Semi Annual Report: The Thrive Project AID-611-C-13-00001

The Project has been supporting the integration of Nutrition Assessment, Counseling and Support (NACS) services in selected health facilities in four provinces for the past four years. The specific objectives of the Thrive Project are to provide NACS services for people living with HIV and orphans and vulnerable children, build the capacity of nutrition service providers, and local production of specialized nutrient supplements, High Energy Protein Supplement (HEPS). During the past six months, the Thrive Project concentrated on supporting NACS services in the final 16 health facilities in two provinces, Central and Southern. A total of 9,772 new clients received the full NACS services in all the 50 supported health facilities, bringing the overall number of clients reached to 115,127. The Project exceeded the contractual target of 70,000 clients, with a total of 2,098 malnourished clients receiving nutritional supplements, pushing the overall project total to 27,829 and surpassing the life of project target of 21,700. Pre-service NACS training in three government colleges was completed, introducing 494 students to NACS. Financial and technical support was provided to Chainama College of Health Sciences to upgrade the entire nutrition curriculum, including NACS. In the first quarter of this year, 34 metric tons of High Energy Protein Supplement (HEPS) was distributed to 16 health facilities in Southern and Central provinces, with an emphasis on monitoring health facilities' storage and distribution procedures. The Thrive Project also provided technical assistance to two COMACO plants and HIPRO production facilities, resulting in COMACO receiving a recommendation for Good Manufacturing Practices certification for their second plant in Serenje, Central province. HIPRO was also recommended for Good Manufacturing Practices certification due to the extra support from the Thrive Project. Interventions continued on the sale of HEPS in the communities, with collaboration with government and CBOs to ensure clients consistently accessed NACS services in Southern and Central provinces. One major achievement was the activation of a mechanism for tracing defaulters from all the 50 Thrive Project supported health facilities, with a total of 1,788 NACS defaulters referred back to the health facilities to continue to access NACS services. Transition planning has been ongoing, with dialogues with provincial governments on the Project transition in November 2017. All government counterparts at all levels have been informed about the Project transitioning and have been engaged in the process of sustaining NACS beyond the Project. The Thrive Project budgeted $2,500,000 up to November 2017 and spent $1,655,952.43 by March 2017, with a burn rate of 66 percent. The emphasis for Module 1 has been to lay the ground for a smooth transition of the project at the end of the year, maintaining a strong drive for the current engagement with Ministry of Health at national, provincial, and district levels through to health facilities to embrace NACS activities and sustain these within the existing government structures and beyond the project. A feasibility trip was undertaken recently with the Ministry of Health Chief Nutritionist to selected health facilities in Southern Province to determine what was happening on the ground with NACS activities and how these could be maintained or made better through routine monitoring and evaluation.