Region: East Africa

This video is a presentation to the Ethiopian Nutrition Leaders Network Annual Meeting, 23rd November 2020 by Marie McGrath (ENN) and Carlos Grijalva Eternod (LSHTM).

MAMI RISE research in Ethiopia is a four year research programme (2019-2023) that will test the MAMI care pathway as a community based approach to care for nutritionally at risk infants under six months in a randomised control trial (RCT) within existing services in two sites in Ethiopia (Jimma Zone and Deder Woreda).

We have just visited Ethiopia to understand how the country is succeeding in strengthening the ‘nexus’ between humanitarian and development actions. Both of us have a long history with Ethiopia, starting our careers working at the time of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia and with refugees in Sudan. Since then, we have been privileged to have worked in Ethiopia on numerous occasions, witnessing substantial change and progress. A memorable event was when we co-hosted a 3-day conference in 2011 with the Government of Ethiopia to share learning across many countries on how to scale up CMAM.

Background:

I attended Kenya’s 2nd Agri-nutrition conference held in Nairobi from 11th – 13th of September 2018. The 3-day forum was co-hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation and the Ministry of Health, with support from USAID-Accelerated Value Chain Development Program and partners.¹

The Conference’s objective was to provide a learning platform on the role of agriculture in improving nutritional outcomes, summarised in the conference theme: “Accelerating Nutritional Gains Through Agriculture”. ENN attended the conference to share learnings and disseminate the findings of an in-depth documentation exercise on multi-sector programming for nutrition - a sub-national study done in Kenya, Nepal and Senegal in 2017. Kenya’s case example had a strong agrinutrition bias and the agrinutrition forum was therefore a relevant forum to share the findings.

Over two decades of civil conflict in Somalia interspersed with periodic droughts and floods have profoundly changed what used to be one of the most beautiful countries in east Africa to a nation which regularly receives huge amounts of humanitarian aid.   The latest humanitarian response plan (HRP)(2018) comes in at around one billion dollars. 90% of all aid to Somalia is humanitarian and the small amounts of development aid it receives means that the country is stuck in a cycle of humanitarian crisis and response.   The country has regularly teetered on the edge of, or experienced, full blown famine in 2017 and 2011 respectively. Rates of acute malnutrition (mainly wasting) have consistently been over the international emergency threshold and in 2018, a relatively good year, prevalence is estimated at 18%.  These depressing facts are one reason why ENN determined to carry out a country study in Somalia as part of its ongoing work to identify ways to increase the nutrition resilience of vulnerable populations in fragile and conflict contexts through strengthening the humanitarian development nexus (HDN). Somalia is ENN’s second country case study, (after Kenya), with a further three or four country studies planned until the end of 2019.

Join ENN's Lillian Karanja Odhiambo to see and hear how one multi-sector programmes is being implemented at the sub-national level in Kenya. This video focuses on implementation challenges and lessons from the USAID-funded Accelerated Value Chain Development Programme (AVCD) in Homa Bay and how current government led activities and structures enable and interact with this multi-sectoral programme.

Alem Abey is the SUN Business Network Advisor in Ethiopia. Alem discusses the process undertaken in the establishment of the soon to be launched SBN in the country and the role the Network hopes to play in strengthening nutrition in Ethiopia. The SBN has a strategic plan which outlines the priority areas of work including providing technical assistance to private companies to add value to their products, and supporting food fortification in the country.

Enock Musinguzi discusses the successes and challenges of the SUN Business Network in Tanzania. Enock is the GAIN Country Director in Tanzania and co-ordinates the SBN in country. He has a background in food and nutritional science.

In this podcast, Tarig Mekkawi, Nutrition specialist with UNICEF Sudan, speaks to Salwa Sorkti, the Director of the National Nutrition Program in the Federal Ministry of Health of Sudan about the experience of CMAM scale up in the country. The podcast captures the perspective of the Ministry of Health’s on the evolution in CMAM programming; successes in garnering government ownership; the role of information systems in informing programming and how scale up was achieved in a low resource setting. The interview provides useful insight into the interplay of humanitarian and development programming in approaching the Management of Acute Malnutrition. 

I watched fellow Kenyans go through party primary elections this past April in preparation for the August General elections. This is when political parties nominate one candidate to represent them prior to the actual elections. This occurs for the lowest administrative office right up to the presidential seat. I had never really paid attention to party primaries before, but I noticed them this time due to huge voter turn-out - one would think it was the general election. In Kenya’s history, this year’s elections will be the second ever under devolution, and perhaps the first where citizens actually understand what devolution really means. The huge party primary turn-out was probably because Kenyans are serious about whom they want (or don’t want) to represent them at county level. I believe this level of interest in politics front has implications for public service delivery, and specifically, health and nutrition services.

The Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Agricultural Extension Services (INGENAES) is a USAID funded project that promotes dietary diversity through harmonising nutrition messages in agriculture. In this interview, Lillian Karanja, ENN’s East Africa’s Regional KM specialist speaks with Edye Kuyper who provides nutrition leadership within the INGENAES project, and Bertha Munthali, Nutrition Advisor for the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network. 

Join Gladys Mugambi the head of Kenya’s Nutrition and Dietetics Unit in the Ministry of Health (and National SUN Focal Point) as she dicusses the nutrition sector’s past successes, current challenges and future perspectives in the country.

Gladys talks of the evolution of nutrition policy and programming in Kenya including what opportunities the SUN Movement has brought through work with in-country networks and sharing learning with other SUN countries in the region. She decribes the work currently going on in Kenya around financial tracking and the nutrition budget line, school feeding and working with devolved counties on nutrition.

How relevant are Africa’s political blocs in advancing the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement agenda? Can the movement tap into the initiatives by the region’s political blocs to achieve its goals?

In my experience with the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement activities, I have noted the quest to establish multi-sectoral platforms to tackle malnutrition worldwide.  Thus, nutrition experts and nutrition advocates have embraced the multi-stakeholder approach to drive forward their agenda – bringing together governments, donors, UN agencies, civil societies, business/private sector, research and academic, to play their roles in this noble goal.

ENN's regional Knowledge Management specialist Titus Mung'ou is in conversation with Tumaini Mikindo the Executive Director of the Parternship for Nutrition in Tanzania (PANITA). They discuss a recent article written by Tumaini for Nutrition Exchange 7 on the work PANITA has done on engaging with parliamentarians.