SMARTplus: digital system for fast, reliable malnutrition data tackling the health-crisis in Somalia
THE CHALLENGE
For the last decade, Somalia has suffered from one of the highest rates of emergency-level malnutrition. This has necessitated an ongoing humanitarian response involving the timely delivery of life-saving health and nutrition interventions, with children and highly vulnerable segments of the population requiring prioritization in times of extreme need and limited resources. However, the lack of timely, reliable nutrition and mortality data prevents humanitarian actors from responding rapidly enough and mapping the distribution of emergency cases requiring urgent attention. As such, malnourished children are often not reached by life-saving health services in time to prevent avoidable suffering and death.
THE SOLUTION
To address the need for a timelier and data-driven response to emergency-level malnutrition in Somalia, Action Against Hunger deployed SMARTplus integrated digital infrastructure for simplified and improved collection of nutrition and mortality data. Designed to support governments and aid agencies in more rapidly identifying, alerting, and reacting to impending health/nutrition crises, SMARTplus generates accurate data with less time, staff, and resources required. Using the established SMART methodology, the application involves the use of 3D scans to provide fast, cheap, and accurate child body measurements, analyze incoming data, assure quality on a survey management tool, aggregate data into a central database, and visualize results on a public dashboard down to the sub-regional level. By the end of their funding period, Action Against Hunger had completed 90% of the mobile application and fully developed the software in preparation for the global dashboard launch. Additionally, components of SMART+ were made available to field practitioners in Afghanistan, Mozambique, and Uganda for testing. In April 2023, an official event was held in Nairobi to mark the launch of SMART+.
