Documenting lessons learned and recommendations in the implementation of simplified approaches in relation to the new WHO Guideline on Child Wasting- Req #575978

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Consultancy Title: Documenting lessons learned and recommendations in the implementation of simplified approaches in relation to the new WHO Guideline on Child Wasting

Section/Division/Duty Station: Nutrition and Child Development Programme Group, Programme Division, NYHQ

Duration: April 15 2025 to October 31 2025

Home/ Office Based: NYHQ / Remote

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If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/ Assignment:

In 2023, an estimated 45 million children under five years old still suffer from wasting, of which 13.6 million are estimated to suffer from its most severe form. While treatment coverage has increased with an estimated 9.3 million of children under five treated for severe wasting in 2023 and 9.4 million supplemented for moderate wasting, considerable efforts are still needed to reach the most vulnerable children. WHO recognizes that in order to maximize the number of malnourished children cared for, interventions need to be as feasible and low-cost as possible without compromising the health of children—and these principles were incorporated into the development of the WHO Guideline for the prevention and management of Child  wasting (2023).

The 2023 WHO guideline has a broader scope than the 2013 guideline and aims to integrate care across inpatient and outpatient/community settings. New areas such as the inclusion of recommendations such as the identification and management of wasting by Community Health Workers, management of moderate acute malnutrition (MAM), management of infants at risk of poor growth and development, post-exit interventions and prevention will result in national governments updating their national policies and guidelines. Understanding the feasibility and practical considerations, including challenges and solutions, will inform UNICEF’s strategy when it comes to supporting countries in scaling up these interventions in line with the new WHO recommendations, and learning from previous programme implementations.

The package of the ‘simplified approaches’ has been instrumental in testing new ways of delivering services to children and their families in a variety of contexts. While the Simplified Approaches were not adopted in the new guidelines, there are elements from some of the approaches that are (e.g., Delivery of Treatment by Community Health Workers) reflected in the guidelines. Efforts to-date on documentation of the simplified approaches have largely focused on evidence generation and research outcomes, and not necessarily on operational aspects of implementing these adaptations, particularly in light of the new WHO Guidelines.

Supporting countries to adopt the new guidelines is a priority for UNICEF, and one way to provide this support is to document experiences of countries who have rolled out adaptations, in order to inform scale- up of these interventions within the context of the new WHO Guidelines. Some of the interventions of focus (but not only) are the delivery of treatment by community-health workers, “reduced “dosage of RUTF when child transitions from SAM to MAM, and the management of MAM with RUTF. Understanding the feasibility, challenges, and solutions to these challenges will help inform UNICEF’s strategy on the next stage of the new WHO guideline implementation.

Scope of Work:

The purpose of this assignment to review and gather lessons learned from countries who have experience in operationalizing these interventions and to document those operational learnings in the form of practical recommendations in order to support future