Terms of Reference (ToRs)
ETH-03 - Regional level capacity on nutrition finance analysis, resource tracking, accountability and partnership management in Ethiopia
Background
Technical Assistance for Nutrition (TAN) supported by UK aid from the UK government seeks to improve the capacity of countries that have joined the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement to design, deliver, and track the progress of nutrition programs and to generate, learn from and adopt knowledge of what works. Nutrition International is contributing to TAN by coordinating the provision of technical assistance to help national SUN Focal Points in select countries to overcome gaps in capacity for the design and delivery of multi-sectoral national nutrition plans, tapping into its global hub to source and deploy the expertise needed.
With nearly 100 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world, as well as the second-most populous nation on the African continent- after Nigeria. Household food insecurity, hunger and undernutrition remain critical issues. The previous four national level Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted in Ethiopia show a decreasing trend in the proportion of children who are stunted and underweight. Between 2000 and 2014 the prevalence of stunting decreased from 58% to 40%; and the proportion of underweight children declined substantially from 41% to 25%. Conversely, the prevalence of wasting has remained fairly static over the last 15 years. Anemia prevalence among under-five children remains high at 44%, despite a decline from 52% over the last 6 years. Despite this general decline in malnutrition rates over the past decade, Ethiopia remains a country with high burden of malnutrition.
Ethiopia joined the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement in September 2010 through commitment from the Federal Minister of Health. At the time, Ethiopia had set up a high-level multi-stakeholder platform for nutrition comprising seven ministries; it also established a National Nutrition Coordinating Body (NNCB) chaired by the Minister of Health with representation of each ministry with a nutrition portfolio. Ethiopia recently reviewed and extended the 2013-2015 National Nutrition Plan II (NNP II) to 2016-20120 which aims to scale up and streamline nutrition actions in the country.
In 2015, the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) launched the Seqota Declaration as a commitment to end child malnutrition (with specific focus on stunting among children under two years) by the year 2030. The Seqota Declaration builds on and supports implementation of the National Nutrition Program II (NNP-II 2016-20120). The SD is led by a 15 years multi-sectoral implementation plan (road map)
where health, education, water, social protection, agriculture and natural resources, livestock and fishery, women and children affairs will be addressed through a three pronged pathways that contribute directly or indirectly to stunting reduction.
The SD Implementation Plan/Roadmap will be executed in three phases over a 15-year period. The first five years innovation phase (2016 – 2020) focuses on prioritized innovative and proven high impact interventions that will be tested and evidence generated for the expansion phase (2021 -2025) to more stunting prevalence Woredas (Districts) within the regions and scale up (2026-2030) phase throughout the country. The Seqota Declaration innovation phase multi-sectoral costed investment plan is currently being implemented in selected high stunting prevalent woredas in Amhara national regional state (26 Woredas) and Tigray regional states (6 Woredas).
The government of Ethiopia established SD Federal and regional Program Delivery Units (PDU) in 2017 to coordinate the implementation of the SD Roadmap. The Federal PDU is in Addis Ababa and the two regional PDUs are stationed in Bahir Dar and Mekele respectively. Each PDU is staffed with multi-disciplinary technical leaders. The major roles of the PDUs are coordinate and provide technical assistance to the sectors and partners during the investment plan development and implemetation process, manage sectors and partners performance using performance management tool and engage with decision makers to secure support for resource mobilization and effective implementation of the Seqota Declaration innovation phase investment plan.
Resource tracking for nutrition across sectors generates data on nutrition funding (i.e. budget allocations and expenditures) which can be used to help build the investment case for nutrition and ensure efficient allocation of resources. However, critical information on how much has been invested for nutrition across sectors and stakeholders, where and what has been targeted (regions, interventions, e.t.c), and funding compared to costs (i.e. the potential resource gap) is commonly missing in the discussion of scaling-up nutrition programs in Ethiopia especially at the regional level. In 2017, Results for Development (R4D) supported the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) to build capacity to track nutrition funding across sectors. The exercise enhanced the capacity of Federal staff and yielded results that will be useful in planning, prioritization and advocating for increased investments in nutrition interventions.
In addition to nutrition funding tracking initiative by R4D, SD PDU in partnership with its technical partners recently completed development of a web-based Seqota Declaration stakeholders mapping tool to track partners involved in SD. The tool is expected to provide high level information for policy makers, donors, sectors, development partners and researchers contributing to meeting stunting reduction goals in the Seqota Declaration. The PDU’s envision that effective management of partners and networks will enable the PDUs as well as decision makers at different levels to not only equitably serve the target Woredas, but also to reduce duplication of efforts and increase leverage among various sectors and partners interventions. Morever, improved PDU management will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of sectors and partners performance through enhanced communication and information sharing. It will also enhance the PDUs ability to manage sectors and partners performance. SD PDU is currently unable to effectively roll out the tools and provide technical expertise needed to manage the SD partners and networks.
The FMoH and key partners highlighted the importance of the R4D nutrition resource tracking initiative being cascaded to the regional level with priority being given to the two regions where SD is being implemented. The stakeholders also highlighted the need for building capacity on partner management being added to the package of support. It is in this context that the Federal Program Delivery Unit, SUN Focal Point, the Director of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Department FMoH and key stakeholders requested the TAN project to support regional level capacity building on nutrition finance analysis, resource tracking, accountability and partnership management. This TA will be implemented hand in hand with the second phase of R4D nutrition funding analysis at the federal level.
Overall objective
The overall objective of this TA is to build regional level capacity for sustainable and effective nutrition finance analysis, resource tracking accountability and partnership management.
Specific Objectives
Support development of a framework to determine regional trends in nutrition financing and resource allocated to meet SD investment targets and track spending among sectors and partners implementing nutrition specific and sensitive programmes.
Develop capacity building plan and tools and conduct regional capacity building exercises on routine resource tracking, financial analysis, information collection and analysis and partner management.
Support development and dissemination financial tracking updates, accountability score cards and advocacy documents.
Support review and effective roll-out of SD partnership management framework.
Expectations
This TA support is expected to contribute significantly to the successful scale up of multi-sectoral nutrition actions in Ethiopia. The main outcome will be enhanced planning, prioritization, financing and coordination of multi-sectoral nutrition interventions.
Specifically, the TA support will:
Scope of Work
Taking a facilitative, consultative and participatory approach under the overall guidance of federal and regional PDU, MoH, and the SUN Focal Point, the consultants will undertake specific activities and produce the following deliverables:
Objective 1: SD investment allocation framework and spending tracking tool development
Activities
Deliverables
Objective 2: Capacity building
Activities
Deliverables:
Objective 3 – Development and dissemination of quarterly updates
Activities
Deliverables
Objective 4 – SD partners and networks management Activities
Activities
Deliverables
Duty Station/Location
Timeline
Management and Reporting
Profile/qualifications of consultants
It is expected a team of consultants or firm with assorted areas of expertise in finance tracking, policy and planning, economics, finance, resource mobilization, capacity building, advocacy and nutrition will be required to complete all aspects of this consultancy. The Lead Consultant is responsible for work completed by all team members.
Lead Consultant
Other Consultants
Language Skills
Nutrition International is committed to gender equality. Consultants are required to indicate how s/he will ensure that gender equality considerations are included in the provision of TA including deliverables. To this end, NI has developed the following tools in order to help. Examples of integration of consideration for gender equality could include but are not limited to; ensuring government departments responsible for women are included wherever possible, gender sensitive indicators are included, emerging data is sex disaggregated, relevant documentation related to gender is reviewed.
Checklist – Integration of gender considerations
Background document « Gender and nutrition »
PowerPoint presentation « Gender 101 »
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