This three year funded nutrition project supported by the EU further continues to reflect the evolution in CARE Madagascar programming which focuses much more on providing TA and strengthening partnerships. A small team of nutritional and institutional strenghtening experts will work closely with a local NGO (ASOS) to improve their technical ability to do community nutrition but will most importantly work to strengthen their institutional capacity to function as an organization. The project will work in 12 communes of the Southeast, where CARE is already implementing food security projects and this community nutrition project will reinforce and complement the agriculture production activities to ensure proper utilization of food resources. Four of these communes are currently experiencing famine like conditions and the first year will be focused on recovery efforts, providing nutritional supplements to hundreds of malnourished children through a network of feeding centers established with our local partner, WFP and UNICEF. This will evolve into a community nutrition project focusing on nutritional education, promotion of home gardens and the development of an enriched biscuit for commercial sale with support from the International NGO GRET. Initially CARE will also institute a school feeding program in the hardest hit communes with the support of WFP which will transition out after the first year and be replaced by a program providing an enriched snack, to be developed in partnership with WFP. The project will work closely with the National Office for Nutrition and its objectives reflect those of the Government's National Nutrition strategy.
