How the Global Nutrition Cluster consultant roster ensures access to nutrition in emergencies

09 Sep 2024 --- Coordination and appropriate technical and programming support are vital to humanitarian organizations’ response to global emergencies. The Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC) aims to overcome these critical needs by facilitating access to nutrition for emergency-affected populations at scale, in a predictable, timely and effective manner. The GNC is a coordination mechanism platform with 200 consultants on its roster who can provide coordination, information and programming support in times of crisis.

The GNC consultant roster offers assistance to global nutrition actors at all levels to aid in their Nutrition in Emergency (NiE) endeavors. According to the UN’s WHO, NiE’s two objectives are to prevent deaths and to protect people’s right to nutrition when a disaster strikes.

The GNC consultant roster facilitates NiE because finding a consultant with relevant experience and expertise in an emergency situation can be difficult, depending on the location and the languages spoken. The roster presents pre-vetted and approved consultants with the necessary NiE skill set, based in 60 countries across all continents and fluent in 50 languages, including Arabic, Spanish, French, English, Kiswahili and Urdu.

“My most recent assignment was as a Maternal Infant and Young Child Nutrition in Emergencies Advisor for Somalia, where I was responsible for strengthening maternal, infant, young child and adolescent nutrition in an emergency response,” says Clementina Ngina, a GNC consultant vetted for NiE leadership.

“This was achieved by reviewing the available materials and tools as well as developing the operational and programmatic guidelines, which had a monitoring and evaluation framework. The assignment was done remotely and was very successful in developing, reviewing and rolling out the policy and the training document.”

Armelle Sacher, vetted for Social & Behaviour Change (SBC) and Gender Transformative SBC approaches to promote nutrition and health, outlines: “In 2023, I remotely supported the State of Palestine to design SBC guidance and job aids to promote the adequate use of fortified nutrition supplementary products to be distributed during the emergency response.”

“During this short assignment, I was able to work against the clock to quickly and effectively design and tailor SBC tools to the specific field constraints and needs of requesting partners.”

GNC Consultant, Mustafa Abidoglu, at the SMART Survey training sessions (Image Credit: GNC).Vetting process

GNC partners with the international organizations Action Against Hunger, Concern Worldwide, International Medical Corps, Save the Children International and UNICEF, which facilitate the vetting and selection process for consultants. 

The consultant roster hosts consultants with expertise in the detection and treatment of wasting in children, management of complicated wasting, simplified approaches, maternal, micronutrients, adolescent and infant and young child feeding and nutrition. There are also GNC consultants with training in multisectoral programming, MAMI (management of small and nutritionally at-risk infants under six months and their mothers), nutrition cluster coordination, information management and needs assessment and analysis.

The applicants are subject to an initial screening based on criteria such as education and experience. Consultants are required to hold an advanced degree in nutrition, public health, social sciences or life sciences, training and five years of experience in NiE. Applicants with additional training in emergency response, the cluster approach and experience working with international and local partners, donors and local authorities are given priority.

Access GNC support

Humanitarian organizations, GNC partners, agencies, cluster, sector or technical working groups at the global regional or country level in need of specialized assistance are invited to access this service.  

Any organization seeking GNC support can request it by filling in a form on the GNC roster website. A GNC roster manager will then respond within a workday to confirm details, and a list of recommended consultants will be provided within three working days.

Elsa Al Maalouf, a GNC vetted for the detection and treatment of wasting, multisectoral programming and nutrition advocacy, explains: “In my most recent assignment as Community-Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) advisor for Syria, I contributed to strengthening the CMAM response through the development of a training package and its delivery to key stakeholders.”

“I was also responsible for reviewing the CMAM technical guidelines and tools to make it more contextualized and operational.”

Mustafa Abidoglu, vetted for maternal, adolescent, infant and young child feeding and nutrition cluster coordination, details: “(One assignment included launching) an integrated management of childhood illness program at the national level in the MENA region. This involved translating materials into Arabic and contextualizing them for a specific country within the MENA region. After that, I conducted five survey training sessions for NGO teams.”

By Milana Nikolova