YEMEN NUTRITION CLUSTER

TERMS OF REFERENCE

  1. Background Information:

The ‘Cluster Approach[1]’ was adopted by the interagency standing committee as a key strategy to establish coordination and cooperation among humanitarian actors to achieve more coherent and effective humanitarian response. At the country level, the aim is to establish clear leadership and accountability for international response in each sector and to provide a framework for effective partnership and to facilitate strong linkages among international organization, national authorities, national civil society and other stakeholders. The cluster is meant to strengthen rather than to replace the existing coordination structure. In September 2005, IASC Principals agreed to designate global Cluster Lead Agencies (CLA) in critical programme and operational areas. UNICEF was designated as the Global Nutrition Cluster Lead Agency (CLA).

The nutrition cluster approach was adopted and initiated in Yemen in August 2009, immediately after the break-out of the sixth war between government forces and the Houthis in Sa’ada governorate in northern Yemen. Since then Yemen has continued to face complex emergencies that are largely conflict-generated and in part aggravated by civil unrest and political instability. These complex emergencies have come on the top of an already fragile situation with widespread poverty, food insecurity and underdeveloped infrastructure. Currently, Yemen has one of the highest rates of chronic malnutrition in the world, with close to 60 per cent of children found stunted in 2011, whilst rates of acute malnutrition are estimated at 15 per cent. In certain areas of the country acute malnutrition affects 31 per cent of children under the age of 5, which is far beyond the emergency threshold.

The total population of Yemen is estimated to be 25 million. Population of under 5 year childrenis estimated to be more than 4.5 million. Out of these approx. 357,990 suffer from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and about 807,712 suffer from moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) in the revised YHRP 2015. In light of the predominance of all determinants and aggravating factors of malnutrition (measles outbreaks, high level of diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infections (ARIs), high level of food insecurity intensified by increase in the food prices, poverty, low exclusive breast feeding (EBF) rate at 10%, very low awareness level about appropriate feeding practices, on-going conflicts and displacements), the nutrition cluster partners expect a further increase in the trend of U5 malnutrition countrywide, which will require extra coordination and cross-sectoral collaboration. Insufficient government efficiency and commitment to contain this critical situation is another constraint placing additional accountabilities on the nutrition cluster.

The Nutrition cluster is currently well established at national level, with five sub national clustersat the zonal level in Hodeidah, Taiz, Aden, Saada and Sanaa, holding regular scheduled meetings and calling extraordinary meetings when necessary. All cluster meetings are strategic in purpose, planned with a clear agenda, action-oriented, and propose reality-based decisions for follow-up. The nutrition cluster meeting is chaired by UNICEF and co-chaired by MOPHP.

The nutrition cluster is guided by the UNICEF’s conceptual framework for analysing and addressing the causes of malnutrition through a multi-sectoral approach hence enhanced collaborations with key sectors/clusters such as Health, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Food security and Agriculture. The Nutrition Cluster is a member of the Country level humanitarian country team (HCT)/Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC)and the Inter Cluster Coordination Mechanism, which is headed by OCHA at central and zonal levels and continuously contributes to updating the humanitarian situation and response in Yemen.

  1. Vision, Purpose and Objectives:

The vision of the nutrition cluster is to safeguard and improve the nutrition status of emergency affected populations by ensuring an appropriate response that is predictable, timely, and effective and at scale.

The primarypurpose of the nutrition cluster is to support and strengthen a coordinated multi-sectoral approach in nutrition strategic planning, situation analysis and response both in emergencies and non-emergency situations. This necessitates developing and enhancing coordination structures, appropriate nutrition guidelines /policies and strategies that meet acceptable minimum standards within different and ever-evolving contexts in Yemen.

The objectives of the nutrition cluster (referenced to YHRP 2014-2015) include:

  • To ensure adequacy, coherence and effectiveness of the delivery of timely and equitable life-saving and early recovery nutrition services, so as to contribute to the prevention of death and the reduction of acute/chronic under-nutrition and associated micronutrient deficiency disorders among vulnerable U5 girls and boys and pregnant and lactating women nationwide.
  • To strengthen the capacity of nutrition partners i.e. UN, INGOs, NNGOs/ CBOs, local communities and line ministries to deliver nutrition sensitive and nutrition specific interventions through linking nutrition to health, WASH, and livelihoods programming.
  1. Mandate:

The nutrition cluster in Yemen is committed for and has the following mandates to ensure quality coordination mechanism in Yemen:

a)Ensure an effective and timely response to nutritional emergencies in the country through systematic coordination, operational planning, preparedness, response and monitoring

b)Follow the globally accepted humanitarian principles that include the following principles:

  • Humanity: upholding the principle that all girls, boys, women and men of every age shall be treated humanely in all circumstances by saving lives and alleviating suffering, while ensuring respect for the individual.
  • Impartiality: ensuring that assistance is delivered to all those who are suffering, based only on their needs and rights, equally and without any form of discrimination.
  • Neutrality: a commitment not to take sides in hostilities and to refrain from engaging in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature.
  • Operational independence: Humanitarian action must be autonomous from the political, economic, military or other objectives that any actor may hold with regard to areas where humanitarian action is being implemented.

c)Facilitate national and local partners to expand and strengthen cluster approach at national and zonal levels

d)Mainstream gender and social inclusion including children and young people participation in disaster management cycle

  1. Cluster Specific Tasks:
  2. Supporting service delivery
  • Update the 4 W matrix on a monthly basis and post on website to better inform geographical and programmatic coverage, and to prevent overlapping/duplication in the services, this exercise will further enhance the cluster timely gap detections, and resources mobilization among agencies
  • Convene regular nutrition cluster meetings on central and zonal level with clear objectives as demonstrated in well-informed agenda, decisions and actions, documented through meeting minutes. Extraordinary meetings are convened whenever necessary
  • Documentation and circulation of comprehensive cluster minutes and cluster presentations and post on website
  • Update nutrition cluster response matrix, including partner feedback from monthly reports (with new GAM and SAM rates, new admissions for SAM and MAM, new health facility data, 4 W information, analysis and action points
  • Update the humanitarian situation with OCHA and CLA on a weekly basis
  • Support partners in their effort to Scale-up the nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive response (SAM, MAM, IYCF interventions) and ensure increased geographical and treatment coverage through linking nutrition to health, WASH, and livelihoods programming.
  • Communicate changes in gap and response analysis to partners and donors, solicit input from the field on the speed of scale-up and closely track admission rates by governorates through matrix
  • Continue capacity –building efforts to enhance coordination outside Sanaa
  • Maintain an updated contact and mailing list of implementing partners and donors
  • Participate in other related cluster meetings when possible. Use updated assessment from Health, WASH, and Food Security and Agriculture clusters to feed into nutrition needs assessment

4.2Information sharing

  • Disseminate information on the nutrition situation and response to the cluster members and to other stakeholders in a timely manner
  • Share updates on new developments in nutrition (technical discussions that facilitate knowledge dissemination to implementing agencies)
  • Share nutrition response information with zonal clusters on a regular basis
  • Identify and agree on the communication, information sharing and decision making channels/ mechanisms among all stakeholders with respect to assessment and response

4.3Planning and strategy development

  • Develop joint consensus, vision and strategy for priority programming, vulnerability population and the cluster target
  • Develop and update cluster strategy, cluster annual work plan as well as other longer plans as necessary
  • Contribute to the development of national nutrition policies and guidelines appropriate to the Yemeni context
  • Regular update partners on status of nutrition response funding on a monthly basis
  • Review on a monthly basis (operational priorities, geographic priorities, current gaps and response, updating needs assessment)

4.4Monitoring and Evaluation

  • Support the representation and participation of the nutrition cluster in Initial Rapid Needs Assessments, in collaboration with OCHA
  • Establish mechanisms and develop tools for monitoring the progress and extent of nutrition services provided, and prepare updates on activities and results of the collective work of cluster members in light of the agreed minimum standards including cross-cutting themes such as Age, gender and HIV/AIDs
  • Create pool of experts in SMART and SQUEAsurveys methodology in Yemen to be deployed whenever nutrition assessment is needed to ensure accurate situation analysis
  • Ensure that all rapid nutrition assessments and surveys conducted by partners are carried out using the agreed approved rapid assessment and survey methodology and procedures
  • Update the CMAM database on who is doing what and where and map their capacities
  • Provide regular updates on cluster performance and nutrition situation information to the humanitarian coordinator, nutrition cluster members and donors through the nutrition cluster coordinator
  • Adopt standardized assessment and monitoring approach for nutrition survey, using SMART methodology to ensure timely reliable data in standardized way for decision making and for prioritization and comparability reasons
  • Produce cluster bulletin on a quarterly basis and circulate widely to partners, OCHA, inter cluster, donors and post on website

4.5Preparedness and capacity building

  • Develop a contingency plan and preparedness for new/ predicted emergencies, and ensure this is adequately reflected in the overall humanitarian country strategies and response plans
  • Promote and support training and capacity building of nutrition partners, based on the mapping and understanding of available capacity
  • Support efforts to strengthen the capacity of the national/ local authorities and civil society on technical nutrition issues

4.6Advocacy

  • Identify core advocacy concerns, including resource requirements, and contribute key messages to broader advocacy initiatives of the HC and other actors
  • Advocate with donors to fund cluster partners to carry out priority activities, while at the same time encouraging cluster partners to mobilize resources for their activities through their usual channels
  • Advocate for and promote appropriate interventions in accessible areas of identified need
  • Advocate for innovative strategies of providing nutrition services in insecure areas
  • Advocate for appropriate inter- sectoral strategies to address underlying causes of malnutrition
  • Encourage consideration of nutrition in other sector programming (primarily with WASH, Health and Food Assistance, Agriculture and Livelihoods clusters)
  • Advocate for long-term nutrition interventions addressing root causes of malnutrition

4.7Accountability to affected population

  • Document and share information and current experience on how partners are integrating accountability to affected populations into their programming
  • Transform reports and updates into info packs for communities
  • Encourage the sharing of feedback from the beneficiary level into cluster meetings
  • Involve communities in planning of response
  • Involve communities in design of assessments, programmes and evaluations
  1. Proposal Review

Establish a technical review committee (TRC) to review nutrition cluster member projects submitted to Humanitarian Pooled Fund (HPF) including the chair and co-chair. The TRC should have technical representatives from UN agencies, INGO and NNGO against a cluster- agreed set of criteria.

  1. Provider of last resort

As per IASC Principals, sector leads are responsible for acting as the provider of last resort (subject to access, security and availability of funding) to meet agreed priority needs. Cluster leads will be supported by the HC and the ERC in their resource mobilization efforts in this regard. As provider of last resort, Cluster leads must be ready to ensure the provision of services required to fill critical gaps identified by the cluster. This includes gaps in relation to early recovery needs. Where critical gaps persist in spite of concerted efforts to address them, the cluster lead is responsible for working with the national authorities, the HC and donors to advocate for appropriate action and resource mobilization.

The responsibility of the Nutrition Cluster Lead Agency’s (UNICEF) and the co-lead (MOPHP) for “Provision of Last Resort” shall be activated when all three conditions below are met:

1. The Nutrition Cluster agrees that there is an important life-threatening gap in a nutrition specific or nutrition related response, and

2. One or more of the agreed benchmarks or core commitments for nutrition response is not being met, and

3. Evidence suggests that a significant proportion of the target population is at risk of avoidable death if the gap is not filled urgently.

  1. Cluster membership

The nutrition cluster membership is based on operational relevance of nutrition stakeholders and will include, but is not limited to, key humanitarian partners in the area of Nutrition, especially those with expertise and capacity in Nutrition in emergencies and response. Close coordination and collaboration with MOPHP is expected.

UNICEF is the cluster lead while MOPHP is co-lead of the nutrition cluster. Technical staff from these agencies and related clusters such as WASH, Health, Food Security and Agriculture are strongly encouraged to attend the meetings. Cluster membership is categorized into three main types namely; cluster partners cluster members, and observers.

Cluster Partnersare:

  • Organizations providing or supporting nutrition services in the affected areas (such as through the Health or Food security and Agriculture sector). The current nutrition cluster members include: Ministries bodies (MOPHP, MOPIC-FSTS), UN agencies (UNICEF, WFP, FAO, WHO, UNHCR, OCHA), other international organizations (IOM), international and national NGOs, and representatives of key private sector nutrition-related service providers ( IMC, SCI, RI, ACF France, MSFH, MSFS, SOUL, YFCA, BFD, CSSW, TAYPA, PU AMI, ADRA, HAD, IRY, Vision Hope and MMF)
  • They are expected to participate in the Sub Working Groups, to have a role in defining the strategic and operational direction of the cluster.
  • They will be eligible to participate in cluster related fundraising efforts, such as the YHRP, Technical Review Committee,
  • They are granted to organization rather than individuals.
  • Each partnership is asked to nominate one focal person and one substitute to ensure consistency in representation and facilitate communication within the cluster meeting as well as Ad Hoc meetings and other available ways of communication.

Each partner is entitled to a single vote on cluster related matters. Partners can be elected to belong to committees within the cluster. Members:

  • Organization who doesn’t implement any nutrition activities, but are interested in sharing information, Organization who are planning to implement or starting Nutrition activities.

Observers:

  • Organization that doesn’t want to be affiliated with the cluster regarding their own mandate, but does want to share information.Observers (MSFE, MSFF and ICRC) are encouraged to attend regular cluster related activities.
  • Main donors and other important stakeholders in Nutrition, (i.e. ECHO, DFID, USAID, Saudi Arabia, OFDA and JAPAN)

Participating organizations are expected to be proactive partners in assessing needs, developing strategies and plans for overall concerted nutrition response, implementing agreed priority actions, and adhering to core commitments and standards. Nutrition cluster members will share tasks and are delegated responsibilities to support specific functions, actions or tools, and may act as ‘member focal points’ in this regard.

  1. Contact points for the national and sub-clusters are available on the cluster website,
  1. Frequency of cluster meetings: During a humanitarian emergency or more vulnerable periods of the year, the nutrition cluster will meet often (weekly) as necessary at the national level while (bi weekly/monthly) at the zonal level if security permits. If there is no humanitarian crisis, the nutrition cluster will meet every two months to update the situation analysis and preparedness activities. However, the nutrition cluster can meet more frequently, as needed to accomplish certain tasks. Updated calendar for cluster meetings is available on the cluster website.
  1. Expected outputs from nutrition cluster
  • Streamlined decision making with respect to emergency nutrition assessment and response
  • Strengthened programme linkages, information sharing and coordination
  • Joint action plan prepared, implemented and resources mobilized
  • Nutrition preparedness and response in the field are well coordinated
  • Standard guidelines, protocols, procedures in place and are used by all partners
  • Needs assessment, gaps and priority actions identified and recommendations for addressing these needs are presented
  • Nutrition trends/data base updated bi-annually as well as mapping of partners - who does what and where
  • Cluster management structure is in place: CT, Sub-national clusters/TWGs (if needed), SAG, TWGs, Task forces (if needed), including clear ToRs
  • Cluster, SAG, TWG meetings are organised: agenda, minutes, action points prepared and shared
  • Roles, responsibilities and commitment of partners identified
  • Contingency plan at national and zonal levels prepared
  • Operational and technical capacities at national and zonal levels built
  • Nutrition emergency stocks are in place at national and zonal levels as per contingency plan
  1. Accountabilities of the members

To support the Cluster Coordinator in achieving the cluster assignment, specifically by: