Uganda Innovation plan | learningroute

Justification: SUN Alliance in Uganda works in collaboration with the Office of the Prime Minister to facilitate the integration of nutrition interventions in district plans and budgets. About 10 districts have established District Nutrition Coordination Committees (DNCCs); however, the critical gap is the lack of a specific nutrition budget line for adequate allocation of resources towards the delivery of nutrition services.

Expected outcome: with training and capacity development from SUN CSA, local authorities from three districts will establish a nutrition budget line for their district. The main target beneficiary groups will be women of reproductive age and children under five years.

Innovation and intervention: the Uganda SUN Alliance will coordinate evidence-based advocacy activities with district stakeholders to demonstrate the need for a nutrition budget line. At the same time the Alliance will work with district-level authorities and staff to develop their capacity and create SMART nutrition budget lines. The aim is that nutrition budget lines would be integrated into district plans by the end of the Innovation Plan work. The alliance aims to ensure multi-stakeholder participation and focus efforts on capacity development, communication and dissemination of the results as well as on robust monitoring and evaluation. The implementation of the proposed innovation plan will provide lessons that will be shared with other actors to influence the budgeting process for 2017-2018, which begins in October 2017. In the long term, adequate funding for nutrition at district level will translate into improved delivery of nutrition services. With continued advocacy, the practice will be formally adopted by the Ministry of Finance for all of Uganda’s 112 districts.