Advisory Committee evaluates NIPN’s performance, provides directions for better achievements

Advisory Committee evaluates NIPN’s performance, provides directions for better achievements

 

ADDIS ABABA – December 27, 2024 (NIPN-Ethiopia) - Advisory Committee (AC) of the National Information Platform for Nutrition (NIPN-Ethiopia) reviewed here yesterday the bi-annual performance and provided directions for better achieving the remaining tasks in the upcoming year.

Following the general presentations on the project status of NIPN-Ethiopia, 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), and SUN (Scaling Up Nutrition) Focal Person, said that the NIPN-Ethiopia team needs to work harder to meet project objectives. “This is a priority for the team,” Dr. Sisay emphasized.

He commended the NIPN’s efforts over the last six months in generating evidence on nutrition. He also emphasized that the initiatives to cascade NIPN-activities should continue with greater intensity. “I have seen during my recent visit to the central part of Ethiopia that evidence-based decision making is an issue,” Dr. Sisay said, adding that the cascading can play a role here. Dr. Sisay has also stressed that AC members could do a lot to make sure the local universities are well engaged in the formulation of the policy questions.

Dr. Masresha Tessema, secretary of the NIPN AC and the Director of the Nutrition, Environmental Health, and Non-Communicable Disease Research Directorate at the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), briefed about the agreed action points from the previous meeting. The AC members’ meeting participation and the soon-to-be-implemented scorecard system for regular attendance tracking, the updating of the dashboard, which will soon go functional, the initiatives taken to promote NIPN’s output across various platforms, the continued efforts to expand cascading initiatives, the implementation of the policy question formulation (PQF) process, and experience sharing tours were the additional points raised by Dr. Masresha for further consideration and approval.  

Dr. Aregash Samuel, NIPN-Ethiopia Coordinator, presented the overall performance accomplished over the last six months. She highlighted the NIPN team’s efforts to strengthen evidence-based nutrition governance in the country.

Dr. Aregash has touched on the progress made in promoting the cascading initiatives in regional public health institutes (RPHIs). The status of the PQF in which universities and RPHIs have been engaged, the various capacity building training courses provided, the progress witnessed in updating the nutrition data repository, the seminars and webinars organized on various subjects, the NIPN-global gathering event hosted successfully in Addis Ababa, the initiatives taken to share the experience with NIPN-Zambia, the overseas experience sharing visits, and the communications and visibility efforts were highlighted among the key achievements by Dr. Aregash.

NIPN-Ethiopia coordinator also briefed about the major activities that were taken as the priority areas in 2025. Completing the sustainability plan and NIPN’s assessment, responding to the additional two policy questions (PQs), launching the updated dashboard, and intensifying the cascading initiatives were the activities that will be given top priority in 2025, according to Dr. Aregash.

Dr. Aregash has also raised the challenges NIPN has encountered. The high staff turnover, delay in the POF process, inefficiently managing procurement and financial reconciliation, and the failure to approve the no-cost extension from the GIZ side were among the limitations pointed out by the coordinator.

Dr. Mesfin from Bahir-Dar Food and Nutrition Research Center presented the NIPN-I Project Implementation Evaluation conducted recently. He concluded in his study that significant strides were made in building the national capacity for evidence-based decision making, improving data utilization across various sectors, and establishing a robust framework for data quality assurance. Dr. Mesfin also noted that NIPN-Ethiopia has been facing challenges such as budget constraints, high staff turnover, and inconsistent sectoral engagement, among others.  

Questions and comments were forwarded by the AC members to enrich the PQs presented for review and discussion. AC A/chair, Dr. Sisay Sinamo, said in his concluding remarks that the reviewed and enriched PQs should be reformulated and forwarded to the AC members for further scrutiny. He said that the cascading initiatives should be intensified. Collaborative efforts are also needed to address the financing of NIPN projects going forward, he stated. AC members and other organizations like UNICEF can help in this regard, according to Dr. Sisay.

The AC members approved the experience-sharing tour to India in late April 2025. Thirteen participants took part in the AC bi-annual meeting held at the Skylight Hotel. (NIPN-Ethiopia)