Country: Somalia
Closing date: 15 Dec 2017
CONSULTANCY FOR NUTRITION ADVOCACY TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT OF ACSM STRATEGY
Background Information
Background information
INTERSOS is an independent non-profit making humanitarian organization committed to assisting victims of natural disasters and armed conflicts. It was established in the year 1992 with active support of Italian Trade Unions. INTERSOS activities are based on the principles of solidarity, justice, human dignity, equality of rights and opportunities and respect for diversity and co-existence, paying special attention to the most vulnerable and unprotected people. INTERSOS was created to provide an effective response to crisis situations in the poorest regions of the world, where the population is deprived of their rights and dignity and their basic needs are uncovered. INTRESOS has a flexible operation structure, with the central headquarters in Rome, in charge of planning and coordination of operations, and of field offices in the countries of operation.
Since March, 2014, INTERSOS with support from UNICEF- Somalia and in close collaboration with Ministry of Health (MoH), has been working towards improving health and nutrition status of children aged below 5 years (U5) together with Pregnant and Lactating Women (PLWs) in Jowhar and Balad districts of Middle Shabelle, Central South Zone of Somalia.
Generally, in Somalia, infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices are very low. Cultural and traditional practices, low maternal awareness and high illiteracy rates are some of the major predisposing factors to poor IYCF practices. Breastfeeding is often initiated very late after birth and exclusive breastfeeding rates for the first six-months are very low. Further, breastfeeding is stopped earlier than recommended and sub-optimal complementary feeding serves to exacerbate the problem of poor infant and young child feeding. Commonly-used weaning foods often do not meet the nutritional requirements of the young children. Poor hygiene and sanitation practices, and limited access to improved water, also contribute substantially to child mortality. Undernourished girls and women feeds into the inter-generational cycle of malnutrition leading to a population unable to meet their full physical and mental potential.
INTERSOS seeks to develop an advocacy strategy based on facts to convince key decision makers to commit the necessary resources to achieve and sustain programme objectives. Advocacy efforts will also target key decision makers at household level to participate in processes aimed at ensuring that community members access appropriate Health and Nutrition services.
Background of Nutrition Advocacy
Advocacy has become popular because organizations have realized that service delivery approaches, with or without empowerment methods to accompany them, can only achieve limited results. And that some of these results are temporary, disappearing after organizations leave the area. Therefore, it is obvious that large scale, sustainable results need governments and other powerful institutions to act so that citizens' rights are respected including the right to adequate nutrition.
Advocacy can take place at many levels: from grassroots, community based initiatives to national level work with existing government structures and institutions, as well as advocacy to address international institutions and inter-governmental bodies. Sometimes governments themselves are limited in what they can do with the help of policies or activities of international institutions like UNICEF, WHO, FAO, World Food Programme and other major international donors. Achieving national change sometimes means developing regional/international advocacy alliances that address the policies or activities of these actors. Advocacy as a method is neither good nor bad. What you advocate for, and how you conduct your advocacy, is what gives it a positive social value. Advocacy can be used to achieve change that hurts poor and marginalized people and organizations can use advocacy techniques to achieve results that you may not want to see happen, e.g. multinationals lobbying governments to persuade them to buy branded/patented medicines rather than generic ones, or to promote milk powder or inappropriate baby foods.
Objectives of Advocacy Training
To form a regional committee within Middle Shabelle which will effectively address Nutrition issues including influencing and lobbying for formulation of Nutrition sensitive policies that provide for plans and budgets to set up necessary structures.
The implementation of the training will be accomplished by undertaking the following specific tasks:
Equipping participants with knowledge and skills pertinent to advocacy
Exploring how advocacy can help to achieve nutrition and food security objectives within middle Shebelle.
Analyzing with participants the role of an advocate and anticipated challenges in advocacy
Reviewing best practices in communicating nutrition and food security issues to non-technical audiences
Ensuring that participants are able to learn from each other’s experiences of nutrition and food security advocacy
Building the skills and understanding of participants in selected advocacy tools
Building participants’ skills in development and implementation of an advocacy strategy.
Familiarizing the participants with basic elements in power mapping
Increasing the participants understanding on how to develop a power map and action/work plan
Workshop Participants
A total of 33 trainees will be equipped with skills and knowledge pertinent to nutrition advocacy.
Training Methodology
The consultant is expected to employ a participatory approach which will involve the use of facilitator’s presentations, where facilitation will be done through lectures, power point presentation, questions and answers. Plenary discussions will be effectively used to engage the participants. Participants will also be engaged in role play, brain storming, simulation and reflection sessions to help them fully grasp nutrition advocacy issues. The participants will share their personal experiences which expected to enrich training process.
Course Content:
The training mainly focused on; what advocacy is and its importance, advocacy tools box and skills, nutrition landscape, message creation for different audiences, power mapping and networks and alliances.
Deliverables
A cogent training agenda capturing all aspects of Nutrition advocacy highlighted above.
Training report
Advocacy communication and social mobilization strategy.
How to apply:
Interested applicants are asked to send their application to by 15th December 2017 to recruitment.somalia@intersos.org.