Ethiopia Civil Society Coalition for Scaling Up Nutrition (ECSC-SUN)

Engage, Inspire, Invest

What’s Inside

ECSC-SUN Won Innovation Plan Award in International Learning Exchange 2 ______________________________________________ Irish Aid is to Grant ECSC-SUN members scholarship 2 ______________________________________________ Shaping ECSC-SUN’s Future 3 ______________________________________________ Nutrition Learning Adventure – 2016 Legacy 3 ______________________________________________ECSC-SUN in Action 4 ______________________________________________ What is New Around Nutrition in Ethiopia Recently 4 ______________________________________________

Women Development Army—An Arm for Change on Nutrition Practice 5 ______________________________________________ ECSC-SUN in Photos 6 ______________________________________________

Ethiopia Civil Society Coalition for Scaling up Nutrition (ECSC-SUN) as a leading nutrition advocacy platform convened nutrition learning forum in December 2016. The forum, which brought together several nutrition actors, predominantly deliberated on the need for coordinated efforts among different partners to address malnutrition in Ethiopia. ECSC-SUN used the forum to share key achievements and contributions it has made for the last two and half years. It has also pinpointed priority focus areas for the next phase of the program. In his opening address, His Excel-lency Dr. Kebede Worku, State Minster of Health noted the rapid economic growth Ethiopia has seen over the last decade help change the nutrition situation in the country. Having mentioned the achievements of the Government in the health and nutrition front, Dr. Kebede said “the government has designed and im-plemented programs and strategies that have served as basis for effec-tively addressing the problems of food and nutrition insecurity across the country.” One of the strides worth mentioning is the Food and Nutrition Policy, which is currently on consultation.

The State Minister appreciated ECSC-SUN’s support to government efforts in the fight against malnutri-tion, and suggested the Coalition to focus more on cross learning and capacity building and also establish a joint implementation and accounta-bility mechanisms to transform its ways of working to better contribute to ending undernutrition in Ethiopia by 2030.

Volume 2, Issue 1

ECSC-SUN Hosts Nutrition Learning Forum Speaking on the occasion John Graham, Country Director of Save the Children, Ethiopia praised ECSC-SUN for building and promoting civil society organizations engagement in nutrition in Ethiopia and also creating a platform to contribute to relevant policies, legal, political and social changes to scale up nutrition.

John noted CSOs engagement in the ECSC-SUN activities within the frame-work of the National Nutrition Program and the global Scaling Up Nutrition Movement is imperative. Stating that the government of Ireland’s support to ECSC-SUN is part of its ongoing efforts and commitments to ad-dress hunger and malnutrition in Ethio-pia, Mr. Niall Tierney, Irish Aid Deputy Head of Development, on his part acknowledged Save the Children and members of ECSC-SUN for their contri-bution to the achievements registered during the last two and half years of the Irish Aid funded ECSC-SUN’s project. “The Ethiopian Civil Society Coalition for Scaling Up Nutrition brings together vital learning and technical experience and its purpose is to bring evidence and learn-ing to policy from the measured improve-ments in the lives of Ethiopia’s most vulnerable citizens.” said Niall. Active engagement of stakeholders in the scaling up nutrition endeavors, capacity building of civil societies, ECSC-SUN leadership and governance, as well as resource mobilization are among the key strategic issues the forum has partly addressed. As part of the learning, good experiences of Rwanda in the fight against malnutri-tion was also shared by ECSC-SUN delegates of the International Learning

exchange organized by the SUN Civil Soci-ety Network. In his closing remark, John Lundine, Deputy Country Director of Save the Children underlined the need to think better ways to engage the existing ECSC-SUN members

well and move the Coalition forward as stronger nutrition platform that can particu-larly be focusing on sharing best practices and research findings as evidences to help scale up nutrition in Ethiopia. “There are many opportunities for us to contribute to the reduction of malnutrition and significant-ly reduce its adverse impact. We need to be creative on how we can engage all mem-bers at all levels to achieve this,” John emphasized. A photo exhibition—‘Nutrition in Photos’, which aimed at showcasing nutrition interventions of ECSC-SUN members has enlivened the learning event.

Newsletter

ECSC-SUN Nutrition Learning Forum, Dec 2016 From left to right: Kenaw G, Sosina M, Metasebia L. Birara M at Nutrition Learning Forum

H.E Dr. Kebede Worku, State Minister of FMOH

January 2017

Page 2 ECSC-SUN

Engage, Inspire, Invest

ECSC-SUN Won Innovation Plan Award in An International Learning Exchange Three delegates of the Ethiopia Civil Society Coalition for Scaling Up Nutrition (ECSC-SUN) represented from Care Ethiopia, Alive & Thrive and Save the Children have taken an active part in an international cross-learning exchange in Rwanda and won Innovation Plan award.

The recently launched two years Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Network (SUN CSN) learning exchange program called Learning Route, offered this opportunity for delegates of SUN Civil Society Alliances in 9 African countries, including Ethiopia. The program aims to strengthen the Alliances and regional platforms and promote learning across countries on how to address malnutrition.

The Learning Route provided SUN members of Allianc-es’ with customized learning platforms to share good practices and experiences to track results, obtain practical hands-on tools to help scale up nutrition and strengthen networking. The week long experience shar-ing was an exciting nutrition learning journey with field visits to districts, sharing out of case stories, interactive presentations and discussions and more. “This person-to-person knowledge sharing platform has been designed with the belief that it can foster collaboration and sharing of new ideas and solutions among countries and the hope that it can be replicated.” Cecilia Ruberto, Chief Coordinator for the Learning Route, said. Most important-ly, the platform would contribute to the creation of

stronger, more aligned Civil Society Alliances with the capacity to actively contribute to national and community level. The cross learning exchange was unique in that delegates designed take-home Innovation Plans to adopt and adapt best practices and innovative solutions to their respective settings and enhance their organization’s performance in scaling up nutrition. ECSC-SUN delegates have devised their innovation plan titled ‘Nutrition Visibility and Aware-ness through the Media’, the plan that intends to address awareness gaps by channeling core nutrition messages to the public and decision makers through the media. Making

child and maternal nutrition become media agenda and creating linkages with the National Nutrition Program implementing sectors is the hub of the plan. The plan designed by a team of three has recently won the SUN Civil Society Learning Route Programme ‘Innovation Plan Award’. “Your plan has been evaluated as innovative, effective, sustainable and with great potentiality to be scaled up,” the official award letter says. The Ethiopia delegates have also shared the current nutrition landscape of the country, and key achievements and strides made - including national programs and strate-gies in place to tackle malnutrition across the country. (More about LR visit: uncivilsocietynet.wixsite.com)

scholarship with a strong conviction that those who finish their study will contribute to the country’s development in the fields they study. The fellowships awarded will depend on the calibre of the candidates nominated and the de-mand for places from Ethiopia as well as from other eight countries where Irish Aid offers this fellowship program. It is known Irish Aid awarded ECSC-SUN to implement ‘Securing Commitments and Accountability for Nutrition Results’ project. The project brings together international and national civil societies to advocate for nutrition and contribute to the malnutrition reduction efforts in Ethiopia. Irish Aid supports the Ethiopia government in various other development fronts as well.

Irish Aid is to Award ECSC-SUN Members Scholarship

SUN CSOs International Learning Exchange, Rwanda 30 Oct– 05 Nov2016 Participants of SUN CSOs International Learning Exchange, Rwanda

Irish Aid has recently launched the 2017-18 round of the Fellowship Programme and is to grant a scholarship for six candidates drawn from members of the Ethiopia Civil Society Coalition for Scaling up Nutrition (ECSC-SUN). Irish Aid as a key development partner to Ethiopia offers this opportunity to Ethiopian nationals to pursue post-graduate studies in Ireland, Kenya and Ethiopia. “On behalf of Ethiopian Civil Society Coalition for Scaling up Nutrition, Save the Children is advised to put forward a maximum of six candidates”, says the letter sent. Save the Children has circulated the invitation all across ECSC-SUN members and compiled entitled nominees from member organizations and shared. Irish Aid gives this

twitter.com/SUN_EthiopiaCSO

Page 3

Shaping ECSC-SUN’s Future

ECSC-SUN

ECSC-SUN has summoned a consul-tative meeting to refine its priority focus areas for the period 2017–2020. Having assessed the five strategic objectives, which had been the main focus of ECSC-SUN in the last couple years, members have discussed and identified key priorities of the Coalition, among which is continuing to provide supports needed to imple-ment the second phase of the National Nutrition Program at all levels.

In a day long consultation, members have also brainstormed the best possible institutional arrangement to lead the Coalition during the pro-posed period and shared what they thought would work well for the coali-tion to sustain. ECSC-SUN Leadership Regarding who should chair the Coalition during the new era of ECSC-SUN members reflected on what they said could work better for the future of the Coalition. To this end

Who would possibly fund it for the year 2017 and beyond was one of the key issues of discussion.

The following are some of the proposed mechanisms to ensure sustained financial sources for ECSC-SUN.   

Mapping and approaching differ-ent donors including Irish Aid, Gates Foundation and Children Investment Fund (CIF) as they are keen to strengthen civil society alliances

Aligning technical and financial resources of members to strength-en the Coalition

Having discussion with Global SUN Movement

On the nutrition advocacy front the team has discussed key objectives which have already been pinpointed in the Nutrition Advocacy Strategy, developed with the participation of ECSC-SUN members.

majority members suggested Save the Children should continue to lead ECSC-SUN for sometime and in the future a leadership structure with lead and co-lead organization could be in place. “A shift of leadership might have its own failure. it is better to maintain the existing leadership and team and better to make an arrange-ment for a smooth transition,’’ Desta, a representative of Alive and Thrive noted. It was also noted the interest of the donors should be taken into account as decision made to move the coalition from Save the Children.

It was agreed the transition of leader-ship to be part of the current ECSC-SUN follow on project proposal and one of the priority issues to settle in the future.

Resource Mobilization

ECSC- SUN had been supported by Irish Aid for the last two and half years period. Gates foundation also granted related support for the advo-cacy related tasks.

We said good bye to 2016, and welcomed 2017. We are just a month away from ‘Last Year’, but we call it ‘last year’ this fast. 2016 saw several nutrition events and activities globally and locally – some grand and high level and some lesser one, but obviously important; some global level and some national. From the Copenhagen Women Deliver conference, where against my expectation, nutrition was one of the key delibera-tions to the recently hosted Micronutrients Global Conference in Mexico; from the Transform Nutrition seminar in Ethiopia to the Ethiopia Civil Society Coalition for Scaling up Nutrition (ECSC-SUN) led nutrition learning forum, numerous nutrition related happenings came to pass here and there, close and far. All directed towards reducing malnutrition in its all forms. As the year advanced to come to an end, during last three-two months in particular, many of us got rushed off our feet as we toiled to wrap up planned (nutrition) activities for the year, get them done well and their budgets utilized efficiently. We bustled around day in and day out to close projects that had to be phased out, to have accomplishments monitored and lessons documented. A lot more had been taking place. Amidst of all these happened the Scaling up Nutrition Civil Society Network (SUN CSN) International Learning exchange, an outstandingly organized and impressively facilitated cross-learning event hosted regionally in Rwanda. Learning exchanges do happen everywhere so often and we know some of them. The Learning Route organized by SUN CSN was uniquely different for me in terms of its objectives,

plan of action, selection of experiences that were shared, sites visited, innovation ideas generated, lessons learnt and of overall organization. The event brought together several delegates of SUN CSO Alliances from 9 African countries with high malnutrition burden in a platform where diverse but entirely nutrition focused knowledge and experiences were shared. If the Learning Route was a movie, I would call it ‘Nutrition Learning Adventure’. When asked, this was how I summed up it. By adventure I mean–crossing and passing by small and beautiful hills of Rwanda, we travelled to the districts, flooded with the warmest welcome by the community and got shared impressive experiences of grass-root nutrition activities, community level efforts as well as high level commitments and accountability of the Rwandan government to tackle malnutrition. It was a journey full of take-home lessons. 2016 has gone. The lessons we have gained, the changes we have witnessed, best practices and evidences we have (been) shared will transcend adding more energy to move forward until we end malnutrition. Memories of the events will still be very fresh and have the capacity to make us energized and committed for more positive changes we wish to see in what currently are high malnu-trition burden countries. They will indeed make us aspire and demand more in this New Year and years to come. Finally, I would like to salute the host, facilitators, fellow partici-pates of the LR and wish all a very fruitful, veg-ful, meat-ful, milk-ful, crop-ful, soda-less-ful...2017. [Author: Kenaw Gebreselassie, TN, ECSC-SUN, Save the Children ]

Nutrition Learning Adventure – 2016 Legacy

What is New Around Nutrition in Ethiopia Recently?

ECSC-SUN in Action

As part of its efforts to support the National Nutrition program of the Government of Ethiopia and thereby boost its contribution to the reduction of malnutrition), ECSC-SUN has played instrumental role in the develop-ment of the multi-sectoral National Nutrition Program 2016-2020, which targets to reduce the prevalence of child stunting to 26 percent by 2020. The document has been finalized with layout and designing, proofreading and translation works done with technical and financial support of ECSC-SUN.

ECSC-SUN has also been providing both technical and financial back up to the development of the National Food and Nutrition Policy and strategy of the country, which is under successive consultations.

ECSC-SUN has recently been represented in the Nutri-tion Development Partners’ Forum, in the meeting of National Nutrition Technical Committee. Most important-ly, ECSC-SUN has been represented in the high level meeting of the National Nutrition Coordinating Body and NNPII signatory ceremony.

ECSC-SUN will continue to support the implementation of the National Nutrition Program II. It will further its support to the development of the National Food and Nutrition Policy and other government nutrition initiatives.

The First 1000 days campaign, which is led by FMOH has been launched. Media awareness campaign promoting key practices is already on the go.

National Food and Nutrition Policy development is under way. Successive consultation to enrich the policy document is going on. It has progressed well and has already been translated into Amharic to ease the next stages of consultation. The policy gives due emphasis to food and nutrition security; food safety and quality and post-harvest management.

National Nutrition Coordinating Body (NNCB), the high-est governing body responsible for leadership, policy decisions and coordination of the National Nutrition Program (NNP), and National Nutrition Technical Com-mittee (NNTC), which provides technical advice to NNP Development and implementation convened their meetings in the 1st and 2nd week of December 2016. The NNCB meeting has particularly seen the approval and signing ceremony of National Nutrition Program II document and National Food and Nutrition Policy de-velopment. All signatories of state ministers have signed the program document. Representing ECSC-SUN, Save the Children vigorously participated in both gatherings.

Page 4 ECSC-SUN

Review of National Nutrition Program Implementing Sectors’ Policy and Practice

In order for National Nutrition Program implementing sector ministries to see their plans, policies and practices in light of nutrition sensitive interventions, ECSC-SUN reviewed their policies and initiated discussion. The review assessed policies and practices with respect to nutrition sensitivity in four sector ministries: Ministry of Agriculture (currently named Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resource Development); Ministry of Education, Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Electricity (now called Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Electricity), and Ministry of Women, Children and Youth Affairs (now called Ministry of Women and Children Affairs). This policy brief is intended as a tool to help create a common understanding among these ministries on the strengths and gaps in their policies and practices related to nutrition and to advocate for nutrition sensitivity in their daily course of action.

The four sector ministries covered by this review have taken some important steps to contribute to better nutrition outcomes in Ethiopia. Nevertheless, there are important gaps/inadequacies in their efforts to ensure that their activities are as nutrition sensitive as possible. First, their current key documents (policies, strategies, programs, etc.) are not sufficiently sensitive to nutrition. The linkages between core activities and nutrition outcomes are therefore inadequate. Moreover, the docu-mentation does not include indicators to measure the contributions of these sectors to nutrition outcomes.

Second, nutrition-sensitive interventions within these ministries lack specific public budget lines for government allocations and lack funding modalities for managing resources from other sources. With the exception of the Ministry of Agriculture, the sector ministries are depend-ent on a focal person to coordinate the work of ensuring nutrition sensitivity in their interventions. This arrangement is less effective than establishing a Nutrition Case Team, as the MoA has done, or some other appropriate structure for nutrition with dedicated staff.

These sector ministries can improve the level of nutrition sensitivity in their interventions by heeding the following recommendations:

Revise key documents (policies, strategies, programs, etc.) to make them (more) nutrition sensitive.

Develop nutrition indicators to track sector contribu-tions to nutrition outcomes. For sectors whose core activities coincide with nutrition-sensitive activities, there is a need to link such activities with nutrition outcomes.

Allocate a specific budget for implementing nutrition-sensitive interventions and devise further funding modalities for them.

Assign a dedicated nutrition staff to coordinate Nutri-tion Sensitive Interventions (NSIs) and ensure that nutrition sensitivity is woven into their key documents.

Raise the awareness of key personnel on NSIs and how to implement them.

Allocate money to research and knowledge management in order to generate evidence on the contribution of different sectors to nutrition outcomes.

Engage, Inspire, Invest

Women Development Army – Arms for Change on Nutrition Practice

Tsehaynesh Semu, (a mother of 5 children) and Adame Zerihun (a mother of 2) are community-level volunteers, who lead networks of the government-named ‘Women’s Develop-ment Army’ at Fezel kebele, Bure woreda of West Gojam zone. Assigned to support and lead 30 families each as per the 1 to 5 government structured development network, they work so closely with health extension workers and agriculture development agents, and provide grass-roots support. On the nutrition front, they support ongoing efforts to end malnutrition at community and household level mainly through providing appropriate infant care and feeding instruction, and boosting the community’s knowledge and understanding on breastfeeding, cooking nutritious diet and backyard gardening. More importantly, they strive to create demand for the health and nutrition services that Fezel kebele Health Post provides.

Tsehaynesh and Adame are well aware of the grass-root health and nutrition services they can support at their level. They know well all the villagers whom they keep an eye on. In consultation with, Muluken Kassa, a health extension worker at Fezele, they make regular rounds to check on mothers and encourage good health and nutrition practices. They check on practices such as food preparation, caring for new-born babies and children under five, latrine building and setting up separate kitchen.

Adame explained it well in her own words:

I have my own visit schedule and I know well the right health and nutrition messages I should deliver to the women I support day in and day out. I educate pregnant and lactating mothers to eat more and diversified food, and ensure that every newly born child is exclusively breastfed for six months. I show them how to cook well for their children after six months as well. The change we are witnessing now is very inspiring, thanks to Muluken, who is coaching us and providing all what we need to help our fellow mothers.

Both do have the req-uisite knowledge and understanding of good nutrition and what it means to their commu-nity. And they are very expressive as they explain what they do in the course of their house-to-house visit. As they themselves are model mothers, they serve as living examples who become change agents regard-

ing the change in behaviour and practice expected to happen in the community, mainly changes around child caring and feeding practices. The sense of ownership they have is very inspirational.

Tsehainesh spoke of her roles as a leader of Women Development Army:

Educating the community about health and nutrition is my everyday task. I identify pregnant mothers within a 1 to 5 networks and refer them to the health post for pregnancy check-up, nutrition counselling, and other health and nutrition related services. I myself go house-to-house and tell them about what they should do for their babies in the first 1000 days, the period covering from pregnancy to the child’s 2 years birthday. For children above six months, I with Muluken and other team leads of women networks prepare local complementary food, mainly flour composed of cereals and legumes. The mothers of these children take the prepared food in exchange with raw cereals and legumes, they can provide. We also educate them about the benefits of homestead gardening by using the garden patch we have set up around our health post.

Fezel Kebele demonstrates such an inspirational community involvement and sense of ownership that need to be replicated in other areas of the country. It is imperative to capitalize on the experience and excitements that is created within this community and follow up on the progress to ensure malnutrition is stamped out in other areas of the country as well. The contribution of this local development team illus-trates the community’s participation in the health and nutrition services becomes crucial to the changes needed at grassroots.

Muluken Kassa (Health Extension Worker at Fezel) acknowledges that this promising participation of women in nutrition activities has brought about several changes in Fezel and other localities of West Gojam zone. Birilew Mintesinot, who leads Bure Woreda nutrition office, echoes similar enthusiasm about the effectiveness of Women Development Army’s involvement in nutrition awareness and action.

ECSC-SUN Page 5

twitter.com/SUN_EthiopiaCSO

Adame (Left), Tsehaynesh (right) at Fezel Kebele Health Post Farmers’ Demonstration Garden.

Adame (left), Tsehaynesh (Right) at Fezel Kebele-Health Post

Page 6 ECSC-SUN

ECSC-SUN in Photos

ECSC-SUN Ethiopia Civil Society Coalition for Scaling Up Nutrition (ECSC-SUN) is part of a global initiative of the Scaling Up Nutrition movement that aims to increase public and relevant sectors awareness on nutrition and ensure improved nutrition governance and raise the profile and political attention given to nutrition in Ethiopia. Established in June 2013, ECSC-SUN Coordinates civil society in Ethiopia Advocates for an increased focus on nutritional outcome in national policies and programmes Works to ensure CSOs’ efforts to tackle malnutrition are aligned with national plans

Twitter: twitter.com/SUN_EthiopiaCSO For information about the SUN movement: scalingupnutrition.org

Contact: Israel Hailu, Head of Nutrition, Save the Children, Addis Ababa, Email: Hailu. Israel@savethechildren.org ECSC-SUN email: Ethiopia-ecsc@savethechildren.org Tel: (+251) - 01137228045

Prepared by Kenaw Gebreselassie, Communication and Research uptake manager (TN), Networking Coordinator (ECSC-SUN)

‘Nutrition in Photos’ - Photo Exhibition at ECSC-SUN Learning Forum

Selected photos of ECSC-SUN Members Exhibited (photos from A&T, ACF, CONCERN, CARE Ethiopia & SC-ENGINE Interventions)

Photos of ECSC-SUN hosted Trainings for CSOs & Media (Adama, Bahirdar, Mekelle, Jigjiga)

ECSC-SUN team visit to North Gondar, East and West Gojam zone for documentation of nutrition success stories