Project profile — Southern African Nutrition Initiative - Response to Coronavirus (COVID-19)

This project aims to lessen the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on poor and marginalized communities in targeted areas of Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. Aligned with national pandemic response plans, this project works to help reduce the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable people, particularly women and girls, by increasing the capacity of health care centers, health care workers, and communities to prevent and respond to the pandemic. Project activities include: (1) providing training to facility- and community-based health workers to better identify and respond to COVID-19; (2) providing health centers with essential hygiene and sanitation supplies, including locally-procured personal protective equipment; (3) raising awareness about COVID-19 prevention and safe hygiene and sanitation practices among community members; (4) increasing access to essential hygiene and sanitation supplies at the household level; and (5) strengthening community-based sexual and gender-based violence prevention and response mechanisms. This project expects to directly benefit 59,000 women, girls, men, and boys in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. This project also expects to indirectly benefit an additional 1,075,000 women, men, girls and boys.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved capacity of health centers and health care workers to prevent and respond to COVID-19; and (2) increased capacity of communities to prevent and respond to COVID-19.

Results achieved as of March 2021 include: (1) trained 433 health care workers (of which 269 women) in COVID-19 identification and response; (2) trained 786 volunteer community health workers (of which 376 women) in COVID-19 prevention and response; (3) 90 rural health facilities received urgent COVID-19 equipment and supplies, including 55,650 masks (medical, surgical and reusable), 15,000 examination gloves, and 120 infra-red thermometers; (4) held 649 community-level information and awareness meetings to provide people with evidence-based information about COVID-19 and the increased incidence of sexual and gender-based violence that followed the pandemic, reaching approximately 58,700 people; and (5) increased the capacity of the health system and communities to prevent and respond to COVID-19 and the negative social consequences of the pandemic.