 Good afternoon and morning or evening. My name is Guénel Luc. I am working for FIO office of emergency and resilience as a global food security cluster specialist. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the second event of in this area on food and nutrition education and livelihood support in emergency and resilience program. This webinar is part of a joint initiative promoted by the Food and Nutrition Division and the Cori, the knowledge sharing platform of the Office of Emergency and Resilience at the FAU with the objective to document and share knowledge on country experiences in nutrition and resilience. This event is also the 30th webinar organized by Cori. Today's webinar was made possible through support provided by the European Union under the partnership program contributing to the global network again food crisis. This webinar is part of a new webinar series on food and nutrition education in emergency and resilience program. The webinar findings will be used to identify the essential component of food and nutrition education intervention and the required planning step that are appropriate and feasible for emergency program. The webinar will last one and a half hour and being recorded and the recording will be shared after the event. Please use the chat box to leave comments and ask question. Before I pass the floor to our speakers, let me say a few words about the importance of today's topic. Food and nutrition education combined with livelihood support is practiced in several documented experiences, given the potential of this practice to be used in a large number of countries. This webinar built on experiences from Somalia and Niger and on technical expertise to discuss basic steps to develop effective food and nutrition education embedded with livelihood support programming. Against this background, this webinar series specifically aims to discuss the appropriate steps to combine food and nutrition education with livelihood support in emergency program. Today, we have the pleasure to count on the presence of three speakers. Ana Isla Ramos, nutrition officer at FAU, Emma Uma, nutrition officer for FAU Kenya, and Issa Ibrahimah, food security and livelihood coordinator for action against hunger, action contre la faune in Niger. After presentation by today's speaker, we will have a debate facilitated by Darana Souza, nutrition and food system officer at FAU. And now I'm going to pass the floor to Ana Isla Ramos who will tell us about the key element for success of effective food and nutrition education in emergency program. Ana, over to you. Thanks. Thank you so much, Vanell. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for the invitation to this webinar. So, I would like to acknowledge also my team in the preparation of these slides, especially Ramani who is in the audience. Thank you Ramani. We're just seeing a bit Tony. So, talking about the effective food and nutrition education interventions in short term food security and livelihood programs, key elements for success. So, this presentation will entail first, why do food and nutrition education in emergency context? Second, how can food and nutrition education help in these contexts? How to plan effective food and nutrition education interventions and especially obviously in this context and then conclusions. Before I address why in emergency context, I would like you to all please in the chat and only write yes or no if you participated in the resilience workshop. So, I can see how many of you really are aware of what was addressed in that webinar two weeks ago. Thank you. Just a yes or no is enough. Thanks a lot in the chat. And now a quiz for those of you who participated. Maybe you know which and those who did not participate, maybe you know which of the following could be criteria of success for food and nutrition education. What do you think could be criteria for success for food and nutrition education? You have some options in front of you in the poll. The first is on sustained improvement in dietary practices. The second dietary changes that are cost effective or that food and nutrition education has a breeder effect that is that learning can be passed to others. I'll give you 10 seconds to answer, please. Thank you. Okay, I can see that some answers are coming in some in the chat, but you also should have a pop up in front of you. Okay. Thank you. Can you please put the results if we have enough results at this time. Okay, so sustained improvement in dietary practices can definitely be most of you answered that and that is correct. Dietary changes that are cost effective can definitely be and that is correct and have a breeder effect that learning can be passed to others can definitely be and that is also correct. So those three can all be criteria for food effective food and nutrition education. So I think we have a very knowledgeable audience today. Thanks. So, most of you know and I guess all of you know I don't have to tell you that in emergencies. If there is a call for a range of responses to effectively assist affected communities to prepare to avoid risky practices reestablish positive behaviors and recover. So, how can a food and nutrition education F&E help in food security and livelihood programs. Well, one of the things that when food and nutrition education is well designed, it can help in these programs by helping people better adapt to changing or changed context. There of, of course is a difference between the different stages of an emergency context, the preparedness of course beforehand, where any acquired skills from food and nutrition education may be transparent or transferable to the changing context, but then also of course, in the acute phase is a bit more difficult actually quite more difficult but then in a protracted crisis, it becomes necessary to also address skills and support people with knowledge that the situation is still very dire in the ground but with a view of making it better. And, and supporting resilience of those populations, then it could also food and nutrition education promote the reestablishment of non emergency behaviors because, of course, as soon as during the acute phase, some behaviors may may surface that may cause problems down the road. And so, in this, in this particular context, it brings, it can bring some sense of going back and supporting these, these recovery. And in the third space is also providing a safe space where people can discuss and do in group settings, it can support social mental and emotional health as well as nutrition outcomes. So, those three are the three ways that food and nutrition education can help in these contexts. So starting how to plan effective food and nutrition education interventions my colleague Romani already presented this so I will focus mainly on how this applies to emergency context and food security and livelihood programs. So, in this case, just as a recalling what my colleague Romani presented at we have a first stage where we get to know who are the different stakeholders, and invite them to be part of the program design. And then we have the participatory formative research that is very critical. Then designing the program itself carrying out capacity development implementing monitoring and evaluating. But in particular in the different air times when, when we are dealing with these changing situations, it may be that we have tight deadlines for program design so this needs to be done in a very, in a very lean and and straightforward way this you know already. And also, as well as with other programs when it's good practice to get to know and rely on existing community platforms that if available. And an acute knowledge of the situation of the ground is necessary, but in particular for food and nutrition education, the behavioral issues that have to do with what people are facing in terms of food security issues, but also food and nutrition. And the behaviors that they may be relying upon. It's also quite important. And the situation may change. And as it changed, it becomes important to have an iterative process so that food and nutrition education continues to respond to the context and this is critical. And when we have participatory formative research, which is the knowledge of this situation in the ground. We had some questions that my colleague Romani shared in the previous presentation, like what are the main food and nutrition problems. It may take time for them to change. It may take time to be then become worse or better in particular, but the food situation may may change drastically very quickly. And therefore, that's where I was saying this iterative process becomes very important. And these participatory research is also quite important. In terms of the practices that contribute to these problems may also change the behaviors, of course, become adaptive. And that is where formative research to identify these target competencies is becomes also quite important. And then also what would be the healthy and sustainable existing practices that could be promoted with the context where we are. There may be very limited possibilities of what can be promoted in a realistic way. And then what food practices should be prioritized as food and nutrition education target competencies then would be changing also and therefore this iterative process again. What are the influences of existing food practices outlooks and decisions among individuals and families. And then what would be barriers to change and again all of these things could change quickly. So when we arrive at the design of effective programs we have, again, it's good to have a behavioral focus so that all of the objectives of the nutrition education are behaviorally focused. It's also important that these are theory based with learning models learning pathways and approaches, and that these activities be guided by the chosen model. But then, especially in the emergency context the human and financial resources can be difficult to to to obtain and to get and for human resources again someone who getting people that are really very knowledgeable of the of the context in the ground to the behaviors, the people and the constraints that people are facing is very critical. And so, when we carry out capacity development, again, this is context specific. And it has to be addressing the changing situation, depending on what is needed at the time, making sure that we address first the priority needs, and have also addressing this rapidly changing behaviors. One other thing that I think it's critical at this time in the emergency situation these priority needs may not have anything to do with nutrition. And there may be a context where the target population may be very anxious and learning in these context becomes very, very difficult, because people have other things in their minds. So, providing a safe space and trying to address the emotional issues that people are facing in, or at least trying to assuage them for for a while while the nutrition education is taking place. It would be also quite important in this in this context. And again, when we implement then we have we rely on existing community platforms if they're existing, if they are available. And, but this is important that we always focus on the behaviors that there are being the practice at the time. Again, innovation is very critical because of the situation that is changing and how to deliver and test what is being done to see what is effective, and what is working. So continues testing and continues and see if things are working and if things are really addressing what what people are facing is quite important to identify things that work. Then, in some case, household food production is being is being also recommended and it can provide some needed food security and diversity for nutrition. However, in some in other cases this becomes unpracticable because of just the the transient nature of this migrant populations in some cases, and and the access to land and and and those kind of things so so that is one of the things that might be considered. And of course, very, very important to continue having beneficiaries feedback ways that things that can be done always. As usual, we have different media and different ways where food and nutrition education can take place. And again, having face to face contact in a context that is not necessarily that builds community is also one of the benefits of having food and nutrition education talking something about food can be also and and and for this place populations. Recalling and discussing the issues that they have faced and the foods that they, they can acquire in their own situation in their own context can be also a way of addressing some mental and emotional issues. Finally, monitoring and evaluation is again very critical the monitoring aspect this is particularly important so that we measure the results of any intervention that we're having to do during this emergency and recovery, and accumulate the learning on what is working but it's not as I was And then of course evaluation becomes also very critical to and in this case for food and nutrition education, the actual recording of this and and publication is also quite important. Just on some topics that have in some of the research that has emerged that they're normally covered in these kinds of nutrition education. And in the in the emergency context is in most commonly infant and common and formula you for infant formula use infant and young child practices water sanitation and hygiene, as well as continued feeding of children during illness. However, some other definitely also touch on infections disease management and food safety. So, in conclusion, and my takeaway messages is that well designed food and nutrition education can be valuable in emergency context to help people better adapt to the change constant context or changing context. It can also provide provide promote the restablishment of non emergency behaviors, build community and support social mental and emotional health as well as nutrition outcomes. Thank you so much. Here is my contact information and I will leave with you also for the presentation the references. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much, Anna for this excellent presentation. And now we can take some questions from the audience we have one for you. What are some example of nutrition sensitive agriculture activity that can be done to strengthen the food safety. You just mentioned in emergency settings. Thanks. And so in terms of food safety definitely some of the issues that, depending on what the water situation is, of course, in agriculture, when water is is not safe. It becomes very, very difficult to ensure that that crops that will be consumed are irrigated with safe water. And that that also practices after, after harvest and in the preparation of these foods if these are being produced for home consumption for household consumption that these, these are safe. So that's one of the critical aspects but then of course depending if there are also animals in the household and livestock practices. In emergency situations, it may be difficult to, to separate and effectively rear animals in a way that it may, it could contaminate other foods in a way that it may not be safe. So, so those two things I would say are probably the main issues that would be important to address in agriculture settings. And, and depending on, on what it is that you're facing in the ground. Thank you so much, Anna. So, I guess now I am going to pass the floor to Emma Uma nutrition advisor at FL Kenya. Emma, this is Good afternoon. Good morning everybody. So I'm Emma Uma, I support FL Somalia. And I want to share with you. Our experience with integrating nutrition education and food safety education. So, with FL Somalia one of the largest interventions that we do in terms of supporting households vulnerable households in the emergency context is by providing them with cash. So cash is very big it's very large in in its delivery. And in FL Somalia we can combine the cash with a livelihood input package. So for the agriculture for the agricultural livelihood we provide a seed package, and this seed package is amazed so gum cow peas, as well as eight different types of fruits and vegetables. We also have other inputs such as fertilizers tools tractor hours, irrigation storage bags that are all provided to this vulnerable household and also capacity strengthening on good agricultural practices on nutrition. And specifically for nutrition emphasis is made on how they can maximize the utilization of this package that is provided. We also have the cash class livestock package for the livestock package they're provided with range cubes so these range cubes are very nutrient dense very high in protein. The class of this is so that we can boost the production of milk and also the milk and meat quality of the livestock. They're also provided with treatment for 10 sheep and goats. So the warming is provided treatment of any diseases, and we also have trainings on livestock management, as well as nutrition education. Another exercise for this one for nutrition education is that we provide trainings and sensitization on milk and meat handling at the household level so once the milk or the milk their livestock. How do they treat that milk or meat so that it is not contaminated. The cash class fisheries package which comes in three different packages the boat package for those who go to farm at the sea, the community processing package which is provided to women as well as the youth. And we also have the third one is a household package. So women are provided with simple cooking kits, so that they're able to cook the fish for their families. Training depends on which package they're receiving so that for the boat package, the training is mainly focused on fishing techniques, safety at sea handling of the fish at sea. For nutrition education which is also provided to all these groups, we look at how they handle the fish so that we maintain its safety for consumption at the household level. We do cooking demonstrations and we do a lot of sensitization on the nutrition benefits of fish, despite the fact that Somalia has the largest coastline. There's still a lot of work that needs to go into promoting consumption of fish within the household in Somalia. In terms of targeting, we target IPC three and four which is in crisis. So this is how we identify the most vulnerable populations. We go in and we have now introduced a different layer, which is very nutrition sensitive outside of going to IPC three and four. We now come in and look at which are the most the villages with the highest rates of malnutrition. We target female headers households, we target households with children less than five, and households with pregnant and lactating women. So this is how one of the strategies that we're employing to make sure that our intervention and our support is very nutrition sensitive. So for nutrition education, so I'll just take you through how we arrived at having nutrition education that has been mainstreamed throughout the delivery of our cash plus livelihoods assistance. So the main purpose of having the cash plus livelihood assistance was for us to be able to influence the dietary habits and the patterns of the people of Somalia. We wanted to sensitize the beneficiaries so that they can get maximum output in terms of health and nutrition from the inputs that we're providing. We also wanted to promote sustainable diets, despite the fact that it is an emergency context. We still have foods that are available during this season. And so we wanted to make sure that the communities and the most vulnerable are aware of what is actually available locally. We also contributed to the nutrition cluster's objective of preventing malnutrition. Recently there was a meeting and you can see with the with the challenges of funding that the priority is still has is now not shifting but treatment of malnutrition is being prioritized. So this is an opportunity for FAO to come in and support households, which are border borderline or suffering from moderate acute malnutrition. The development of these tools was done in two steps. The first step was for us to identify different end reports. What are the needs in terms of knowledge in terms of nutrition and food handling on food, different foods that are available locally within Somalia. So we did a gap analysis to identify as well what tools are available within Somali context there's a lot of nutrition that is going on, particularly within the health sector. So we needed to understand what what is the messaging and what can we adopt and adapt within the materials that we wanted to use. So we were not reinventing the wheel so for example in terms of exclusive breastfeeding infant and young child feeding we did not want to start preaching a different message. So we simply took the messages that were already being used and incorporated it into what we were developing. We had a lot of consultations, particularly with our local partners who have been supporting the delivery of livelihood assistance within Somalia we had a lot of consultations with the nutrition cluster. And that's how we came up with the priority areas for the messaging. So we developed and designed the first draft that was reviewed and was ready for protesting. So the second stage was the institutionalization, because we did not want this material or the messages to just be FAO led. We wanted to have different people participate in the finalization and the review of the messaging. So we created what is the steering committee, we had different ministries health agriculture, livestock fisheries, scaling up nutrition together with its networks. We had the nutrition cluster, the civil society, all participate in the steering committee. We had several consultations and during the pre-test some of these steering committee members went up to the field to actually see the pre-test being done, the trainings being done for the partners, the trainings being done for the community. And there was a lot of overwhelming feedback, which we really did our best to integrate and to make sure that the tool was as context specific as possible we vetted everything to the color of eggs to the color of oranges as represented in the tools and materials. So this was finally launched at the end of 2019 and it was ready for use for 2020. So we did develop a lot of tools, we have the facilitators guide, which is that takes a TOT approach, and this targets the partners implementing partners on the ground who are carrying out livelihood programs. So there's a lot that they can learn from this, even in terms of the delivery, providing supportive supervision to those we call nutrition champions on the ground. We also have the nutrition champions booklet. So the nutrition champions booklet is generally a simplified version of the facilitators guide because what we do is that we train nutrition champions in the community. Because you realize that within Somalia despite the fact that there is widespread malnutrition and there's a lot of treatment, we still don't have the coverage being very high. So in very many places that are targeted by FAA, which are rural areas, we still do not have community health workers. So by establishing nutrition champions and training them, we're able to leave them with the knowledge, the information within the community, and they can train and share information as needed. We also have a booklet for community members, very simple, very easy to understand. It uses very simple Somalia that can be understood across the country, in spite of the different dialects from the different regions. We also have counseling cards, which are used in a seasonal calendar, which helps them map out the different foods that are available during the different seasons. In terms of the modules and the main messaging. We have feeding your family, which looks like a life cycle approach. We look at from the beginning to the end from conception until when someone is elderly, what are the different nutrition needs. We look at food preparation, food storage. We also have food safety and hygiene, which I mentioned before dives into milk and meat hygiene. We also have water sanitation and hygiene. So this is just an overview of the modules, although we have a breakdown of different topics. And this is delivered one module session so that they have time to discuss everything that is within a specific module. With COVID-19, we were unable to really go out onto the ground and do the trainings in large groups because of the restrictions. So we complemented this by having a radio show. The radio show had nine episodes, all extracted from the three different modules. We had technical experts participate within the different radio sessions. We had audiences being allowed to call in and ask questions. And this radio show was also translated into three different dialects to cover the whole of Somalia. We also had a complimentary YouTube video that was developed together with Innovation Lab and the Nutrition Plaster. And this was targeting mostly the urban areas because within the context of COVID-19, it was very important for us as a field to share messaging on managing your diet during the COVID situation. The strategy for delivering the nutrition education within Somalia is that we do train our focal points within partner organizations. We do an intensive one to two week training on what is exactly expected of them as focal points as people will go into the community and disseminate information on nutrition. And these focal points are then then go to the communities, they select those who we call nutrition champions as I had mentioned, and they ensure that the nutrition champions have the ability and the capacity to share this nutrition information at the community level. The nutrition champions are provided with supportive supervision as they train the beneficiaries because emergency projects are only six months. So we make sure that they have enough contact with the beneficiaries and that by the end of the project that they are able to train them conclusively. And they have the ability to share the information even after the project period has lapsed. The beneficiaries are also encouraged to share this information with their family members, their friends, so that the information on nutrition can be disseminated to a larger group to benefit from it. So for 2020 we managed to train 696 nutrition champions. We trained 19,000 beneficiaries, and we also managed to start the first time to collect dietary diversity and nutrition related indicators for specifically for the project. So it was for the death season, under the crop yield assessment, the monitoring and evaluation team collected data on the minimum dietary diversity for women. And it was found to be at 57%, which is much higher than the national level. And to share what has worked for FAO Somalia so far, we still continue to learn, but what has worked so far is that we have a budget and staff dedicated to delivering the nutrition education throughout the cash emergency program. And this has been very beneficial because we do not have any back and forth, and we have a full call person to make sure the delivery is done, and it's done properly. There's a lot of buy-in from the staff, the government, who support the emergency program as well as FAO partners, and this has been because we do continue sensitization and make sure that they are aware of all the advances and all the changes that we're making. And we also continue to improve the delivery. So we introduced the nutrition indicators, the targeting was revised so that it can be more nutrition sensitive. So we are slowly making progress based on what we are learning. At a community level to keep all beneficiaries interested, particularly from a livelihood perspective. We embraced a life cycle approach. So this made us look into all the nutrition needs of all members of a household, not only the children under five and the pregnant and lactating women. So everybody was included. And this has brought a lot of discussions and interest into learning more about what the nutrition needs of the household are and how the nutrition needs can be improved by what is available. The nutrition champions are a great resource because even in the emergency context once we leave and finalize our project, we still leave resources in terms of knowledge in the community. We focused on needs and the context of Somalia. So the messaging was tailored and we made sure that it addresses the needs to the team. And then there's the slow introduction of cooking demonstrations within the context of Somalia, where there's floods and continuous droughts. We wanted to make sure that the modality of delivery for the cooking demonstration really takes into account food safety so that we are not putting anybody in harm's way. Challenges. We have had great challenges, although we are working to advocate for an expenditure basket that accounts for the micronutrient needs of the community. We've had to have trade-offs between culture and best practice, because if you look at the seed package, they might not necessarily be the most nutrient dense, for example, in terms of bio. But we had to look at what do the Somalis consume and make sure that the package, because it's a short-term project, the package can still address the nutrition needs within reason. And as well as nutrition education not being one of priorities within the food security and the agriculture sector. This has been a challenge, but I'm glad to report that we are moving in the right direction since at the beginning of this year we managed to train a training of trainers who are based within the Ministry of Agriculture. And nutrition is largely considered a health issue in Somalia, but that is something that we are working to change and make sure that the footprint of agriculture and food security is felt in nutrition for us. Recommendations, we would like to advocate that we build a national level commitment in ensuring that nutrition education is delivered with a majority, if not all of the livelihood interventions. We need to focus on building an evidence base on the different kinds of models and modalities of cash assistance that incorporate a livelihood package incorporate nutrition education and see what kind of results that gains. We also need to ensure that we have a budget allocated for nutrition education because nutrition education needs to be accounted for in terms of ensuring that we're able to have the nutrition education session somewhere where it's conducive and comfortable for the participants, and that if they need transport to go back to where they're going to that is also catered for. And we also need to design short term and long term nutrition targeted cash assistance that basically targets households that are left out of treatment and feeding assistance. Thank you. If there are any questions, please feel free to ask. Thank you so much Emma for this very interesting presentation. We have several questions in the chat for you so I will raise one of them and the rest of them will be raised at the end of the third session during the question and answer session. So we have one question for you, Emma, from Romani Betoni. Regarding the community champions, how are they selected? Can you give us some example of who were the champions and do they need to be provided with incentives to participate? Thanks. Good, thanks Romani for the question. So the nutrition champions are selected from the pool of beneficiaries that FAO select. So the selection of beneficiaries is very consultative. We have a lot of consultations that goes into it, speaking with the village elders, speaking with the mayors, so that we can be able to sensitize the community on what exactly the project is about. And I just want to share the primary target for the project is on food security and livelihoods and not nutrition. So nutrition is just something that we have integrated. We have selected through, we have a selection criteria. So the selection criteria looks at the cultural context to make sure that both men and women are able to participate. For one, we have one male and one female. We select nutrition champions who can be able to read because we provide literature and documents, the nutrition champions booklet, the counseling cards, all of which needs someone who's able to read. And we also request for the focal points in addition to other selection criteria for the focal points to be continuously in touch during the beneficiary selection process so that they are able to identify those who seem to be a most vocal, most interested in disseminating information, and interested in making sure that the community is uplifted in terms of their situation. So those are some of the selection criteria that we use, but we do have a very well articulated selection criteria that is used by our partner to select champions in the community. We are also not provided with a specific incentive, their beneficiaries of the project so they do get the cash, and they do get the livelihood package. Thank you so much. Emma, I will now pass the floor to Issa Ibrahim from Action Contrôle Afin, Action Against the Hunger in Niger. He's the food security and livelihood coordinator. Issa, are you there? Yes, I'm here. So good morning, everybody. First of all, I would like to say thank you to the organizers of this webinar, and for giving us the opportunity to talk about our experience in food and nutrition education, even if it is in emergency situations. And also mentioned that Action Against Hunger is set in Niger since 1997, and is running programs of food security and livelihood, health and nutrition, water sanitation and hygiene, and we are also having some programs of advocacy. So as you can see, we are working in many areas, both of them, sensitive to nutrition. So this team we are debating on is coming from our various studies and evaluations who show out the importance of changing behavior in terms of changing behavior in the community, and also a change of practices. If we expect to fight against malnutrition, like what you can see next. As you see in Niger, we are over in terms of malnutrition rates. The global acute malnutrition is above 12.2, and the severe acute malnutrition is above 2. So it means that we have a great number of population suffering from malnutrition. That's why we have conducted some studies and evaluations to better analyze what are the root causes of this malnutrition. Like the NCA, Nutrition Coal Analysis, and also barrier analysis, both of them show that community must change in terms of behavior and also in terms of practice. So that's what we are going to see next. So our approach for food and nutrition education is based on our intersectionality because all the programs we are running, we are trying our best to do them in a given area so that we can have much impact on the nutrition. And we have a cross cutting program, which is community mobilization. So, and this is in all of our projects, though it should be noted that over more than 70% of our programs can be our short term programs. So we are almost always running in emergencies. And we cannot say that because our programs are not long term programs that we are not going to tackle the cause of this malnutrition in terms of community mobilization. As we are going to see, we have a full department of community mobilization, which is in charge of educating people in terms of nutrition. And we have at community level, what we call relay community, and we also have at this office some, some staffs of ASAF who are working with the relay community in terms of sensitization. And we have a mobilization coordinator in based at the coordination of action against hunger, who is coordinating all the aspect of education in nutrition, and make sure that every single every single project we are doing contains aspects of community education about nutrition, specifically for the programs of food security and livelihood, who are not. I mean, they are very nutrition sensitive. They are very nutrition sensitive. Next. So we have the synergies between livelihood support and food nutrition education. We have group sessions on distribution. Like I said, when you are running safety net programs like cash for work or food distribution, we carry out at the same time, nutritional education for the population so that they can better use what we give them in terms of money, or in terms of food. And that they should understand also what that we are doing is to tackle the demonstration of children among them. Yes. So we have models like, like I said, it's not only a matter of changing behavior. It is also a matter of changing practice. Because now we are facing the impact of climate change. So we are sensitizing people, and we are helping them to change their food production practices, like we train them in agro ecology, how they are going to produce, how they are going to make their production more sensitive to nutrition. So, and also, we have an approach which is the farmers field schools. So they are like demonstration demonstration fields at the community level. And we train people inside these field schools on the new techniques of growing crops, and also how to use nut-chemic organic fertilizers to have a good production and to improve their production again. Okay. Apart from that, we have initiated the aspect of support groups. So the support groups are what we call caregivers made up of mothers. We have mother groups and grandmothers, fathers, community health workers, and traditional birth attendants. So all these groups, we sensitize them. We train them to give education in nutrition at the community level, at their level, because we think that there are people that the beneficiaries or the community listen to them. See, so that's what we call infant and youth child groups, support group. We have also what you call husband school. So husband school are model men. They are not the rich ones or the poor ones. They are just some husbands that are very, that show concern, their concern about malnutrition. So these husbands are identified and trained so that on the turn, once they're back home, they can carry out community education towards nutrition. In order to improve child nutrition, they are volunteers, community volunteers, and we base on them to best educate people to take care of nutrition, mostly for the children. Yeah, but like all programs, we have many challenges because we are working in a multi sectoral way, combining food security, health and nutrition, water sanitation in the same community, in the same area. So we have the challenge of coordination and monitoring among the different programs. And also, the other challenge you have is the capacity to mobilize multi sectoral funding. As you know, many of the founders have their way. It's very difficult to have funds that can allow us to undertake multi sectoral programs for the population. Sustainability and community ownership. Many of the evaluations and studies show that all this dynamic of including the community may stop by the time the projects stop because there's no incentives. The people might stop also what we have so far done with them. Incorporate mental health and psychological support. Yes, this is very not new aspect for us, but we are trying also to make this mental health and social support very important in the program. As you know the context of Niger, many people have trauma like in the eastern part of Niger, people affected by the crisis of Boko Haram, and in the western part also we have people affected by the crisis, but it's very difficult to engage people fighting against malnutrition when they have trauma of insecurity. So we are trying our best to include these and incorporate also mental health and psychological support for the population so that they can better understand and work with what we advocate to do in terms of nutrition fighting. Yes, so this come to end of my presentation, but apart from the community, the community relays, we also try to work with the social media network so that they can, the social media network activists about malnutrition so that they can educate people to towards the question of nutrition in Niger. And we also have a network of journalists sensitive to nutrition, we also sensitize them so that they can relay the message to a wider audience. So thank you very much. Thank you so much Issa for this excellent presentation. I think we have also some questions in the chat. Let me raise one of them. Is it possible to connect the emergency program to long term one, at least to improve livelihoods. What do you think? Yes, it is possible to build on what we have acquired. Because we always start with emergency programs and we progress to more short term programs. What I say is like the next is emergency first, then recovery, then you step on development, but always make sure that you are building on what we have, what you have acquired in the emergency program. We stabilize people, then you can sensitize them, then you can move to recovery and furthermore to development programs. I think that it is very possible. But the great challenge about this is in some emergencies, we are in the context of Niger, we have refugees, we have IDPs and also we have return is for this very specific category of people. It is very hard to move from emergency to development because you don't know they may return back where they are from at any time. So, but if the population is stable, yes, you can move from emergency to development. Thank you. Thank you so much Lisa. So, let me now pass the floor to Dharana Suza nutrition and food system officer at FAO to facilitate the debate. Thanks. Thanks a lot for now and thanks, the presenters and we have good questions in the chat. Please feel free to continue asking them or putting your comments there. We will continue from there. I'd like to start with this last question that was asked also to Issa and take the opportunity to ask this to Emma as well. Emma, in your experience, how is it possible to connect the short term emergency programs with longer term programming. And then in that case, what happened to the food and nutrition education component was it integrated in both. Yeah, we do have one that is being piloted right now, which is the long term crash assistance. So the beneficiaries are provided with small amounts of money every month. And provided with livelihood packages based on the, you know, the livelihood where they come from and education education is also embedded in that delivery. So it is a longer time kind of assistance that supports the emergency context. At the same time, with this one we do have longer periods to provide nutrition education so the delivery of nutrition, the nutrition education it's likely modified. We also have a longer period of time to actually collect evidence and see what is happening with the different kinds of modalities at the different stages. So right now they're collecting the end line and I'm sure more information in terms of learning and knowledge will be provided by the FAO Somalia team and the team leading that. We're also working to link. There's a lot of resilience activities that are also happening in FAO Somalia, and we're working closely with the team to design messaging and tools. So for example, we are working to support nutrition sensitive value change and make sure that women are included and messaging around that is very nutrition sensitive. So if it is a fisherbook, we plan to support with nutrition campaigns around consumption of fish, design tools that are geared towards consumption of fish for children for women, selection of fish in the market. So definitely it is possible to connect emergency with longer term intervention. Thanks, Emma. And another question for you is, in which dialects were you able to use the messages that you worked with Somalia. Yes, so we did have the my, the maha and one that I can't pronounce properly I need to read it out. It's called the rowing. I think that's that's how it's called but the mind the maha the ones that I know how to pronounce. Thanks. Thanks, Emma. Going back to you say so we have a question for you regarding the farmer field schools. And if you also use to junior farmer field schools to train school students on agriculture and potentially on food and nutrition education. Thank you for this question. If I understand, is it how we can use the former field schools trainers to train students, right. Yes, junior farmer field schools. Yeah, actually, we, we have not for the while experience this kind of, of interaction between the community and other actors, but it's, it is a good. It's a good thing that we are going to try to experience in the coming programs. But, as I said, before ending the demonstration fields are for everyone and at community level. Sometimes they are not even far away from the school. And at the time we are doing this kind of sensitization. The field schools, it is the rainy season. And the rain is at the rainy season. We do not have students going to school. They are all in the farms helping their fathers. So we assume that they can. They can take advantage of the sensitizations and trainings we are giving to their fathers, but officially, not yet for the while we are not going to. We are not training in schools, but we have started to train networks of social media activists on education in nutrition and also we have a network of journalists and so that they can widespread these terms of education in nutrition. Thank you for this great question. Thank you. And then we have a question that I understand are for both of you. So it's in terms of assessments that were used for the definition of the activities. You said you already mentioned that I don't know if you wish to also mention if that supported also the development of the content of the material. So I'll start with you and then I'll go to Emma. Yes, I think that I have mentioned the monitoring side of education in nutrition as a challenge. Because we have many. I mean, we have many programs that we are running together that we are coming out together and each program has its specificity. So we for the while we do not have a multi sectoral tool of assessment that can give us the result globally in a holistic manner, but sectorally we have the capacity to monitor and the changes and we are doing it. So for the while it is by sector. Okay, thanks. So you're mentioning more the monitoring the valuation part of the of the as a as a challenge. Thank you understood. So the same question to Emma Emma in terms of the assessment to start with for the actual development of the food and nutrition education component. And then in terms of the many we have questions regarding that so take an advantage of pieces reply. What have you been using to measure changes and measuring fact. So in the initial development of the tools we did have the first step which was for us to it came nutrition education came up as a way of addressing nutrition within the larger emergency program. And, and looked into the whole the delivery of the whole emergency program, what was expected outcome and output, and where nutrition could come in so that we actually see changes in nutrition at an individual level and not at a community level. So one of the large greatest strategies that was identified because of the gaps in the assessment there was gaps in milk and meat handling. There was gaps in not knowing what exactly to feed the child. So in the assessments those are some of the things that were picked from it and selected nutrition education as a strategy for addressing some of those needs. So in terms of needs there was a needs assessment that was also done, and the needs assessment was done in reviewing all the education and training tools that were available in Somalia and being used by different organizations different agencies, looking at the gaps in knowledge, what is the nutrition that this one have that can be beneficial that is not included into this. So it was a very rigorous process that took a full year to do so that we can actually see what we can do in terms of addressing nutrition through nutrition education. So in terms of doing assessments and measuring and monitoring, we have just collected the first round, the first round of data on minimum dietary diversity for women, and we have found that it is at 57%, while at the national level the minimum dietary diversity is at 37.1%. So we have to go to another level to identify if this is actually can be attributed to the combination of nutrition education, livelihoods and cash assistance, or are there other factors that are also playing a role in terms of seeing this big difference with the relation to the diet quality of the women among those who target us beneficiaries. That's very clear and we have another question for you regarding targeting. So it's understood that you use IPC phase three and four to identify the overall beneficiaries. But the question is, how do you do to identify the beneficiaries for each component, let's say, of the of the intervention, meaning the agriculture, the cash and then nutrition and the food and nutrition education. So, yes, so in terms of beneficiary selection we do target IPC three and four, but at an individual level we work with the community so there's a lot of consultations that go into identifying who is the most vulnerable within these communities. I would like to mention that for identifying the most vulnerable within the communities that we support in Somalia. We do have vulnerability being defined differently by different communities and so that is why we have a very rigorous process of consulting with the village elders, so that they can be able to identify which are the most vulnerable households within that community. And but at the, these are huge selection criteria that looks at who are the IDPs within these communities. We target a certain number percentage 40% of women, female headed households. So there's a lot that goes into identifying the specific household that will be provided with emergency support. And I'll follow up to that. So, so once those beneficiaries are identified, they will receive all of the different components of the intervention, meaning the cash, the agriculture support and the access to food and nutrition education. It's, it's for all of the beneficiaries of that intervention or would that also differ within the, the, the, the, they will receive the cash, the input package based on the livelihood zone as well as the nutrition education. So it's a full package. Thanks. That's, that's very clear. Going back to you say so we have an experience here shared by a failure. That's worked on a framework of a new production initiative with the production of legumes including me a bit, and we all who have been in Niger appreciate that. Legumes and in collaboration with ACF, and this is in a global approach to diversity. In the framework of the strategy of local purchases and better nutrition that the community and the school levels does this approach and inspire ACF. Yes, but need to be think about because there is one notion inside which is the local purchase, the local purchase was a program initiated by the former president of Niger. And it shows its limits. All right, because we are encouraging action against hunger. We are encouraging people to produce what they are going to eat during all the years. But once we have a program of purchasing for instance, maybe people will be like they are going all to produce in a baby because of the value money, and they are going to forget other useful products for their own nutrition. That's one problem. The second problem is that they will want to sell all their county because it's easy for them to sell this county. So they will go back to the market to buy what to eat. You see, I don't know if you understand my my English. We have two problems at this level. People will go will will forget about other productions. And second, people will sell all their production because once they see the money, they will buy. So we need. Yes, of course, we are inspired by any action which improves the production of nutritious products in the area. But the aspect of selling is one question about which we need to reflect and take a decision. We are helping people to improve and the diverse their production so that they can tackle the nutrition matter. But if you come back and sell what they are producing at a localized scale, because it is not a very wide area. This is going to cause a problem. Yeah, yeah, it's good. Yeah. I understood it's an issue of balance between selling and income generation and then the actual consumption of other diversified the diet. Yeah, yeah. Thanks. So one question for you is awaiting if we have any other questions coming in in the chat and regarding the actual development of the content of the food and nutrition education. Is it do you have a standard package is it a standard material that you would use to compound in the different types of interventions of ACF in Niger. Or is it developed or tailored to each specific type of intervention, meaning the water and sanitation of the food security, how do you actually develop this and compound it with your different interventions. Okay, since the last two or three years in the ACF program in Niger is going towards multi sectoriality. It's sectoriality for us means that every time we have a project. This project should have all the components. Be them little because we are aware that no program taken apart solely can produce effect to produce effect we need to have a complete package of intervention that's why we are always running into multi sectoral programs for the population. So, at the various stage of designing a program, we include health and nutrition aspects, we include food security and livelihood aspects, and we include water and sanitation. Both of them have a the transversal aspect of committee mobilization. So that's how we are tackling this issue of some, some projects are there always short, short term project, but with the short term programs we have, we are scaling up. It means that if we fail to find one program of five years, three years. We are managing with the short programs to, to take a little bit time to, to three years in an area, a defined area, and giving them programs complete programs. You see, that's how we are tackling this, this program. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks for the replies. I'd like to call in an islas if you'd like to react to any of the points or if you have any complimentary ideas would like to share. Thank you, Diana. Thanks. I have actually a question for Issa regarding the, the selling and the purchase which is something we see commonly but have you done any assessment of what are the needs that are being addressed by, by the selling of all the production. The specific needs of the households, what do they use the money for, and, and what is it that this, this is actually addressing. And what other barriers have you identified to diversifying the production in that context. Thank you. Thank you for this question. In fact, we do not have a, we have of course, many evaluations of how the market is reacting in Niger. We have many market evaluations. And what was that as action against hunger. We cannot encourage people to sell their production. If we change their production to value to money value ones like maybe they will sell it of course, and this population will have to go back to the market to buy what they need to eat. And this approach of selling of creating them or easing them the opportunity to sell all that they have that we cannot support as action against hunger, we need them to produce nutritious and diversified food and to be able to maintain this food in their households. That's why we are carrying out at the same time you are promoting their production. We give we bring other projects, like a VSL is like income generating activities, so that these people will not have, will not be obliged to sell what they have produced. You see, we, we have a holistic programming. Even in Miami. It is not only a support to the production to improve and diversify the production. It is also an actions to to protect and promote the livelihoods of this population. They will have to sell, but yes of course they will earn money through VSLA activities through income generating activities that we are helping them to have. So if I may. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead. No, I was tackling the second question but you have if you have a point on that. Yes, no, I think that that is actually a great example. Thank you. Really going a bit deeper because of course households act in their own best interest right and so if we have a behavioral approach where we really try to understand what is underlying the what we see that they are doing for instance in this case. They are selling their their production. It's because possibly they gain more by selling than by producing themselves. And it's just logical that they, they, in their value system that is something that that they would prefer. So addressing it by including other livelihoods. Parts interventions then you are addressing the underlying need, as you are saying, of getting this, these, these resources that are very needed by the households. So, in that sense, it's a great example of going a bit deeper understanding what is it that households are needing in terms of behavioral aspects and and the, and the behaviors that they are exhibiting. Thank you. Thank you. I know comment. No. Thank you. We have one last question. Am I if you could kindly try to answer in the chat because I don't think we're going to have time to address is if the standard agriculture, if what were the impacts of the trend agricultural officers. And if they have a standard agriculture and nutrition guideline or framework. In the meantime, tears we have one minute left so fortunately we'll have to stop taking questions. I'd like to thank so much the participants for the active engagement in the discussion I think it was a very interesting discussion. Thank the presenters for the great presentations and I think it was very interesting for us to see first the possible steps that can be taken into account for the nutrition for the food and nutrition education in emergencies and then seem to make extremely important examples of country experiences one in Somalia and one in Niger, that actually go into the details of what had been suggested in the first presentation regarding the targeting of the participants the development of the content of the food and nutrition education the themes address to the preparation of the facilitators and the channels used no. Some points came out very importantly, when the importance of the liaison with the clusters, including with the nutrition cluster the incorporation of the existing material in infant and young child feeding. But also on the other hand the support to the multi sector approach to nutrition integrating food and nutrition education in agriculture interventions and the capacity development of the agriculture stakeholders and some challenges, particularly in addressing trauma in emergency situations and the importance of the support to mental health. And most of all the importance of regularly integrating food and nutrition education in emergency program and beyond in longer term, a programming at the country level. So with that, I thank you very much I hope this was useful for you. I'd like to thank also all of our colleagues who supported this webinar, including the country officers, the core team and the nutrition education team. As was mentioned in the beginning the recording of this webinar and the previous one and resilience will be available shortly in the core website. And as you leave the meeting, you will see automatically on your screen and evaluation of the webinar, please do fill it out. It's very important for us to have your feedback. Thank you so much. Thanks to former moderator as well and have a great rest of the day.