Background

The National Food and Nutrition Strategy (FNS)) launched in 2021 prioritize and state the following adolescent health and nutrition strategic initiatives.

Strategic direction 4.6: Improve the nutritional status of adolescents 10-19 years of age.

• Provide nutritional assessments and counselling services for adolescents at all contact points.

• Promote good nutrition behaviour and prevent harmful traditional practices.

• Prevent and mitigate macro and micronutrient deficiencies in adolescents.

• Ensure access to adolescent-friendly reproductive health information and services for boys and girls.

• Develop and enforce minimum standards on nutritional and health services for adolescents in special situations, including but not limited to refugees and internally displaced persons, disabled adolescents, homeless adolescents, orphans, neglected adolescents and adolescents in food insecure areas and PSNP woredas.

• Support adolescents’ empowerment

• Promote the implementation of school health and nutrition programmes to improve the nutritional status of school children.

Strategic direction 7.1: Improve nutrition through the provision of adequate WASH services.

• Strengthen the implementation of institutional WASH activities in schools with full WASH package facilities (drinking water, latrines, MHM facilities, urinals, hand washing and solid waste disposal facilities

 Rationale

The proposed investment case will help focus the country on gaps in adolescent nutrition and wellbeing that need to be addressed and provide a reference point to ensure coordinated actions among various government departments and other stakeholders. In order to achieve a comprehensive adolescent health and nutrition program implementation in Ethiopia, the following objectives are the basis for developing a 5-year investment case:

• Document country-level data related to current financing and commitments to achieve adolescent health & nutrition program outcomes and strategic initiatives that are prioritized and listed in the National Food & Nutrition Strategy

• Define investments needed within National Food & Nutrition Strategy framework to achieve the key adolescent health & nutrition program outcomes.

• Present a compelling case, including return on investment, for a prioritized set of investments needed to achieve adolescent health & nutrition program outcomes and strategic initiatives that are prioritized and listed in the National Food & Nutrition Strategy.

This is why the five-year investment case will be a compelling advocacy and communication tool to influence policy influencers, donors, and partners by outlining the high returns that can be realized by increasing coordinated investments in the delivery of high-impact, cost-effective gender responsive adolescent health and nutrition interventions in accordance with the FNS, as well as by outlining the full range of costs associated with the interventions and the full range of benefits that result from them in adolescence and beyond.

 Objective & scope of the assignment

The main objective of the consulting service is to provide Ministry of Health practical technical assistance in developing a 5-year investment case backed by an advocacy plan and resource mobilization that will direct and commit MoH and its partners in achieving adolescent health and nutrition program outcomes and strategic initiatives that are prioritized and listed in the National Food & Nutrition Strategy.

Thus, the consultant will be responsible for undertaking the following tasks in consultation & close collaboration with MoH and NI

Planning: Develop a concept note with advocacy brief to win agreement and commitment from MoH and its partners to launch a comprehensive adolescent health and nutrition program in Ethiopia over a five-year period, supported by an advocacy strategy and resource mapping.

Conduct Situational & Stakeholders Analysis

In order to make sure that the development of the country investment case does not duplicate existing efforts and that the approach and methodology to be used in the investment case make use of information and data from existing in-country efforts, the concept note & advocacy strategy shall be informed by rapid situation analysis including a desk review of existing costing and investment cases related to adolescent health & nutrition program outcomes and strategic initiatives that are prioritized and listed in the National Food & Nutrition Strategy and also looking at adolescents within social assistance programs and considering adolescents within maternal nutrition and health strategies.

Conduct stakeholder mapping to identify and determine MoH’s stakeholders for key adolescent health and nutrition advocacy and communication actions.

Perform a problem-tree mapping exercise to better comprehend the challenges, opportunities, and gaps that MoH and its stakeholders must overcome to successfully advocate the scale up of the comprehensive adolescent health & nutrition program tha responds to the age and stage needs of diverse adolescents and implementation in line with the FNS and AYHS as per the country’s investment case.

 Implementing:

Use specified tools to undertake costing and modelling for the investment case, including a hierarchy of high impact and cost-effective interventions that should be prioritized with targeted investments in line with adolescent health & nutrition program outcomes and strategic initiatives that are prioritized and listed in the National Food & Nutrition Strategy. This will include:

• Data collection using pre-structured templates to collect all of the necessary data needed for the country investment case.

• Developing scenarios to model scale-up of the prioritized investments

• Generating cost and potential impact results

• Assessing current and projected financial envelope and expected resource gaps.

• Complete writing-up and submit the country’s a 5-year investment case for comprehensive adolescent health and nutrition program implementation.

Advocating for the investment case

• Develop Advocacy & communication strategy for the country’s a 5-year investment case for comprehensive adolescent health and nutrition program implementation and strengthening of other programs (MNHN, Social Safey Nets) to reach and benefit adolescents.

• Translate cost and impact into the advocacy objectives.

• Develop advocacy actions (activities, tactics, and core messages) and its implementation, monitoring and evaluation framework.

• Conduct consultation workshop with policy influencers and other stakeholders from key FNS implementing sectors and their prominent partners with objectives of

• Communicating and validating the results from the country investment case