Technical brief: Community engagement for CMAM

In recent years, the context of community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) implementation has changed dramatically, from emergency and vertical programing into government–led programing where services are integrated into the national health system. However, CMAM coverage and access remains low. A major factor contributing to this shortfall is both the weakness of service providers to implement the com munity component of CMAM. In the design, resource allocation, implementation, supervision, monitoring and reporting, community engagement is often neglected as it is not seen as a priority for successful program implementation by implementing agencies and donors1. This reluctance is due to inadequate capacity and technical guidance and also due to common misconceptions that community engagement is too messy, takes too long, is too time intensive, costs too much and cannot achieve large-scale impact