Field Exchange - Issue 30

Many pieces in this issue of Field Exchange strengthen our understanding of best practice in nutritional emergencies. We highlight four in this editorial.
Victoria Sibson from Concern Worldwide describes efforts to establish why SFPs, implemented as part of CTC programming in Darfur, have often failed to meet SPHERE standards. Concern Worldwide undertook a study in two SFP locations with very different performance results. In El Geneina SFP, cure rates were only 26.9% and default rates were 47.5% while in Mornei SFP, performance was much better, almost reaching SPHERE targets. A number of contextual factors explaining the different programme outcomes came to light.
For example, in El Geneina there is a larger internally displaced population (either in camps or living with residents) that has greater trading opportunities, so that the opportunity cost of participating in the programme is far greater than in Mornei. Other factors are the greater coverage of the general food distribution (GFD) in Mornei, better access to protected water sources and the existence of more complementary programming, e.g. health, livelihoods, etc.