Building Strategic Capacities to Strengthen the Enabling Environment for Nutrition Policies and Programs in Four African Countries.
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Date
2015
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Abstract
Objectives: Undernutrition has received significant attention at global and national levels in recent
years but translating this attention into effective action at the country and district levels poses many
challenges. We describe the observed national environments that support and challenge actors in
moving national multisectoral nutrition policies and plans forward and how this on-going action
research (AR) project seeks to strengthen strategic capacities and leadership in Burkina Faso,
Mali, Ethiopia and Uganda.
Methods: Participant observation and meetings with stakeholders provide insight into the enabling
environment and its challenges. This AR then uses boundary-spanning tools such as shared
history, practitioner profiles, PAG workshops among others to engage stakeholders in collaborative
learning and to facilitate informal strategic and adaptive management approaches to nutrition
policies and program implementation.
Results: All four countries have developed multisectoral national nutrition policies and/or plans
and created coordinating committees. Further multisectoral progress however faces challenges
seen elsewhere, such as the dominance of sectoral goals and incentives, uneven understanding of
multisectoral roles, responsibilities and leadership; uneven participation and ownership; uneven
human and institutional capacities; lack of effective sub-national multisectoral platforms; and
persistence of unaligned donor- and NGO-driven approaches. On-going work focuses on the
formation of strategic alliances, leadership development, strengthening of sub-national platforms and experiences to inform the design of multisectoral strategies at the national level and
strengthening linkages with global initiatives.
Conclusions: Together these activities help create crucial elements of a sustainable enabling
environment for reducing malnutrition in these countries.
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Pelletier David, Gervais Suzanne, Rafeez-Ur-Rehman Hajra, Natamba Barnabas, Sanou Dia, Tumwine Jackson. Building Strategic Capacities to Strengthen the Enabling Environment for Nutrition Policies and Programs in Four African Countries. European Journal of Nutrition & Food Safety. 2015 Special issue; 5(5): 727-728.