ADDIS ABABA – July 16, 2024 (NIPN/EPHI) - Members of the Advisory Committee (AC) of the National Information Platforms for Nutrition Ethiopia (NIPN-Ethiopia) applauded here yesterday the various activities carried out by NIPN-Ethiopia over the past six months.
Presiding over the AC meeting, Dr. Sisay Sinamo, A/Chair of the AC and Senior Program Manager of the Seqota Declaration (SD) Federal Program Delivery Unit at the Ministry of Health (MoH), appreciated the progress made in implementing the sub-national cascading and the initiatives to update the NIPN-Ethiopia Dashboard data on the website. Dr. Sisay emphasized the need to reach other sub-national regions through cascading initiatives and suggested developing terms of reference for this purpose. He further commented that the dashboard is a significant step forward in elevating NIPN’s progress to the international level.
Opening the AC meeting, Dr. Masresha Tessema, Director of the Food Science and Nutrition Research Directorate of the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), reviewed the action points agreed upon during the last AC meeting held in December 2023. He discussed policy questions (PQs) being addressed and other issues.
NIPN-Ethiopia Coordinator, Dr. Aregash Samuel, provided an overview of the core activities accomplished over the past six months. She highlighted efforts to finalize the cascading initiative with the Sidama Region, progress made by local universities and sub-national regional public health institutes in responding to PQs through extensive research, collaborative efforts to launch the NIPN website dashboard, capacity-building trainings, and various workshops. Dr. Aregash also noted challenges faced over the past six months, including delays in procurement and financial reconciliation.
Dr. Archana Sarkar, NIPN-Ethiopia advisor from GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), briefed on the progress of cascading activities to sub-national regional public health institutes in collaboration with GIZ, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and EPHI.
Tirsit Genye from IFPRI explained the efforts made to update the NIPN-Ethiopia Dashboard. She stated that the sub-national dashboard provides quick responses to queries on variations in nutrition-related information at the sub-national level, helping to identify regional variations and specific issues to support policymakers in accessing their priorities.
Eighteen participants, including six voting AC members and others from EPHI, GIZ, IFPRI, and NIPN-Ethiopia, attended the meeting held at the Grand Eliana Hotel. (NIPN/EPHI)
