Nutrition Governance and Multi-Sectoral Coordination

USAID Advancing Nutrition supported the Government of Tanzania to develop the review of the National Multi-sectoral Nutrition Action Plan (NMNAP) II. We supported the launch and implementation of the NMNAP II by collaborating with the Government of Tanzania to develop critical tools and strategies, such as the Resource Mobilization Strategy and Planning and Budgeting Guidelines for Nutrition-Sensitive Sectors.

USAID Advancing Nutrition supports improved governance at the state level by supporting the State Committees for Food and Nutrition to understand their mandate, roles, and functions, per the national-level policy, as well as by supporting the committees to identify their priorities and activities to achieve their goals.

USAID Advancing Nutrition led a first-of-its-kind multi-sectoral nutrition co-creation initiative in Kenya in 2021 that brought together partners from across the health, agriculture, social protection, and education sectors to develop a joint action plan for nutrition at the national level as well as the counties of Kakamega, Kisumu and Kitui. Led by the Ministry of Health and county nutrition coordinators, we facilitated four workshops with national leadership as well as representatives from the county governments.

In Burkina Faso, USAID Advancing Nutrition supported the government as it developed a monitoring and evaluation tool to enable three focus regions to track key indicators from the country’s Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategic Plan 2020-2024. The dashboard will help monitor the plan’s implementation progress, allowing periodic evaluation of multi-sectoral nutrition interventions at the regional level. This will guide decision-making by Regional Nutrition Councils, who are responsible for the regional-level oversight and monitoring of multi-sectoral nutrition programming.

In Honduras, USAID Advancing Nutrition supports mesas intersectoriales municipales (municipal intersectoral councils) to strengthen collaboration and coordination. With the project's support, these councils now include representatives from the health, education, and other sectors, and are better able to respond to the most pressing nutrition needs in their communities.

USAID Advancing Nutrition worked with provincial and district authorities in Mozambique’s Nampula Province to strengthen and/or establish 19 district-level multi-sectoral coordination structures; provided technical support on multi-sectoral coordination at the provincial level; and trained high-level government officials in food and nutrition security policies and strategies. As a result of the efforts, the government has stronger systems and capacity to plan and manage multi-sectoral nutrition programming. These gains are critical in long-term strategy to reduce malnutrition.

Collaboration across partners working in different sectors is integral to improving nutrition outcomes. USAID Advancing Nutrition developed guidance for USAID Missions and implementing partners to monitor collaboration as part of multi-sectoral nutrition projects. Missions and partners can document and evaluate their collaboration at both the activity and portfolio levels across five collaboration goals: networking, cooperation, coordination, coalition, and integration.

USAID Advancing Nutrition led a facilitated learning activity on purposeful co-location of nutrition partners in four provinces in the DRC. This activity documented partners’ experiences collaborating to deliver services along the continuum of care for wasting to strengthen future collaboration and included broad engagement with the government and other partners. Additionally, the large numbers of children with severe wasting have led to an increased demand for ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), the product used to treat children in outpatient care. As part of efforts to understand and document the last mile delivery of this lifesaving product to health facilities in the DRC, USAID Advancing Nutrition studied four U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-supported RUTF pipelines.

This guidance provides recommendations for USAID to establish practices to improve the long-term sustainability of USAID nutrition programming by transitioning investments to domestic plans and resources. It includes a theoretical framework for sustainable financing for nutrition and guidance on how USAID Missions and implementing partners can work toward ensuring that USAID nutrition activities can be transferred to local sustainable financing.

USAID Advancing Nutrition supports the SUN Donor Network to galvanize more and more accurate, specific, and transparent methods for tracking and reporting investments in global nutrition. The project strengthens donor resource tracking by monitoring the application of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nutrition policy marker (NPM). USAID Advancing Nutrition provides technical assistance, along with annual data reviews and recommendations on the quantification and interpretation of the NPM.