TOR REVIEW FOR 2018 INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT OF ACUTE MALNUTRITION NATIONAL GUIDELINES

ABOUT ACTION AGAINST HUNGER
Action Against Hunger is the world’s hunger specialist and a non-profit leader in a global movement that aims to end life-threatening hunger for good. For over 40 years, the humanitarian organization has innovated better ways to treat and prevent hunger. It serves more than 21 million people annually across 55 countries – with 7 countries within the Horn and Eastern Africa Region including Tanzania. In Tanzania, the organization was established in 2015 and has been intervening in the areas of nutrition and health in Dodoma and Singida region supporting the implementation of the National Multi-sectoral Nutrition Action Plan in close association with the Ministry of Health, PO-RALG, and other sector ministries as well as local government authorities.

PROJECT BACKGROUND
Accelerating National Wasting Treatment Reform is a 12-month project; with a focus on accelerating the adaptation of the new WHO guideline on the prevention and management of wasting and nutritional oedema in infants and children under 5 years of age by the national government in close collaboration with all stakeholders in the country under the leadership of the Ministry of Health. The project is also implemented in six other countries across Asia and Africa continents namely Mauritania, Solomon Islands, Central Africa Republic, Ivory Coast, PDR Laos, and Tanzania.

The project is expected to contribute to the 2020 Global Action Plan (GAP) on child wasting through the acceleration of the delivery of essential actions and the creation of a more enabling environment to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets of reducing wasting prevalence to less than 5% by the year 2025 and further reducing wasting prevalence to less than 3% by the year 2030.

In July and November 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a revised guideline on the prevention and management of wasting and nutritional oedema in infants and children under 5 years of age. The guideline provided 19 recommendations and 10 good practice statements to tackle an expanded range of nutritional challenges that include four areas of focus: infants less than 6 months of age at risk of poor growth and development, moderate wasting in infants and children 6-59 months of age, severe wasting and nutrition oedema from a child health perspective. These recommendations, however, will only be able to save lives once they are contextualized and incorporated into national policies, guidelines, and strategies.

Action Against Hunger and other nutrition partners acknowledge that the 2018 National Guideline for the Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition has been useful in supporting the treatment of acute malnutrition, ensuring quality treatment among all wasted children including children with nutritional oedema. The National Multi-sectoral Nutrition Action Plan (NMNAP) II, addresses childhood undernutrition holistically to save lives and further prevent underlying causes of malnutrition across the life cycle. It is in this view that, Action Against Hunger in collaboration with Ministry of Health take the advantage of this opportunity to collaboratively contribute to the government efforts to address childhood undernutrition through facilitating adoption and contextualization of the WHO recommendations and good practices into a national policy for implementation.