Conference for community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM)
Concern Worldwide, in partnership with Irish Aid, is hosting a conference for community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) practitioners on the 22nd to 25th March 2021, entitled ‘CMAM 20 Years On: Going to Scale in Fragile Contexts’. The conference marks the 20th anniversary of the first CMAM pilot which signalled a huge leap forward in the detection and treatment of child wasting and nutritional oedema and for child survival.
Two decades on, the fundamentals of the original model – community mobilisation, use of a ready-to-use-therapeutic food and simple assessment and treatment protocols – remain very much intact and central to its effectiveness. At the same time, practitioners and policy makers have been continuously adapting the approach to local contexts, health systems and community structures in an effort to reach the millions of children in need of treatment services. Some of these adaptations have been consolidated as best practice while others have not been well documented or evaluated. In the context of COVID-19, many adaptations are being fast-tracked to support continued nutrition treatment during the pandemic. Consensus is lacking on which adaptations should be taken forward and in which contexts they may be most effective.
Meanwhile, a number of structural and resource-related barriers to scale up persist, including funding, human resources, supply chains and coordination. The 2020 Global Action Plan (GAP) on Child Wasting sets out a framework to better prevent and treat child wasting to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of reducing the proportion of children who are wasted from 7.3% to less than 5% by 2025 and less than 3% by 2030. Work is also underway to develop road maps for countries with a high burden of wasting to achieve these targets.
This conference aims to:
- Identify the key enablers and barriers to bringing effective management of wasting (and nutritional oedema) to scale
- Review evidence-based and promising adaptations to the management of wasting (and nutritional oedema)
- Identify critical gaps in the knowledge, evidence and resources needed to facilitate best and promising practice to scale
- Identify priority actions needed to better manage wasting (and nutritional oedema) at scale in light of the Global Action Plan on Child Wasting
Up to 100 practitioners and technical experts from governments, international organisations, donor agencies and research institutions will be invited as a core group of online participants. Governments and stakeholders from a selected set of high burden countries in more fragile contexts will present their experience of scaling up services for wasting (and nutritional oedema). Other topics will include experience implementing simplified approaches, strategies for supporting community health workers, planning for seasonal caseload fluctuations and the management of at-risk mothers and infants under six months, among others.
To register for the conference please go to https://www.accelevents.com/e/CMAM2021
Subscribe freely to receive Field Exchange content to your mailbox or front door.