Summary of Global Nutrition Cluster meeting

By the Global Nutrition Cluster Coordination Team

The Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC), under the umbrella of the Interagency Standing Committee (IASC), is committed to fulfilling three areas of responsibility which are standards and policy setting, support to surge capacity, and operational support. Key to fulfilling these responsibilities is sharing information and engaging partners in order to enhance the capacity to respond to nutrition in emergencies. Since 2006, the GNC has undertaken face-to-face meetings to review cluster progress and collaboratively identify priorities for the following year.

The fifth annual meeting of the GNC took place in Nairobi, Kenya from 23 to 25 March, 2011. The meeting brought together 66 participants and resource persons from 39 partner agencies, in addition to nine country cluster coordinators (from Somalia, North Sudan, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Haiti, Niger, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Chad). The participants included independent resource persons as well as representatives from United Nations (UN) organizations (FAO, UNICEF, UNHCR, WFP, SCN/WHO), government (CDC), international non-governmental organisations and partnerships (ACF France and Canada, CARE, Concern, ENN, Helen Keller International, IMC, NutritionWorks, ICRC, Merlin, MSF Holland, Save the Children UK and US, Valid International, World Vision International), academic institutions (Institute of Child Health-University College London), donors (ECHO, DFID) and independent cluster members.

The objectives of the meeting were to review cluster achievements since the last GNC meeting (July 2010), review the strategic priorities and structural issues of the GNC, share technical updates, strengthen linkages between country, regional and global level in defining priorities and revise the annual GNC work-plan.

Day 1 of the meeting broadly reviewed the current status of GNC activities and working documents (the GNC Coordination Team (GNC CT) work plan, budget, GNC Strategic Framework, and GNC Standard Operating Procedures). This was followed by presentations of achievements and challenges from the field in recent emergencies and concluded with a review of the content and the proposed development process of the Nutrition Cluster Handbook.

Key points emerging were:

• The GNC Strategic Framework that was revised at the last GNC meeting in July 2010 will be updated in order to reflect more fully direct support from the GNC to country level clusters, strengthening emergency response, and ensuring that outputs are time bound.
• The GNC Standard Operating Procedures will be revised based on feedback from the discussion, in particular to reflect updated internal structure, administrative processes,and linkages with other technical bodies working in nutrition in emergencies (NiE).
• The ECHO supported capacity development component of GNC work focuses on four levels of training (regional level, Nutrition Cluster Coordinators (NCCs), cluster partners and senior management) in NiE and the cluster approach. Collaboration with other relevant capacity development initiatives will be pursued in order to strengthen this work.
• Presentations of nutrition cluster implementation from the field (South Sudan, the cholera component of the nutrition response in Haiti, Pakistan and Zimbabwe) demonstrated that the cluster approach has contributed to some improvements in responding to nutrition emergencies. At the same time, there are gaps in technical and operational level guidance to be addressed within the IASC, across clusters, and within technical bodies working in NiE. Similarly, while great strides have been taken to main stream the cluster function into the cluster lead agency, there are still areas that need to be strengthened and which will be taken forward through strategic advocacy.
• The Nutrition Cluster Handbook contents and development process were broadly endorsed. The development will be facilitated through the coming months in order to ensure complementarity with messaging in other cluster handbooks, the latest global guidance, and practical examples from the field.

Day 2 provided brief updates on technical issues in NiE and technical bodies that are leading developments in these areas. This included Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies and the work of the IFE Core Group, the work of the Community Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) ad hoc Group and results of the CMAM mapping, decisionmaking trees for nutritional products used in the Management of Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM), and supplies used in nutrition emergencies. These presentations were followed by discussions around strategic partnerships with complementary initiatives for NiE (the Food Security Cluster (FSC), Health and Nutrition Tracking Service (HNTS), and Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement) in order to define more clearly working relationships between the GNC and these initiatives. The afternoon focused on key issues in nutrition cluster coordination structures in the context of scale and timeframe of emergency and humanitarian financing.

Key points emerging were:

• Aims, and activities of IFE Core Group, CMAM ad hoc group, HNTS, FSC, and SUN were presented and critical and complementary areas of work in guidance, preparedness, and response were highlighted. Formal working relationships and systematic engagement by the GNC across technical bodies, as well as with the REACH initiative, will be further defined through consultation and will be formalised in the revised SOP. Similarly, the draft working principles between the FSC (to be formally launched in May 2011, including the merging of the Agriculture cluster) and the GNC, will be updated to reflect a more operational mechanism for engagement at global and country level.
• Due to the rapid expansion of CMAM since UN endorsement in 2007 and due to the need for accountability, UNICEF and Valid International completed a global mapping of UNICEF supported CMAM during 2010¹ to take stock of implementation. Results highlighted key areas for future work related to developing a global information system, measuring service delivery and coverage, and promoting capacity development.
• Products used in the management of MAM have increased, though this has not kept pace with formal guidance on the use of products. Several initiatives are working to address this gap (e.g. SUN, NUGAG²/ WHO, WFP, and UNHCR). A MAM Task force of 10 member agencies was formed in 2011 to harmonise technical consensus. A standardised decision tree for emergency nutrition programmes was presented and discussed with a view that this decision-making tool would be further developed through the Task Force.
• Purchase of nutrition products have significantly increased over the past decade, however challenges in procurement remain in relation to standards, specifications and suppliers. It was proposed and accepted to initiate a time bound ad hoc Group further to define and address these issues.
• Staffing structures required for nutrition cluster coordination and estimated annual costings were developed by the GNC CT to enable UNICEF as cluster lead agency realistically to mainstream these costs. These structures were discussed and updated taking into account operational advantages and disadvantages. Similarly, the NCC role in humanitarian financing processes was discussed. Feedback will be taken to the CLA, IASC, and donors by the GNC CT, in addition to other issues raised related to recruitment and retention of cluster coordinator capacity.

Day 3 began with an update from UNSCN, followed by group work to develop components of the GNC work plan. Broad outlines of the work plans were presented by each of the Working Groups and ad hoc Groups, while NCCs that did not make formal presentations shared their priority areas for action. The meeting ended with defining the broad way forward.

Key points emerging were:

• Key areas of collaboration between the UNSCN and GNC include hosting and dissemination of information, and providing fora for discussion and development of technical guidance. There are a number of outstanding questions related to governance of the UNSCN that need to be resolved before definitive working relationships with the GNC can be refined and finalised. It was agreed that there is currently a gap in terms of fora for discussion of technical issues around nutrition in emergencies, and there was broad consensus that the GNC should write an open letter to the UNSCN to reinstate the NIE Working Group.
• Several issues were raised around the identity of the GNC, which will be addressed through a time bound ad hoc Group. This will include refinement of terminology for the GNC (GNC CT, GNC Core Group, NCCs, and additional resource persons) as well as clear categorisation of GNC activities to ensure appropriate leadership and acknowledgement of all inputs. An interim style guide, including logo, will also be developed in order to ensure that outputs produced by the GNC are recognisable as such.
• One area of GNC activity that was highlighted for strengthening is information and knowledge management, in order to improve documentation and lesson learning in areas where guidance is limited, such as phasing in and phasing out of the nutrition cluster approach. The GNC will develop a strategy to address this through existing channels as well as in terms of developing additional mechanisms.

Four broad steps were outlined in the way forward, beginning with documentation and dissemination of the meeting discussions. Second, the initial outlines of the work plans will be more fully developed by the GNC CT and chairs of the working groups and ad hoc groups. Third, a fundraising strategy will be developed between the GNC CT and chairs of the working groups and ad hoc groups in order to ensure that resources are available at the right time and in the right form so that the activities can be accomplished. Finally, the GNC CT will review and strengthen activities to support moving forward with the funded activities.

Full documentation of the meeting, including the meeting report, agenda, participants and presentations can be found at: http://oneresponse.info/GlobalClusters/Nutrition/Pages/Global%20Cluster%20Meetings.aspx

¹See summary of the CMAM Mapping in this issue of Field Exchange

²Nutrition Guidance Expert Advisory Group