New cadre of nutrition personnel in Malawi
The Ministry of Health in Malawi has developed a creative solution to the need for personnel to manage community-based nutrition programmes.
Malawi is recruiting a new cadre, the Community Nutrition and HIV/AIDS worker, who will manage community nutrition programmes. In preparation, the Southern Africa Nutrition Capacity Development Initiative (SANCADI) supported the first phase of the development of a training curriculum. This involved providing technical and financial support for a 5-day curriculum workshop in October 2007, with 22 key stakeholder representatives. This is a multi-phase process, which will continue into 2008.
Outputs from the workshop included a job description, list of copmetencies, and a curriculum framework. One detailed module on Nutrition was subsequently developed, with 13 more to be completed.