Marlyse Laure Assonken-Sobtafo

Radio campus is a community radio based in Bruxelles. I participate remotely from Fiji to the Bi-monthly show.
The objective of the radio show is to inspire women and girls to dare dive into their innermost being to explore themselves, their aims and motivation in life, as well as what makes them sad, happy, with the goal
being to get their best version out of it and impact not only their lives but also those of people within their environment.
Main task:
➢ Discussion on a chosen personal development topic from the lenses of other experts work in the
field, then share our experience, challenges and lessons learnt;
➢ Taking questions from women, adolescents and girls, encouraging them to take the step forward in freeing themselves from the mental prison they usually lock ourselves in.

• Manage and coordinate the United Nations Pacific Strategic Fund (UNPSF) with the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade as the contributor, UNRCO Samoa MCO and UNRCO Micronesia MCO. The Fund administrative support is ensured by the Multi-Partners Trust Fund Office (MPTFO) in New York. The trust fund budget is about US $ 16,000,000 million and currently include UNDP, UNFPA, UNWOMEN, and UNICEF as Participating UN Organizations (PUNOs) in fourteen Pacific countries. My main tasks included:
  ➢ Participating in developing, preparing, coordinating, and monitoring overall work plans,
  strategies, and technical documents related to the Trust Fund;
  ➢ Oversee day-to-day activities of the Trust Funds in close cooperation with the Heads of the
  PUNOs under the guidance of the Resident Coordinators of Fiji, Samoa, and Micronesia Multicountry Offices;
  ➢ Regular update of the M&E framework as well as adjustment of external risk, including COVID19 in the achievement of target indicators;
  ➢ Liaise with New Zealand counterpart for regular updates and exchanges programming information;
  ➢ Liaise with MPTFO for administration processes, Wellington, the three RCOs and four PUNOs for coordination purposes;
  ➢ Ensure the secretariat of the UNPSF Steering committee;
  ➢ Coordinating the development of the communication strategy and implementation; M&E tools including dashboard for result-based annual narrative and progress reports;
  ➢ Develop the joint programme Operational Manual in close collaboration with the MPTFO and the PUNOs; and
  ➢ Develop the Resource Mobilization and Advocacy Strategy for the Fund
• Policies strategic advisor to the UNRC:
  ➢ Support policy research and analyses and prepare analytical briefs supporting UNCT's strategic priorities and work plans; and
  ➢ Identify, analyze, and monitor developments and emerging trends to implement the UNCT's mandate in the region and the UN Pacific Strategy (UNPS);
  ➢ Health focal point for the UNRCO: represented the UNRCO in the Joint Incident Management Team (JIMT)-Partner pillar, JIMT-logistic pillar in coordinating COVID-19 response.

MFAT through CANZ provides support to the Kiribati government to reduce the burden of obesity and the ensuing Non Communicable Disease.
Policy development and Advocacy:
➢ Providing technical advice to the KHC program management team for improving and streamlining its overall management;
➢ Providing technical advice of optimal strategy for building communities resilience towards the effect of climate change on health and nutrition.
Programme monitoring and evaluation:
➢ Leading and managing the mid-term assessment of the project ;
➢ Leading, organizing, and coordinating the survey whose objective was to evaluate how much the Kiribati Health Champion program was contributing to a health and lifestyle behavior change in the Kiribati population.

Mwanamugimu also provides technical assistance to the development of national guidelines in the management of severe acute malnutrition in children with and without complications.
Clinical duty:
➢ Providing inpatient therapeutic care for the management of severe acute malnutrition children with medical complication; and
➢ Providing IYCF package care including breastfeeding.
Policy development & Advocacy:
➢ Drafting policy document for guiding prevention of malnutrition in Uganda; and
➢ Mwanamugimu focal point for the various technical working group: (1) Uganda anemia prevention and control strategy, (2) Parents education curriculum framework; Early Childhood Development and child nutrition.
Partnership’s Management:
➢ Represent Mwanamugimu unit for all strategic consultations with UN partners; and
➢ Mwanamugimu focal person for ongoing technical assistance project with UNICEF, WFP, UNFPA, UNESCO, UNWomen.
Capacity building and mentoring:
➢ Providing supervision to university graduate and undergraduate students for their practical training;
➢ Training nurse and nutrition students on the management of Severely Acute Malnourished children with and without complications.

➢ Formulation of nutrition-sensitive agricultural strategy for school and home garden programmes. The school garden's overall objective was to improve Resilience, Adaptation, Incomes, and Nutrition Security for school children and adults in Uganda;
➢ Planning and organizing meetings with local government and communities ;
➢ Designing a five years implementation plan ;
➢ Organizing meetings with partners at the national level for experience sharing purposes in program design and implementation in Karamoja;
➢ Planning and designing a monitoring & evaluation strategy for the school garden programme;and
➢ Designing a result-based management framework that captures the project achievements.

Policy development and Advocacy
➢ Participating in the development and formulation of strategies and work plans related to nutrition within WFP Senegal country office;
➢ Planning and designing nutrition sensitive and specific interventions (blanket supplementary feeding, target supplementary feeding through specialized nutritious foods; complementary feeding; micronutrient deficiency through food fortification, etc.);
➢ Participating in the resource mobilization related to nutrition and food security ;
➢ Participating in the formulation of the WFP country programme;
➢ Participating in the SMART survey;
➢ Participating in designing nutrition programmes in development and emergency contexts based on survey results and/or early warning system;
➢ Representing WFP in the nutrition strategic donor’s meeting;
➢ Participating in the elaboration of the project document;

Managing partnership, Programme Management, and coordination mainstreaming gender equality
➢ Coordinating and overseeing the work of WFP implementing partners: government through various ministries then 5 NGOs implementing partners (IP);
➢ Participating in the emergency preparedness, coordination, and response to the Sahel food crisis from 2012, and floods during raining seasons in Senegal, etc.;
➢ Overseeing and coordinating 5 WFP Implementing Partners in nutrition-related intervention;
➢ Management and Monitoring activities including developing the Field level Agreement,
organizing quarterly meetings, and ensuring progress reports;
➢ Coordinating three WFP sub-offices in nutrition-related project activities in development and emergency contexts (Sahel crisis from 2012, floods, etc.);
➢ Bi-weekly updating WFP regional bureau nutrition bulletin on WFP country office Senegal nutrition interventions ;
➢ Building partnership with private sectors in food manufacturing companies, and machinery manufacturing plants to assist the Women small to medium scale milling production unit through capacity building and production equipment ;
➢ WFP focal point for the joint program (UNESCO- WFP-UNFPA-WHO-FAO-UNICEF) on health, education, gender, food security, and nutrition; and
➢ WFP focal point for the MDG-F joint programme “preventing and managing child malnutrition in highly vulnerable regions” with FAO-WFP-UNESCO-WHO-UNICEF for a total budget of USD 5,550,000

Draft WFP progress and annual report for UN joint programme
Emergency preparedness and Early Warning System
➢ Representing WFP in the coordination platform of the Disaster Risk Reduction and Early
Warning System led by the Civil Protection Agency of the Ministry of Interior of Senegal;
➢ Representing WFP Country Office Senegal in the task force to develop the 2012 Senegal
contingency plan in food security and nutrition. This initiative was jointly coordinated by the United Nations and the Government of Senegal. The contingency included the humanitarian needs, detailed response plans, and required funding;
➢ Contribute to the designing of WFP contingency plan to respond to the flooding and droughts
especially during the three months lean season every year ; and
➢ Make use of the early warning system to act fast and assist the populations at the first signs of a critical situation of malnutrition and food insecurity by a blanket distribution of dry ration, and/or a targeted cash voucher.
Monitoring and evaluation of the project activities:
➢ Assist the M &E team in Planning and designing an M&E framework;
➢ Ensuring nutrition interventions effectiveness and efficiency though a reliable reporting system;
➢ Organizing assessment and review meetings with all implementing partners at national for a mid-term and end of projects review;
➢ Ensuring a timely report of nutrition activities.

Capacity building:
➢ Organizing and Coordinating all nutrition-related training activities;
➢ Organizing and ensuring the training of WFP implementing partners and government counterpart; and
➢ Leading and organizing the capacity building of small to medium scale millers.

- Drafting substantive papers on security issues;
➢ Assisting in a fundraising program for Community chapters ;
➢ Report-writing and note-Taking during seminars and workshops organized by ACSS; and
➢ Administrative support to seminar and workshop organized by ACSS.

➢ Participating in various workshops on economic planning and research; and
➢ Data collection, analysis, and report writing.