 300,000 were injured
and over one million were left homeless. The cocktail of extreme vulnerability
coupled with the huge loss of life and massive destruction wrought on
Haiti’s largest urban area and political and commercial hub effectively decapitated
the state. It left hundreds of thousands of people traumatised and without the means
necessary to sustain life and livelihood. It was this that precipitated the tremendous
generosity that saw Concern raise 28 million euro and embark on its largest singlecountry
humanitarian programme since it was established in 1968.
An evaluation was undertaken eight months after the earthquake 1 and followed
an unprecedented expansion of the programme and staff. The purpose of the exercise
was to review the appropriateness, timeliness, efficiency and effectiveness of
both the interventions carried out and operational support systems with an important
focus being placed on documenting lessons learnt.
The evaluation findings were as follows.
Timeliness
The response was timely, particularly the early support to water, sanitation and
hygiene (WASH). An area where Concern performed particularly strongly was in
quickly moving beyond a focus on support to urban areas to meeting the needs of
displaced and host communities in rural areas.
While Concern was successful in providing timely assistance in important sectors
of its response, the organisation lacks consensus over the use of its surge capacity
mechanisms, the Emergency Response Team (ERT) and Rapid Deployment Unit
(RDU). It is urgent that agreement is reached over how to manage and deploy these
assets to most effect in the future.
1
Featherstone. A (2010). Evaluation of Concern’s Response to the Haiti Earthquake. October 2010