Standard Project Report 2016
for health staff to distribute food at mobile health clinics, called SISCa. In addition, Oecusse health staff supported a series of evening events in February and March 2016 to raise awareness on the importance of good nutrition for children and women, and screening for moderate acute malnutrition.
WFP partnered with several local and international organisations working on nutrition, maternal health, and infant health during 2016. For instance, for the emergency response programme in the eastern municipalities, WFP made agreements with CARE International, Catholic Relief Services, and local non-governmental organizations( NGOs) HIAM Health and Cinema Loro sa ' e to do health promotion, providing them with behaviour change communication materials and training. In addition, WFP partnered with Liga Inan, a mobile telephone service for pregnant and lactating women( PLW), to provide messages on events and the availability of specialised nutritious food( SNF) for women. One of the programme’ s partners, World Vision, provided a portion of their local staff’ s salary free of cost to WFP, estimated at USD 12,500 in 2016.
WFP worked with local producer Timor Global to produce Timor Vita, in order to ensure a local supply of SNF for PLW. The proportion of locally sourced Timor Vita would have been higher, however Timor Global had difficulties producing sufficient food as ordered by WFP. One challenge was sourcing high-quality raw materials in-country, or otherwise planning to import soya beans and corn within the time frame needed to meet production deadlines. For instance, Timor Global worked with local farmers ' groups to buy corn, but as a result of poor storage conditions, at least one lot of corn was found to be unfit for consumption.
WFP suggested that the programme should import the SNF for women from another producer as a backup when these delays occurred. At the end of the year, the Ministry of Health had not made a final decision and was investigating whether the Ministry of Commerce and Industry could partially fund the cost of purchasing from Timor Global which was higher than sourcing Super Cereal from elsewhere. The Ministry of Health and the Government supported the local producer, Timor Global, in an effort to increase incomes for farmers through the purchase of corn and thereby increase agricultural business in Timor-Leste. In order to assist Timor Global to diversify its markets, WFP hired a value chain and marketing specialist, who advised on how Timor Global could more effectively produce and locally market nutritious snack foods for children and fortified cereals for infants above the age of six months.
Performance Monitoring
One of the major aims of the programme was to strengthen the Ministry of Health’ s monitoring and evaluation capacity, in particular to use municipal level data to feed into the national health monitoring system, and to use this data to continuously improve programme performance. One of the major achievements in 2016 was that the monthly nutrition reports were produced at municipal health service level with field staff support, in all six municipalities, rather than being produced at the central level as was previously done. Data quality and timeliness also improved in 2016, with municipal health services providing higher quality data towards the end of the year as a result of frequent supervision and support from WFP and national level health staff, training for staff.
By the end of 2016, the number of health facility checklists conducted had increased by 190 percent compared to 2015. In addition, to ensure beneficiaries were provided with proper treatment and nutrition information, WFP field staff conducted household interviews, the findings from which were then fed back to health staff using the online software eWIN( electronic WFP information network) and tablets which enabled real-time monitoring. In 2016, the number of household interviews increased by 240 percent compared to 2015.
WFP’ s monitoring and evaluation( M & E) consultant worked with the Ministry of Health’ s M & E system to develop nutrition indicators on the first web-based national health information system, the Timor-Leste Health Information System( TLHIS), and provided nationwide data on nutrition in five of the six municipalities where WFP’ s programme operated. The programme’ s reporting tools were further adjusted to be ready to directly feed into TLHIS once it is rolled out. This close coordination was facilitated by having the M & E consultant co-located in the Ministry of Health.
At field level, recruiting female field staff and monitors has often been difficult because of a lack of candidates with the requisite skills, the ability to ride a motorbike and travel to remote areas. However, for the emergency operation in 2016, WFP successfully recruited a female field officer, in addition to a male field staff member, for Lautem municipality. By employing one male and one female staff, tasks such as remote field visits and coordination with the municipal health services could be divided according to capabilities, and the risk of remote travel for the female staff member was reduced.
Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of( TL) 17 Development Project- 200770