By Hailegebriel Endeshaw
(Communications Officer, NIPN-Ethiopia)
The Global National Information Platforms for Nutrition (NIPN) held its sixth gathering in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 22 – 24, October 2024. The big event was officially opened by the Ethiopian Minister of Health, H.E. Dr. Mekdes Daba. The minister underscored on the occasion that NIPN has made significant contributions to improving nutrition information in Ethiopia.
The 6th NIPN Global Gathering, themed “NIPN for the Future: Sustainability in an Evolving Policy Environment,” has brought together over 90 attendees from nine member countries, the global coordination team, along with donors, supporting partners, and stakeholders from around the world. The Global Gathering served as a platform for representatives from member countries - Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guatemala, Kenya, Laos, Niger, Uganda, Zambia, and Ethiopia - to share achievements and draw lessons from one another’s successes and challenges.
The Communications Officer from NIPN-Ethiopia had the opportunity to speak with several event guests about the 6th Global Gathering. They all agreed that the Gathering serves as a valuable platform for exchanging experiences. Here are the main points gathered from Lao PDR, Zambian, and Kenyan colleagues.
Laos is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia with a population of 7.8 million. It is bordered by Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia. NIPN-Laos was established in late 2018 and became functional in 2019. Dr. Sitthiroth Rasphome is coordinating the Lao-NIPN and head of the Data Analyzing Unit. He said that the Global Gathering event is very useful for the Lao team to draw lessons from colleagues of other NIPN member countries. He said that the team had the opportunity to discuss issues related to financial and institutional sustainability.
“We have seen some countries have already come up with good roadmap for sustainability that we can take away. We have also had the chance to learn how to convince the policy makers to support NIPN in our country. We have used the Global Gathering platform to learn from the C4N team that provided us with ample information,” Rasphome said.
Speaking of performance, he stated that NIPN-Lao has accomplished three major activities. One accomplishment is the establishment of a data repository on nutrition, along with the development of a dashboard to provide public access for policy analysis and tracking the nutrition indicators. So far, over 16,000 people have accessed the newly established dashboard and data repository. The second achievement focuses on capacity building. NIPN-Lao has implemented initiatives at both the central and sub-national levels to strengthen data analysis capacity for the future, according to Rasphome.
“Advocacy for new evidence to policymakers is the third achievement of NIPN-Lao. This helps facilitate data processing and analysis, leading to valuable policy development in the future,” the Coordinator said.
NIPN-Lao, hosted by the Ministry of Planning, has a strong connection with the Lao National Nutrition Committee, led by the Ministry of Health. With 12 permanent employees, NIPN-Lao is advancing its activities in collaboration with these government sectors and other relevant stakeholders.
The South African Nation, Zambia, is among the participants of the 6th Global Gathering. Mr. Mike Mwanza led the NIPN-team from Zambia. He coordinates all activities with NIPN-Zambia, which was established this year. Mwanza works for the National Food and Nutrition Commission in Zambia and was assigned from this commission to coordinate NIPN-Zambia.
“We have the National Food and Nutrition Commission, which coordinates all nutrition programs in Zambia. We handle the policy component under NIPN, while our colleagues from the Zambian Statistics Agency focus on data analysis. We coordinate closely with the Zambian Statistics Agency,” Mwanza stated.
The Coordinator stated that NIPN-Zambia has accomplished three key achievements. “Although we are new, we successfully launched the NIPN project in Zambia. The second is that we have developed our policy questions. So far, we gathered about seven policy questions, which we still need to evaluate,” Mwanza said.
The third achievement, according to him, is the preparation of the implementation plan for the NIPN-Zambia. “We have a number of issues we are dealing with. We had some challenges in operationalizing the implementation plan. We had to review the entire process to determine how best we can fast track the implementation with support from GIZ,” Mwanza said.
Regarding the 6th Global Gathering, Mwanza said that as a newcomer to the initiative, it is a valuable opportunity for NIPN-Zambia to draw lessons from other member countries. “Zambia has been given the chance to learn how others are making progress. This is a great opportunity for Zambia to interact with other countries. We have been granted two extra days to engage with colleagues from the NIPN-Ethiopia team. We have learned more about how we can fast-track our implementation with NIPN,” he said.
Mwanza stated that one of the discussion points at the gathering was sustainability. His team is focusing on how NIPN-Zambia can sustain the project from the outset. He further emphasized the need for advocacy to encourage the government to increase fund allocations for the NIPN project.
Mr. James Gatungu serves at the Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics. He also took responsibility to lead NIPN-Kenya as a coordinator. He is responsible for the day-to-day activities of the NIPN-Kenya. He is in charge of planning and implementation of the project related activities, ensuring coordination of meetings between multi-stakeholders, and monitoring implementation of planned activities.
Gatungu led the Kenyan NIPN team, which was composed of six members. Speaking of the 6th Global Gathering, he said that it is a forum organized every year where implementing countries come together to share experiences and learn from each other.
“This year’s event, with the theme “NIPN for the future: Sustainability in an evolving policy environment,” aims to support the further development and implementation of sustainability plans, promote NIPN’s role among national decision-makers at global and national levels, as well as review the progress of platforms’ rollout to the sub-national level,” Gatungu stated.
Mr. James Gatungu said that he learned many things from this year’s gathering and emphasized his excitement on the use of artificial intelligence in enhancing nutrition information systems and generating Business Case for NIPN sustainability.
Gatungu expressed appreciation that the Gathering was well organized, and he personally extended special thanks to the Ethiopian team for a very successful conference. “The hospitality of our Ethiopian community cannot go unmentioned”.
The Kenyan NIPN coordinator said that the sustainability of NIPN was one of the objectives of the gathering. “During the meeting we had an opportunity to discuss with other countries on what they are doing, but my main take home is to develop a business case for our country and finalize our sustainability plan.”
Mr. Gatungu also said that NIPN-Kenya has accomplished many achievements. Setting up and operationalizing of the platform structure, developing a multi-sectoral food security and nutrition repository, developing a multi-sectoral food security and nutrition web-based portal (https://nipfn.knbs.or.ke/) that serves as a One-Stop-Shop to track globally and nationally agreed indicators as defined in the 5-year Kenya Nutrition Action Plan (KNAP), generating 12 policy papers, and accompanying policy briefs by working together with relevant stakeholders were among the major activities of NIPN-Kenya, according to Gatungu.
“We have also produced 47 County Nutrition Briefs and developed an online food security and nutrition journals’ portal. We are also proud of our achievements on capacity building to enhance skills of stakeholders to ensure sustainability of the project activities, including the continuous dissemination of food security and nutrition data and information through various media,” he said.
The Coordinator also said that NIPN-Kenya has generated a harmonized food security and nutrition indicators template for implementation by the sectors and developed a Podcast in collaboration with the Nutrition for Development (N4D) team, which has been shared on social media platforms.
“We have developed our sustainability plan; and we produce the quarterly E-Newsletter, which we share with our stakeholders. NIPN-Kenya has also developed QR codes for NIPFN publications and shared through various forums, and social media platforms, including the development and publication of a media article on nutrition,” Gatungu stated.
Kenyan NIPN jointly undertakes project activities through various committees, including the Project Advisory Committee and Project Management Committee. It developed 12 policy papers in collaboration with the sectors, according to the coordinator. (NIPN-Ethiopia)
