6 February 2013 Gaz Mohamed Mohamed Hussein Al Masarah comes from Masrah, a small village on the Nile about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the governorate capital of Asyut, Upper Egypt. She is 25-years-old and delighted to be included in a group of 20 young women selected by the SMART Project (Community-based Initiatives for a Better Life, funded by USAID) to work as Community Health Workers (CHWs) in their own communities. This class of 20 future CHWs is part of a total cadre of 1,200 women who have been trained.

16 January 2013 Many Community Development Associations (CDAs) in Egypt struggle to be sustainable, as their initial funding is spent on start-up costs, and local activities rarely make enough money to pay salaries and ongoing maintenance costs. One of the objectives of the SMART project—a USAID-funded MCHIP project that focuses on improving maternal and neonatal health and nutrition—is to build the capacity of CDAs so they can be more self-reliant. The project works through community development associations in Upper and Lower Egypt, training physicians and community health workers to improve newborn care, nutrition, and the use of modern family planning methods. Stronger CDAs can continue to implement SMART activities in the community after the end of the project.

Country Overview: SMART Project

19 November 2012 On 5-6 November, Kenya's Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, with support from partners including USAID and MCHIP, hosted the first National Symposium on Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) in Kenya at the Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi. The SUN movement is a country-led, global effort to advance health and development goals through sound nutrition, with a specific focus on the first 1,000 days of a child’s life between pregnancy and age two.