Executive Summary
This Annual Report provides an overview of the Centre’s work for the period of 1st January to 31 December 2016, which is fifth year of implementation of COUNSENUTH five (5) years Strategy and Action Plan 2012- 2016.
The overall goal of our Five (5) years Strategy is to contribute to the MKUKUTA objectives of reducing poverty, and specifically malnutrition and child maternal mortality through improved nutrition for vulnerable groups, women and children.This is the final year of the Strategic Plan and the Centre believes it has achieved its goals.
The report highlights the Centre’s work towards achieving optimal nutrition and quality of life for children, women and other vulnerable groups in the regions of Mbeya, Iringa, Dodoma, Morogoro, Manyara and Ruvuma and Zanzibar.The Centre’s work has been able to develop and grow a significant number of community members who are committed to nutrition work because they know that improving nutrition is possible and that each can do something to make it happen. COUNSENUTH’s Mission is to work towards improvement of the quality of life of vulnerable groups through affordable interventions that are evidence – based and locally appropriate; advocacy for better governance for nutrition; active engagement of citizens at all levels and multi – sectoral collaboration. To achieve this, COUNSENUTH has several objectives:
• Strengthen the capacity of Government and local Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to deliver quality nutrition education and communication
• Strengthen the delivery of integrated community-based nutrition services through social behavior-change communication to reduce childhood stunting and maternal anemia
• Provide technical assistance to implementing partners in nutrition and health related fields
• Facilitate implementation of health, nutrition and other related programs, and
• Document best practices and lessons to contribute to nutrition evidence base.
The Centre’s key beneficiaries include: women of reproductive age, children, youths, adolescents and families; most vulnerable groups such as pregnant and lactating women, orphans, the sick, and the poor. However, our direct targets are social/health service providers at all levels, food Consumers and policy makers.
Majority of our programs in the year 2016 focused on improving nutrition in the first 1,000 days (from a woman’s pregnancy to the child’s second birthday). Other programs focused on youths and adolescents, most vulnerable groups as well as health care providers. During 2016, the Centre realized several successes in implementing various programmes and projects at national, district and community levels. Invariably, the The Centre progressed on implementation of its key ongoing programmes and new initiatives:
These are:
• Mwanzo Bora Nutrition Programme (MBNP) which started in September 2011/12 and ends in September 2018, aims at reducing childhood stunting and maternal anemia in Dodoma, Manyara and Morogoro and Zanzibar. In 2016 the programme was expanded to Iringa and Mbeya after the donor felt happy with the outcome in the 3 starter regions. The programme is expected to continue to September 2018 with reduced budget and intensity in the three old regions. The program is implemented by a Consortium made up of Africacare,COUNSENUTH, Deloitte and The Mannoff Group.The ptogram id funded by the USAID.
• LISHE Ruvuma is an integrated community based nutrition programme being implemented in Tunduru, Songea Rural and Madaba districts. The programme aims at reducing childhood stunting mostly through active involvement of citizens and the local government in implementation of evidence based nutrition interventions such as infant and young child feeding, maternal nutrition, early childhood education, and dietary diversity to improve complementary feeding and water sanitation and hygiene.
