Standard Project Report 2016 indicators.
• 130 health staff, including community health promoters and 35 staff from partners World Vision, United States Peace Corps, and the Alola Foundation, received training on the use of behaviour change tools for nutrition.
• WFP field staff conducted 360 visits to health facilities in collaboration with district public health officers, and conducted regular on-the-job training on data collection and reporting with nutrition focal points at the municipal level.
• District public health officers received capacity development to produce monthly nutrition reports( fact sheets) on progress in their respective municipalities.
• Nutrition indicators for the web-based national health information system were developed and available nationwide data on nutrition were fed into this system.
At the national level, WFP also advocated for more financial and other support to the Ministry of Health in order to increase their capacity to implement nutrition programmes. For example, WFP worked with the national parliament to increase funding provided for nutrition treatment programmes, and introduced the online supply chain management system, mSupply.
Strategic Objective: Reduce undernutrition and break the intergenerational cycle of hunger( SO4)
Outcome: Moderately malnourished children aged 6-59 months and malnourished pregnant and lactating women have access to supplementary food in sufficient quantity and quality [ 1 ]
Activity: Nutrition support
WFP supported the Ministry of Health to identify and provide counselling and treatment for pregnant and lactating women( PLW) as well as infants and young children aged 6-59 months with moderate acute malnutrition( MAM). Following the roll out of the MAM treatment programme in 2015, the programme continued to be implemented in 2016 in 6 of the 13 municipalities of Timor-Leste— Bobonaro, Covalima, Oecusse, Ermera, Dili and Ainaro. PLW were provided with a locally produced Super Cereal called Timor Vita, while children aged 6-59 months received ready-to-use supplementary food, called Plumpy ' Sup.
Given the high levels of MAM in the targeted municipalities as identified through mass screening, it was decided that a programme for the prevention of acute malnutrition should be implemented in select municipalities for a limited time period. Following discussions with the Ministry of Health, it was agreed to provide Plumpy ' Sup to all children aged 6-23 months in Oecusse, which was the municipality with the highest rates of wasting( 19.8 percent) identified by the Timor-Leste Food and Nutrition Survey( TLFNS, 2013). Following a drastic decrease in the coverage rate of children aged 6-59 months attending the MAM treatment programme in Dili, it was agreed to provide the same prevention programme in the city. At the request of the Ministry of Health, the prevention intervention in Dili was expanded to include children aged 24-59 months. This was partly based on the programme ' s previous experience in Oecusse, where there had been challenges with messaging on the different target groups of the programmes for the prevention of MAM( children aged 6-23 months) and treatment of MAM( children aged 6-59 months), and where health staff and community members preferred to provide the SNF for prevention to children up to the age of 59 months.
In addition, two partners, Alola Foundation and World Vision, screened nearly all households with children under 5 years in Covalima, Oecusse and Dili for both MAM and severe acute malnutrition( SAM), and referred cases identified to health facilities. Treatment included the provision of SNF to women and children, as well as counselling on the prevention of malnutrition and appropriate infant and young child feeding practices.
In 2016, a far higher than targeted number of PLW aged 18 or above were provided with nutrition treatment while a lower than targeted number of PLW aged 15-18 years were provided with treatment. This was a result of the project plan being based on incomplete census data. In 2017, the country office will amend targets to reflect the existing demographic breakdowns based on up-to-date data. Around one in three( 36 percent) of PLW that enrolled in the acute malnutrition treatment programme was not able to finish the full course of treatment, which entailed the provision of SNF for a period of six months. As a consequence, only 43 percent of the planned quantity of Timor Vita was actually distributed.
Under the MAM treatment programme, the uptake of nutrition services by children aged 6-59 months increased dramatically in 2016 compared to 2015, which resulted in a higher distribution of Plumpy ' Sup than planned for the year. This over-achievement was the result of increased enrolment rates of children in 2016 due to the establishment of mother support groups which encouraged enrolment, increased health promotion activities, ongoing training and support to health staff, and mass screenings to identify children in need of treatment. Meanwhile, the actual distribution of Timor Vita( categorised as corn-soya blend in the table below) in 2016 was lower than planned as a result of significant delays in production.
Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of( TL) 14 Development Project- 200770