National Coverage Assessment Training for Government and NGO Staff, Ethiopia (December 2015)

The CMN (Coverage Monitoring Network) is an inter-agency initiative established in July 2012 with the support from the European Commission Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO) and USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) in order to improve nutrition programmes through the promotion of quality coverage assessment tools, capacity building and information sharing. The CMN offers trainings and workshops on the various coverage assessment methods, as well as guidance on how to overcome the barriers identified. The CMN offers free technical support in the design, planning, implementation and analysis of coverage assessments of community management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) programs.

Since its creation in 2012, the CMN Project has supported more than 50 organizations to design, plan and implement coverage assessments. During the first year of CMN Phase II, activities focused largely on providing support to programs in 9 priority countries with the planning and delivery of semi-quantitative evaluation of access and coverage (SQUEAC) surveys and community assessments. The first year of the project saw the team supporting organizations and focal points in each country to develop and start to implement national action plans to scale up coverage assessments. To support national scale up, during year one the CMN team launched a major review of coverage methods, developed simplified training materials for coverage and community assessments. These and more materials are available on the Coverage Monitoring Network website. One of the main activities of the second phase of the project (which started in 2014) is to provide technical support in the design, implementation and analysis of coverage assessments and the formulation of community mobilization action plans.