5. When and where to get specialist help

If a CO has in-house capacity for food and nutrition security, it should be used given familiarity with local and national norms, customs and standards. Specialist advice should be called upon where local capacity is overwhelmed, or where the scope or nature of the emergency demands support.
CARE International rosters for deployable emergency personnel include specialists with experience in food & nutrition security, food distribution, food logistics, and markets and cash based programming. CARE’s emergency food & nutrition security capacity is strongly rooted in COs and the projects they implement. So, many of these staff are located in other COs, supported by a limited number of deployable specialists at a CARE International Member or regional level. To access these personnel, COs should follow the procedures for activating emergency personnel described in Chapter 21 Human resources.
Technical advice for food security programming is available by contacting the following people in the CARE USA Emergency and Humanitarian Assistance Unit:

In addition:

  • For advice on nutrition or infant and young child feeding, contact CARE USA’s Sexual Reproductive health unit, via Kamlesh Giri iycf&e@care.org (see Chapter Health, and Chapter Infant and young child feeding in emergencies).
  • For advice on livelihood programming and economic recovery in emergencies, contact the CARE USA Economic Development Unit, Laté Lawson, economicrecovery@careinternational.org (see Chapter 8.6 Economic recovery).
  • To request deployment of a food and nutrition security expert, contact the CI Emergency Human Resources Coordinator, emergencyHR@careinternational.org.

External to CARE, the Emergency Nutrition Network (ENN) has launched an online forum for people working in emergency nutrition and food security.  The forum is en-net and aims to provide fast support and guidance challenging issues in the field, prompt technical advice for operational dilemmas, as well as links to key resources.  En-net hopes to link field practitioners, researchers and technical experts to discuss the current issues for which there may not be accessible published guidelines.  You can find the forum at http://enn.cmail3.com/t/y/l/dhkyc/itkultllh/r or via the link on the ENN website.

CARE also recognizes that no single organization can address today’s complex food and nutrition security challenges. Partnership is more important than ever. CARE should work closely with local governments and a wide range of other actors, including international organizations, NGOs, civil society and private-sector businesses.