Concern will support the treatment of at least 50,000 children with acute malnutrition annually via support to governments.

Stronger health systems for nutrition

Between 2021 to 2025 Concern commits 96 million Euros in order to reach 250,000 children in 10 countries by supporting governments and other key stakeholders to strengthen the resilience of health systems so they can deliver nutrition services at scale and continue to do so during and after shocks, including further development and expansion of the CMAM Surge approach.

Concern will support selected governments in the implementation of the Global Action Plans on Child Wasting (GAP) country frameworks focusing on strengthening practical integration and delivery of services for wasting into health systems in fragile and conflicted affected countries, to deliver effective, integrated nutrition services at scale. Working with partners, Concern will contribute technical, financial and logistical support to government counterparts to better analyse and address bottlenecks in the integrated delivery of nutrition services. This will include training/ capacity strengthening, support to supply chains for key nutrition commodities, promotion of supportive supervision at health facility level; and engagement and capacity building at community level for early identification and referral of children with acute malnutrition (e.g. Family MUAC). Concern also commits to generating and sharing practical learning on nutrition service delivery in different contexts and at all? levels of the health system.

The CMAM Surge approach is designed to build capacity within the health system to better anticipate, prepare for, and respond to seasonal peaks in wasting. Concern will continue to coordinate and lead both the West African CMAM Surge Taskforce and the Global CMAM Surge Technical Working Group. These groups coordinate CMAM Surge activities, maximizing quality, effectiveness and learning by: (1) pursuing a CMAM Surge learning agenda on key issues emerging from practitioners; (2) identifying and promoting positive adaptations and best practice on CMAM Surge and (3) identifying opportunities for continued scale-up of the approach. Taskforce members include CMAM Surge practitioners from NGOs, UN, donors, implementing governments, and other relevant actors.