SUN CSN coordinator site visit to Zambia - Dec 9-14, 2013

Between December 9 and 14, 2013, I participated in an ACTION Advocacy Workshop and conducted a number of visits and meetings with SUN stakeholders in Lusaka, Zambia.

Overall, the trip was very fruitful and highlights once again the importance of such visits to get a –depth understanding of the local context and start seeing some interesting dynamics which may ne be apparent through electronic communications or at international meetings.

ACTION Advocacy Workshop – Lusaka, Zambia (December 9 – 12, 2013)

• The workshop gathered around 25 participants from Civil Society, mostly SUN Civil Society Alliances representatives and some of their CSO members, from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

• The workshop was extremely interactive, very useful for participants and comprised country team exercises, cross-learning between countries, very useful connections. The workshop format was also flexible and adaptable to respond to participants’ needs.

• On December 12, 2013, participants took part in a site visit of Chongwe hospital in and outpatient nutrition department. This was planned in respond to the need highlighted at the SUN Global Gathering to have more field learning exchange.

• Overall the participants were satisfied with the workshop, really valued this opportunity for learning from each other and between different country civil society teams and valued the honest sharing of experiences. This was in large part due to facilitators’ team successfully creating an open and safe space for working together and sharing.

• Some interesting resulting efforts to watch out for:

• Offer to provide volunteer support from nutrition students to the CSO-SUN alliance in Zambia following opportunistic meeting on the occasion of the workshop.

• A network of participants ANANET proposed to be formed to stay connected, keep learning from each other and as a resource for inter-country exchange.

• Case studies for each of the countries present to be developed by ACTION and disseminated further.

Site visit and meetings – December 12-13, 2013

I met with

• CARE Zambia (formerly CARE Peru). Discussions with Jay were very interesting given his experience in both the Peru and Zambian context. He mentioned that the separation of stakeholder groups in individual networks may sometimes weaken the networks with not much interface for collaborative efforts beyond the more formal context of the multi-stakeholder platform convened by the government. In Peru, UN, donors and CSOs work together as a same platform which facilitates joint efforts and advocacy and combining strengths and assets.

• National Food & Nutrition Commission representative on the occasion of the radio hot seat session with the CSO-SUN alliance in Zambia. She raised the need for stakeholders to understand each other’s contexts and environment which can sometimes be bureaucratic.

• William Chilufya CSO-SUN Alliance in Zambia coordinator. I was indeed able to spend a fair bit of time with William to start getting to know the alliance’s efforts in a little more depth to be better able to share learnings with others. Of course this sort of site visits to other countries is extremely valuable and needed. 2014 will see a new set of country site visits. Overall, the CSO-SUN Alliance in Zambia is very active and efforts are progressing well. William’s welcome was incredible and has enabled to make this trip such a fruitful experience.

• The next stage of efforts – alliance to continue advocacy for sustained political commitment and start focusing on programmatic efforts in the 3 districts where focus chosen and specifically community sensitization

• CSO SUN Alliance to start formalising membership and driving membership expansion in 2014

• Continued support from donors

• Government focal point supportive and there is a good working relationship between NFNC and CSO-SUN Alliance in Zambia

• CSO-SUN Alliance in Zambia is keen to learn from Tanzania experience as part of twinning exchange

• Biggest strengths of CSO-SUN Alliance are networking, high level advocacy and media engagement.

• WFP representative.

• WFP seemed to be very supportive of CSO-SUN alliance in Zambia efforts and facilitating.

• WFP keen to work more actively with CSA on their school feeding project they are starting to implement with school and community gardens, with support of ministry of agriculture.

• Role of CS in nutrition is very critical generally and critical in that there are different arms of accountability and CS is one of those pillars.

• Zambia is at a pick up time for nutrition and nutrition sector getting momentum and lots of interest from stakeholders– civil society is very neutral and interests lie at grassroots level which is a needed perspective since policies and programmes must be developed in response to grassroots needs

• There is need to empower and build capacity of CS to be able to articulate on issues of nutrition (particularly at household / village level) and guide design of programmes and projects that will impact , and motivate other actors to join efforts

• Learning from HIV/AIDS experience (governance, coordination, …) is key

• Need for better connection with academia both in country and beyond boarders (e.g. interventional universities)

• 2nd meeting of the multi-stakeholder platform

• I was fortunate to be able to sit in on the 2ndever multi-stakeholder platform that took place in Lusaka, Zambia on December 13, 2013.

• Participants counted representatives from CARE, Irish Aid, USAID, CSO SUN Alliance Zambia, Ministry of Health, NFNC, FAO, WHO, Ministry of Agriculture

• The NFNC aims to bring everybody to a common ground to address issues around nutrition

• Efforts are progressing and systems are being put in place to ensure governance facilitate the scaling up of nutrition.

• A minimum package of interventions is proposed and SUN Pool Funds being established to support the scaling up of nutrition efforts in Zambia.

• The meeting discussed the functioning of the forum, the 1000 days MCD programme, the monitoring and evaluation framework for SUN efforts in Zambia, Funds and support, CSO-SUN Alliance in Zambia, establishment of a business nutrition forum, feedback from the September 2013 global gathering and implications for Zambia efforts, and the way forward.

• The discussions also touched on the Nutrition for Growth commitments follow-up and the multi-stakeholder platform called for support from the global level in the development of a sound accountability mechanism and tracking system.

• Learning from HIV/AIDS experience was flagged as an important dimension.

In addition, given the great relationship the CSO-SUN alliance has developed with the media, I contribute to:

• A Radio Hot Seat Programme(Hot87.7fm)- with CSO SUN Alliance in Zambia and government communications representative from the NFNC. The programme successfully conveyed nutrition messages in a simple language that can be understood by all. The fact that only one person called in was a reflection that in Zambia awareness of the importance of nutrition is still low.

• A Radio interview which resulted in Lusaka times piece - http://www.lusakatimes.com/2013/12/13/dr-kaseba-true-champion-womens-nutrition-blanchard/

• A TV interview Zambia National Broadcasting Coalition (ZNBC) – featured in the Health section of the 19:20 news on December 12, 2013

I would like to take this opportunity to thank William, the ACTION workshop facilitators’ team, the multi-stakeholder platform amongst others for making my trip so enjoyable and refreshing my enthusiasm to be part of these efforts towards scaling up nutrition.