Wasting Cascade Pilot - Technical Assistance Consultancy/Nutrition unit, Data and Analytics, New York, DAPM/ Req# 580551

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, HOPE

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/ Assignment:

The release of the 2023 WHO guideline on the prevention and management of wasting and nutritional oedema (‎acute malnutrition)‎ in infants and children under 5 years[1] and the Global Action Plan (GAP) on Child Wasting[2] prompted renewed efforts to accelerate the prevention and treatment of child wasting. A new global guidance on monitoring child wasting programmes that is fit for purpose and relevant to the current programming context is needed to support programme strengthening efforts as countries work to align their policies and programmes with the most recent global guideline.

A three-day Global Technical Consultation in November 2024 on Monitoring the Child Wasting Cascade convened partners and national counterpoints to discuss key components of monitoring and the child wasting cascade, including wasting caseload estimation, screening, treatment, relapse and prevention. A total of 150 participants joined the consultation including national counterparts from the Ministries of Health and Institutes of Statistics of 27 countries across all seven UNICEF regions joined the consultation, as well as technical counterparts from other key agencies working on nutrition and non-governmental organizations.  In the consultation, it was recognized that pilot testing of the proposed new and/or improved indicators was needed prior to producing the final guidance.

The lessons learned from the piloting will help to inform the development of global guidance on monitoring of the child wasting cascade. This guidance will include indicators and the recommended analyses to follow the child population through the steps of prevention, screening and treatment of child wasting.  The guidance will also include methods for assessment of the target populations, calculation of locally contextualized estimates of annual burden of acute malnutrition and guidance on the monitoring of screening, referrals, treatment admissions, exits and relapses, and coverage estimates. The global guidance intends to provide recommendations on monitoring of wasting programming for all contexts and will contribute to efforts for the global monitoring of wasting.

The piloting will address outstanding monitoring issues identified to improve the regular monitoring of child wasting programming.  The comprehensive set of indicators needed to follow children through prevention services, screening, treatment and potential relapse or reoccurrence will support countries to strengthen monitoring and be the main reference for standardized indicators for programmes to address child wasting. 

The details of the pilots will be decided upon through coordination between UNICEF data and analytics and program group with the country counterparts.

The purpose of the contract is to support the pilot testing of proposed methods and indicators for the monitoring of the Child Wasting Cascade. There will be comprehensive pilots with monitoring indicators for screening, treatment and prevention implemented in at least two countries and smaller scale specific topical pilots implemented in other countries. For more information on the piloting activities, please see -  Concept note for piloting monitoring indicators and methods for the global guidance on the Wasting Cascade.docx

Scope of Work:

1. Develop analysis and work plans for pilot testing in coordination with UNICEF and country counterparts.

The analysis plans will include:

• Purpose of pilot and research questions
• Identification of key stakeholders and their roles in the pilot
• Documentation of methods to conduct pilot
• Explanation of how the data are to be analysed to answer research questions

The work plans will include:

• Process to secure all necessary approvals for conducting the pilot
• Activities and frequency of data collection/ aggregation
• Time plan for data analysis
• Monthly feedback to implementation partners
• Production of final reporting of pilot activity

1. Provide technical assistance to ensure the effective implementation work plans for data collection, aggregation a