After three years of support to the Government of Tanzania, USAID Advancing Nutrition Tanzania celebrated its achievements with the Prime Minister’s Office and the Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre (TFNC), the primary partners the project collaborated with to advance multi-sectoral nutrition in the country. The event featured remarks from department leads of multiple government ministries that have committed to planning, implementing. and measuring the impacts of their interventions for nutrition. Public Policy and Planning Directors, key to institutionalizing the resources and approaches needed for the country’s second National Multi-sectoral Nutrition Action Plan (NMNAP II) to succeed, also attended. As a leading country under the global Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement, Tanzania determined, early on, to center its commitment to multi-sectoral nutrition within the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The PMO and the Tanzania Food and Nutrition Center, a national research institution, and USAID Tanzania have been our consistent and committed partners. Together we:
- Strengthened TFNC’s ability to facilitate planning and budgeting exercises, with nutrition-sensitive government ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) resulting in the introduction of a national multisectoral nutrition objective (Objective Y), assuring future resources are allocated to nutrition.
- Finalized a resource mobilization strategy and assessment tools to support NMNAP II implementation, including the introduction of a tax in Tanzania targeting sugar sweetened beverages.
- Supported the PMO to establish the SUN Academia Platform and a work plan that facilitates evidence generation for multi-sectoral nutrition programming that will contribute to measurement and reporting of the country’s progress as measured through Tanzania’s Multi-sectoral Nutrition Information System.
- Established an annual seminar of the Directors of Policy and Planning with the purpose of enhancing accountability of the nutrition sensitive MDAs toward NMNAP II implementation.
Key highlights from the event included presentations from the policy and planning and sector directors from the Ministries of Health, Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries and Finance and Planning. Each speaker presented their accomplishments towards nutrition, reflecting accountability toward integrating nutrition into their national plans and budgets, an effort led by the PMO since November 2020 with USAID Advancing Nutrition’s support. Participants also discussed key challenges and priorities for future nutrition-sensitive work. The Ministry of Finance and Planning presented recent achievements made in the approval of a national objective for multi-sectoral nutrition (denoted as Objective Y). Objective Y, Multisectoral Nutrition Services Improved, ensures that nutrition is included in the plans, budgets and reporting from all ministries even beyond the nutrition-sensitive ministries. In this way, a national objective is holding the entire government accountable to improve nutrition nationally.
“We appreciate the opportunity to work with USAID Advancing Nutrition, we felt the support they provided us on nutrition coordination, and we want to assure you that these gains specifically on coordinating nutrition-sensitive sectors will continue”—Director of Coordination of Government Business in the Prime Minister’s Office and Tanzania SUN Government Focal Point Paul Sangawe.
Speakers acknowledged USAID Advancing Nutrition’s contributions to the government’s progress in finalizing and ensuring resources to implement the NMNAP II, followed by the key lessons and approaches that ensured the partnership's success, shared by USAID Advancing Nutrition’s Chief of Party Debora Niyeha. Helen Keller International Country Director Dr. Deogratias Damas Ngoma, USAID Advancing Nutrition Project Director Heather Danton, and Nutrition Advisor for USAID Tanzania Temina Mkumbwa, congratulated government leaders and Ms. Niyeha and her team. The event closed with a strong commitment from all in the room which was echoed in a later meeting with the Permanent Secretary of the PMO Dr. Jim Yonazi, to maintain strong commitments to collaboration and accountability towards multi-sectoral nutrition programming in Tanzania.