Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Network

Main strengths of the Civil Society Alliance

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Advocacy:

• ECSC-SUN is an advocacy platform where policy, data collection and sharing, promotion of multi-sectoral coordination come into play. As SUN CSA as an advocacy platform we mainly focus on advocacy and awareness creation as well as supporting the government in its efforts to tackle malnutrition in the country through aligning our activities with the government plans and programs. We are closely working with government and providing support that can help shape programs.  We support Ministry of Health, custodian of nutrition in areas where we can bring about change. Examples: In collaboration with Ministry of Health we organized nutrition sensitization training for members of the parliament. We played instrumental role for the forum to happen and achieve its purpose. This is part of our advocacy for political commitment and promotion for multi-sectoral engagement.

 

• Building advocacy capacity of our members. We gave trainings to members our alliance on how they can best advocate for nutrition and influence action, given our context may be different from other countries.  

 

• In collaboration with Save the Children UK, we have recently developed an advocacy strategy for our future initiative and engaged all our members to participate in the development, content, design and identifying key objectives we want to achieve in the coming years.

 

Policy, programs and Muti-sectoral engagement

• We have conducted a study (policy & practice review) to assess nutrition mainstreaming in relevant government sectors’ policies and programs. This still has to do with our advocacy initiative. The main purpose of the study was to see the gaps in the sectors and advocate for mainstreaming. Following the study, we organized policy dialogues and also shared the findings in different nutrition events.  

• Being a member of nutrition technical committees and ad-hoc taskforces set by the Ministry of Health, our alliance has been actively supporting the development of the multi-sectoral National Nutrition Program II and several other nutrition initiatives, such as nutrition communication materials preparation

• The alliance through Save the Children, lead organization, participates in the National Nutrition Coordinating body (NNCB), which brings together National Nutrition program implementing sector offices.

• ECSC-SUN is currently providing both technical and financial back up to the National Food and Nutrition Policy (NFNP) document, whose preparation is underway.

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SBCC and Social Mobilization

• We as an alliance and members individually develop SBCC materials and widely share with the purpose to raise awareness of the public about feeding and child caring practice, awareness of the media, and officials. Booklets, brochures, posters prepared and shared are good examples.

• We participate and provide technical and financial support to the government social mobilization initiatives such as public events during breastfeeding week. Recently we have technically supported the launch of 1st 1000 Days nutrition campaign, Sustainable Under-Nutrition Reduction in Ethiopia (SURE) program and Seqota Declaration (a commitment to end child under-nutrition in Ethiopia by 2030) implementation start up. These are government commitments to end malnutrition

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Data collection and sharing

• ECSC-SUN is also good at documenting good practices, ongoing changes around nutrition at community level. This is part of the awareness raising and advocacy initiative. One of our alliance’s objectives is gathering and sharing these nutrition information and good experiences to increase learning and enhance CSOs capacity. We, therefore, travel to localities/communities where good nutrition works are going on and document stories and share. We, for example, documented and shared stories about how multi sectoral integration to tackle malnutrition work is being done at community level, how nutrition services are given to the community in the health stations, how nutrition sensitive agriculture is being done and others.

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Milestones achieved

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Could you share up to 5 milestones achieved by the Civil Society towards improved nutrition in your Country?  What are the keys of successes according to you?

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Reflect on the role played by the Civil Society in areas such as, social mobilization, advocacy, influence over national governance processes, influencing the setting of the public agenda on nutrition, strengthening of multi-stakeholders platforms and networks, financial tracking and resource mobilisation. Give us up to 5 examples.

 

• Setting nutrition as an agenda: In a bid to raise awareness of the public and make nutrition the public agenda ECSCS-SUN produced TV and radio spots and organized a radio & TV panel discussion that aimed to inform the general public. ECSC-SUN as a team sitting at Save the Children and its member organizations are participating in the various working groups including nutrition communication groups, established by Ministry of Health. We together thus advise and guide the ministry’s nutrition communication and advocacy material development and harmonization works. We contributed to the development, production and transmission of nutrition messages planned by the government.

 

•  Nutrition Sensitization: ECSC-SUN has carried out several nutrition sensitization activities, which can be regarded as one of our achievements.

In collaboration with MoH, we sensitized members of the parliament on nutrition and what responsibilities they may have to support the ongoing efforts. And for nutrition to be prominently featured in the media and thereby the public’s awareness is raised, we build the capacity of media people and stimulated them to play their roles to galvanize action at all levels.

 

 

• Strengthening of multi-stakeholders platforms: CSOs has been contributing to the development of multi-sectoral National Nutrition Program and been able to shape the strategic objectives stipulated in the program. Along with this, we strongly promote multi-sectoral coordination to achieve the objectives. Through Save the Children ECSC-SUN is represented in the National Nutrition Coordinating Body (NNCB), through which nutrition interventions are expected to be integrated, be coordinated and mainstreamed into the various national development sectors. Save the Children reflects ECSC-SUN members’ thoughts and commitments to help end malnutrition. We also documented success around multi-sectoral intervention at community level and planned to share with other localities to learn from.

 

• Social Mobilization: ECSC-SUN members are of several social mobilization works they do individually, but as a coalition, we still support social mobilization and behavioral change efforts being made by Ministry of Health. ECSC-SUN has technically and financially support social mobilization event organized during the 2015 and 2016 breast-feeding week.

 

The keys of our successes are our strong alignment with the government plans and programs, many of our members having good reputation in supporting nutrition initiatives, and willingness to work together, donors interest to support SUN CSAs, the global SUN and its affiliated agencies’ support in terms of capacity building and experience sharing also help us achieve what we have accomplished so far.

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Alliance Strategy and Key targets

Which are the main elements of your Alliance’s strategy? Could you please share your key targets?

 

ECSC-SUN has been working to achieve the following strategic objectives and is planning to continue to work on these for better nutrition outcomes to happen:

 

• Strengthen the coalition through expansion of membership and capacity building activities and promote civil society engagement in nutrition in the country, with a focus on working with and through existing networks.

• Support roll out of the NNP to the regions including systems strengthening for multi-sectoral collaboration and track overall progress made on the NNP and government commitments.

• Increase the learning and knowledge base of what works in nutrition (including through policy briefings, publications, and events).

• Promote and support integration of explicit nutrition objectives into policies, programme planning and activities of key sectors.

• Create awareness and demand for nutrition services among communities

 

 

Membership and ongoing initiatives

What are the SUN Civil Society Alliance´s structure, membership, ongoing initiatives/grants?

 

 

Decision making Structure

With Save the Children playing the leading role, ECSC-SUN was overseen by the General Assembly for a couple of years. As the number of member’s increase and the Coalition’s work expand, a Steering Committee with 9 members representing both international and local CSOs has been established.

 

The current members of the Steering Committee are Save the Children, CCRDA, CARE-Ethiopia, FONSE, ACF, CONCERN WW, Nutrition Plus Holistic (local), Redeem the Generation (local), and the Hunger Project.

The Committee which shall be accountable to the General Assembly, shall be presided over by a chairperson who is elected every two years.  The Coalition promotes participatory planning and decision making and fosters a culture of trust and collaboration among members.

 

In the initial stages the coalition shall meet on a monthly basis with other meetings to be determined as necessary. As membership evolves and the steering committee is established it will meet on a monthly basis with the General Meeting of all members taking place on a quarterly basis.

 

Membership:

 

Membership is open to local, national and international civil society organizations and other non-profit organizations (for example research institutions and professional associations) working on nutrition focused interventions and operating in Ethiopia.

 

Currently ECSC-SUN has 50 members comprising of local and international CSOs. Documenting the profiles of the members is now underway.

 

Funding:

ECSC-SUN has secured funding for two years (July 2014 – June 2016) from Irish Aid and run a project named: Ethiopian Civil Society Coalition for Scaling Up Nutrition: Securing Commitments and Accountability for Nutrition Results. The project period has now extended to December 2016 with no-cost extension request provided to the donor and is has been implementing its re-programmed activities.

 

The coalition is now developing a concept note to be submitted to interested donors to support nutrition advocacy and accountability in the country. Possibilities for funding include contributions from individual members and exploring external funding opportunities particularly through the SUN Civil Society Network Multi Sectorial Trust Fund.

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Listen and read the interview to Kenaw Gabreselassie, ECSC-SUN coordinator taken in preparation of the LR

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What is the nutritional situation of your country?

 

Provide information on the nutrition situation of your country during the last five to ten years. Please include key statistics, such us: Under Five Stunting, Low Birth Weight, 0-6 Months Exclusive Breastfeeding, Under Five Wasting, Under Five Overweight, Woman Anaemia, etc. Add any other relevant information that can help the other participants to understand the your country’s context.

 

 

There is a downward trend in the proportion of children stunted and underweight over the last four Demographic Health Surveys at national level (EDHS) between 2000- 2014.

 

Current figures show, according to EDHS 2011 and mini-EDHS 2014:

 

• Under Five Stunting - 40%.

• Low Birth Weight -  10%

• Under Five Wasting - 9%

• Under five Underweight -  25%

• Under Five Overweight – 3%

• 0-6 Months Exclusive Breastfeeding  -  52%

• Anaemia in children 6–59 months of age - 39%.

• Only about half of children receive complementary foods during 6-9 months (Complementary foods are not introduced timely for all children).

•  Only 4.3% of children aged older than 6 months consumed the recommended 4 food groups daily.

• Prevalence of anaemia amongst women in the reproductive age group (15–49) - 17%

• Wasting/thinness (BMI<18.5) among women of reproductive age - 27% and among adolescents aged 15-19 years - 36%.       

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What are the key interventions in your country to tackle malnutrition?

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The National Nutrition Program (NNP II- 2016-2020): This multi stakeholder initiative brings together 13 sectors and signatories and has 5 strategic objectives that focus on improving nutrition status of women, adolescent girls, children and multi sector coordination.

 

Strategic Objective 1

• Nutritional Status of Adolescents Improved

• Nutritional Status of Women of Reproductive Age Improved

 

Strategic Objective 2

• Improved Nutritional Status of Infants and Young Children 0-23 Months

• Improved Nutritional Status of Children 24-59 Months

• Improved Nutritional Status of Children Ages 6-10

 

Strategic Objective 3

• Improved Nutrition Service Delivery for Communicable and Non-Communicable Diseases

Healthy Lifestyles and Nutrition Promoted

 

Strategic Objective 4

• Strengthened Implementation of Nutrition-Sensitive Interventions in the MOANR and Ministry of Livestock and Fishery Resource Development

• Strengthened Implementation of Nutrition-Sensitive Interventions in the Education Sector

• Strengthened Implementation of Nutrition-Sensitive Interventions in the Water, Irrigation and Electricity sector

• Strengthened Implementation of Nutrition-Sensitive Interventions in the Industry Sector

• Strengthened Implementation of Nutrition-Sensitive Interventions in the Trade Sector

• Strengthened Social Protection Services for Improved Nutrition

• Strengthened Nutrition-Sensitive Interventions in Disaster Risk Management

• Ensured Quality and Safety of Nutrition Services and Supplies

• Improved Nutrition Supply management

• Improved Nutrition Communication

• Improved Gender-Sensitive Nutrition Implementation

 

Strategic Objective 5

• Improved Community Level Nutrition Implementation Capacity

• Improved Nutrition Workforce capacity

• Improved NNP Institutional Implementation Capacity and Multisectoral Coordination

• System Capacity Strengthened for Improved NNP Implementation

• Improved Capacity to Conduct Nutrition Monitoring, Evaluation and Research

• Improved Regulatory Capacity

 

The Seqota Declaration is a key initiative under the NNP that is the government commitment to end child malnutrition by 2030. The key goals of this Declaration include, amongst others, to achieve the following by 2030:

 

• Zero stunting in children less than 2 years;

• 100 percent access to adequate food all year round;

• Transformed small-holder productivity and income;

• Zero post-harvest food loss through reduced post-harvest loss;

• Innovation around promotion of sustainable food systems

• Continue to improve the accessibility and coverage of adequate and safe drinking water supply, 100 percent open defecation free districts;

• Increase efforts to educate women and girls,

• Focus on poverty reduction and resilience building

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What are the existing key challenges to scale up nutrition in your country?

 

Multi stakeholder Coordination:

 

The NNP coordination structure includes donors, academia, UN agency, NGOs and 13 government signatories: The Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Industry, Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Trade, Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation, Ministry of youth and Sport, Ministry of Communication Affairs, the commission of National Disaster Risk Management Coordination, the Ministry of Environment, Forest Development and Climate Change.  The coordination structure establishment has been delayed in some Regions and woredas. There is also a huge gap in having functional and effective coordination at all levels the different sectors failed to regularly meet and jointly plan nutrition activities. The structures were also not strong enough to coordínate the implementation of National Nutrition Program with clearly defined accountability and responsibility at higher level above the implementing sectors.

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Limited Mainstreaming nutrition into sector plans

 

Most NNP (National Nutrition Plan) signatories in the Education, water Resources and Agriculture sectors (and others) have not mainstreamed nutrition in their sector strategic and annual plans. This hindered the actual implementation of the national plan down to Regional and district levels. The various sectors also lacked the organizational structure and the appropriate human resource to effectively mainstream nutrition. The sectors also have made little progress in including nutrition sensitive and specific indicators into their programs.

 

Budget

 

Budget allocation for nutrition sensitive and nutrition specific activities  from the government side is very low at country level and has shown little progress after the launch of NNP I. The Ministry of Health has this year allocated a nutrition budget line but not enough for the implementation of NNP II.

 

M&E

 

The Health sector monitoring system, health management information system (HMIS), includes only few nutrition indicators and the system needs to be strengthened in measuring and triangulating nutrition information that captures data from all relevant sectors. Progress and changes related to  behavioral change are not collected. A new monitoring system incorporating exclusive breastfeeding, complementary feeding and age appropriate counselling is being developed by the Ministry of Health.

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Mapping of influential actors involved on Nutrition (not exhaustive)​