Community Mobilisation Experience Sharing Brief

The brief was delivered to USAID/Uganda in April 2018, and it showcases FANTA's experience in community mobilisation in Uganda. The Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance III Project (FANTA) provides technical support to USAID and its partners, including host country governments, international organisations, and nongovernmental organisations. FANTA works at both the country and global levels, supporting the design and implementation of programs in focus countries, and building on field experience to strengthen the evidence base, methods, and global standards for food security and nutrition programming. The project is managed by FHI 360, and it is a cooperative agreement funded by USAID. The Uganda Nutrition Action Plan (UNAP) 2011-2016 calls for multi-disciplinary interventions to fight malnutrition and promote community-based initiatives that have proven cost-effective. The Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MGLSD) is a lead agency in scaling up community-based nutrition activities, and it has developed a community mobilisation approach to ensure community participation in development programming. The community mobilisation approach recognises the need to work directly with stakeholders, including community leaders and community members, to appreciate the challenges caused by malnutrition, understand the consequences, and develop plans to improve community nutrition practices. Community Development Officers (CDOs) play a key role in disseminating information that influences knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and practices that improve nutrition at the household level. To support CDOs, MGLSD and FANTA conducted a gap analysis, which found that CDOs needed technical understanding of nutrition and access to reference materials. As a result, MGLSD and FANTA developed the Community Mobilisation Package for Food and Nutrition Security and a Monitoring and Support Supervision Tool. The Community Mobilisation Package includes a guide for community mobilisers and a flip chart, as well as an orientation guide for CDOs. The package was developed through a multi-stakeholder process, involving consultations with CDOs and other stakeholders, and it was validated by stakeholders at a national workshop. The Monitoring and Support Supervision Tool is designed to enable MGLSD to assess the integration of food and nutrition security into community development programming at all levels. The tool contains a template for each level, including information collection areas such as budget, support supervision, and reporting. As a result of the development and finalisation of the Community Mobilisation Package, several achievements were made, including the orientation of 167 district and lower local government CDOs, the adoption of the orientation guide by MGLSD and UNICEF, and the training of 15 national-level trainers on the monitoring and support supervision tool. The Community Mobilisation Package and its accompanying trainings have empowered CDOs to work directly with community members and share vital information on nutrition and food security. The package has also helped to increase the number of community dialogue meetings, during which issues of food and nutrition security and early childhood development are discussed. The brief concludes that capacity building for CDOs is necessary to improve community mobilisation, and that where CDOs have been built, there are increasing numbers of community dialogue meetings. The Community Mobilisation Package and its accompanying trainings are key to empowering communities to implement, manage, and sustain necessary programming for improved nutrition and food security.