Joyce Njoro, Senior Programme Officer, REACH/UN Network for SUN

1. Assessing Functional Capacity- Areas of
consideration
June 2015
Joyce Njoro

2. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 2
Agenda
1. Introduction
2. Functional capacities Elements
• Engaging in multi-stakeholder dialogue
• Assessing a situation and creating a vision and mandate
• Formulating policies, strategies and action plans
• Budgeting, managing and implementation
• Monitoring evaluation and learning
3. Developing a capacity strengthening plan

3. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 3
Functional Capacity for nutrition governance
Capacity development includes both technical and functional capacities.
Functional capacities are defined as essential management skills that enable actors to plan,
manage, change and sustain technical capacities- regardless of the sector or organization1.
Technical capacities, on the other hand, vary and are closely related to the sector or
organizational context in focus. They are associated with particular areas of professional
expertise. In nutrition these may include; infant and young child feeding; disease prevention and
control; agriculture; food security; education1.
REACH is working in 15 countries where it supports the development of functional
capacities related to nutrition governance. These include capacities for effective multi-
sector and multi-stakeholder coordination for the elaboration, management and
implementation of the national nutrition policies, strategies and plans at both national and
sub-national levels.
1 FAO (2010). “Corporate Strategy on Capacity Development.” Rome

4. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 4
Infantandyoungchildfeeding
Functional capacities enable the sustainable development of technical
capacities
Adapted from FAO Corporate Strategy for Capacity Development, 2009.
FUNCTIONAL capacities TECHNICAL capacities
Engaging in multi-stakeholder
dialogues
Assessing a situation and creating a
vision and mandate
Formulating policies , strategies and
action plans
Budgeting, management and
implementation
Monitoring, evaluation and learning
Waterandsanitation
…andmanyothers
Householdfoodsecurityand
sustainablelivelihoods
Diseasepreventionandcontrol
Healthsystemsstrengthening
Dietdiversification

5. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 5
Functional Capacities can be assessed at three different levels
Enabling Environment
• Do policies and legal framework facilitate multi-
sectoral/multi-stakeholder action?
• Is the socio-political environment facilitative?
Organisational level
• Which organisations are relevant to nutrition?
• Are the organisations goals, mission and vision aligned
to the national nutrition priorities?
• How is nutrition articulated/mainstreamed within the
institution?
• How do the organisations interact with each other and
how do they build synergies and meaningful
partnerships?
Individual level
• Do individuals have relevant skills, knowledge and
attitudes to achieve their organisational/institutional
goals?
• What are the incentives that facilitate staff performance?
• Are staff adequately supported to perform their roles?

6. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 6
Capacity needs differ depending on where countries are
Mobilisation
phase
Planning phase
Roll-out phase
• Countries require support in setting up a
multi-sectoral bodies (e.g. Secretariat,
working group) to coordinate the scale-up
• Support with stock taking and joint
advocacy, visioning
• and require minimum support
• Develop/review policy and plan
• Scale-up discussions
• Multi-sectoral platform exisits but requires
some support for full operations
• Putting in place M&E systems
• Developing sub-national plans
• Resource mobilisation
• Multi-sectoral platforms are operational
and require minimum support
Level of
complexity

7. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 7
Agenda
1. Introduction
2. Functional capacities elements
• Engaging in multi-stakeholder dialogue
• Assessing a situation and creating a vision and mandate
• Formulating policies, strategies and action plans
• Budgeting, managing and implementation
• Monitoring evaluation and learning
3. Developing a capacity strengthening plan

8. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 8
1. Engaging in Multi-stakeholder dialogues and partnerships
• Engage and build consensus on
nutrition issues among all stakeholders
• Coordinate stakeholders and establish
collaborative mechanisms;
• Create partnerships and networks;
• Advocate and raise awareness around
nutrition issues;
• Develop an enabling environment that
engages all relevant stakeholders;
• Mediate divergent interests and build
trust.
Nutrition
Secretariat
Technical
Level
Coord.
Mech.
High Level
Coord.
Mech.
Measurable Results
Sector
Coord.
Mech.
SUN
networks
Sub-national
Coord. Mech.
SUN FP

9. 9
Nutrition Governance Mechanisms in countries where REACH is present
High Level
Supra Ministerial
OP, VP, PM Planning Comm.
Chair: Host or Minister
Membership: Mostly all government
Line Ministry (LM)
Ministry of Health or Agriculture
Chair: Host
Working/Technical Level
Supra ministerial or LM
Chair: Supra ministerial body or Line
Ministry
May have co-chairing arrangements
Nutrition Secretariats
Supra ministerial body or LM
May have technical nutrition
responsibilities and/or coordination
role
Members
Mostly all gov.,
includes S/H in
few countries
Members
Gov., & S/H
SUN MSP
4-100 staff
Policy & Strategic Direction
Support implm. & advice High
level comm.
Support M/S coordination
SFP
The mechanisms have varying capacity needs to attain full function

10. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 10
Aligning nutrition coordination architecture to existing structures- Ghana
Proposed nutrition coordination structure
CSPG
Large s/H groups convened by
NDPC with membership from
national to sub-national level e.g.
CSPG Nutrition has > 60 members
Mandated to meet on a quarterly
basis but in practice are convened
on need basis (e.g. to validate
policy)
Roles and resp. of this group not
clearly defined , however, 6 working
groups with TOR for specific tasks
Secretariat functions not fully
integrated into the NDPC functions
and therefore have a resource
capacity gap (staff, finances etc)

11. Lack of high level multi-sectoral nutrition coordination mechanism
Level
Degree of
multi-
sectorality
Sector Working Groups
(e.g. Agric, Educ, Health,
Social Welfare, WASH)
Agriculture
Nutrition
Coordination
NCHCB
NANUPACC
CSPG*
Sectoral Multi-sectoral
TECHNICALDGMinisterialPresidential
No multi-sector
high level mechanism
exists for nutrition
Ensuring political and technical level leadership for multi-sectoral nutrition actions

12. Health Sector
Sector Working Group (SWG)
Ministry of Health
Director General
General
Administration
Finance
HR for Health
Development
Policy Planning
Monitoring &
Evaluation
Other
Directorates
Ensuring effective engagement at the sector level
DP Group
Note: NANUPACC - National Nutrition Partners Coordinating Committee, CSPG – Cross-Sectoral Planning
Group
Ghana Health Services
Director General
National Child Health Coordinating Body (NCHCB)
Public Health
Policy Planning
Monitoring &
Evaluation
HRFamily Health
Other
Divisions
Nutrition
Health
Promotion
Geriatric
Care
Reproductive
and Child
Health
NANUPACC
Disease
Surveillance
Disease
Control

13. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 13
2. Assessing a situation and creating a vision
• Define a common vision on how to address the nutrition problem
with buy-in from all stakeholders;
• Ensure that the common vision translates into a rallying call for
action – political, financial, technical, organizational etc;
• Effective communication of the common vision to all stakeholders;
• Use of evidence to understand and respond to issues holistically,
to design evidence-based policies and programmes and to
anticipate long-term needs as well as risks through effective
synthesis of information.

14. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 14
Defining and sustaining a common vision in Nepal
Mobilising S/H
and defining
common vision
Policy strategy
and action plan
dev.
Implementation
and scale-up
In Nepal, stakeholders worked together to define a common vision for
nutrition and develop a policy, strategy and action plan
The country is having challenges sustaining the common vision, which
can be attributed to:
• Turn-over of leaders and nutrition champions
• Entry of new members
• Increased demands and responsibilities as the country moves to
implementation
Scaling
up
nutrition

15. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 15
3. Formulating policies and strategies
• Capacity to formulate a common results framework that binds all the actors
into a common purpose
• Facilitate formulation of multi-sectoral legislation, policies, strategies;
• Lead, manage and coordinate participation of key actors in a transparent
manner
• Analyse a range of development parameters that may affect needs and
performance; explore different perspectives; long-term strategizing; and
setting common objectives.
• Aligning of sector policies and strategies to national nutrition priorities
• Clarity of mandates, strategies, inter-sectoral collaboration, processes etc.

16. 16
Ghana – NNP finalisation and sector policy / strategy alignment
National Nutrition Policy
Implementation Plan
Multi-sectoral
Lead Sector: Ministry
of Health
Health
Agriculture &
Food
EducationHealth Agriculture Education
Other
Sectors
Sector Policy / Strategy
informs
Current Status:
Finalisation of
Implementation
Plan
Next steps:
Alignment of sector
policies/ strategies
to NNP

17. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 17
4. Budgeting, managing and implementing
• Ensure that nutrition actions are integrated into the sector/ sub-national
medium term and annual work plans
• Mobilise resources from government and development partners to fund
nutrition actions
• Project management capacities at different levels to coordinate, manage
and implement nutrition plans in a multi-sector way.
• Manage and coordinate intra/inter-sectoral linkages at implementation
and to ensure alignment by all stakeholders
• Foster linkages and communication lines between sectors, stakeholders,
national and sub-national structures
• Project management capacities at different levels to coordinate, manage
and implement nutrition plans in a multi-sector way.
• Foster linkages between sectors, stakeholders, national and sub-national
structures

18. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 18
National Medium-Term Development Policy Framework and opportunities to integrate nutrition
National Development
Planning Commission
Ghana Shared Growth and
Development Agenda
Health
Annual Work Plan
Food &
Agriculture
Annual Work Plan
Education
Annual Work Plan
Ministry X
Annual Work Plan
Health
MTDP
Food & Agriculture
MTDP
Education
MTDP
Ministry X
MTDP
Note: MTDP – Medium-Term Development Plan
Supplementary
guidelines for
nutrition
developed
Nutrition integrated
into national budget
framework
4-5 years
4 years
1 year
National Development Vision20 years
Implementation coordinated by respective Sector Working Groups
How to integrate nutrition actions into
MTDPs?
Ministry of Finance
Opportunity to
mobilise resources
and align partner
support and
programmes to
government priorities
How to ensure nutrition is prioritised in annual plans?
Extent to which nutrition is integrated into the national
Planning framework

19. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 19
District Planning
District Planning
• In Nepal, NPC has the mandate to manage implementation, and through the
NNFSS, capacity of districts to develop nutrition plans has been developed
starting with 6 districts prioritised for scale-up.
• These 6 districts have developed multi-sectoral nutrition plans that are aligned to
the national budget cycle and have received funding from the MOF following
lobbying by the NPC
• The next step is to scale-up this support to other districts

20. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 20
5. Monitoring, evaluation and learning
• Monitor progress, commitments, evaluate outcomes and
accurately measure results for learning, feedback, decision
making and accountability
• Draw lessons and link to policy dialogue, planning and
improved management of implementation
• Identify and agree on indicators to be tracked to measure
change
• Link M&E results to policy dialogue, planning and
management of implementation of the nutrition action plan.

21. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 21
Nepal has advanced significantly in developing its M&E capacities
• Through the M&E working group, all sectors
have participated in developing a consolidated
and sector M&E framework including identifying
of indicators.
• A common M&E platform is being designed and
will be hosted and managed by the NFNSS
(NPC).
• National M&E guidelines for the MNSP have
been developed to guide sectors and districts.
• An online information portal to disseminate
reports to wider stakeholders and decision
makers has been defined.
• A national nutrition dashboard has been
developed. Each line ministry also has in place
its dashboard for nutrition.
• Leadership to operationalize the M&E
framework at sector level.
• Definition of reporting and communication
lines between the district and the NNFSS
for M&E.
• Definition of modalities to share information
to the district and community level without
internet The information portal, while a good
platform for knowledge sharing, is not easy
to access by districts and communities
without internet access.
• M&E staff capacities are weak, most M&E
focal points at sector and district level do
not have the relevant M&E skills
FUNCTIONAL capacities developed Areas that need strengthening

22. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 22
Agenda
1. Introduction
2. Functional capacities elements
• Engaging in multi-stakeholder dialogue
• Assessing a situation and creating a vision and mandate
• Formulating policies, strategies and action plans
• Budgeting, managing and implementation
• Monitoring evaluation and learning
3. Developing a plan

23. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 23
Functional Capacity strengthening
The essence of assessing capacity gaps is to support countries to take
action to strengthen the weak areas. The country stakeholders can
therefore:
• Identify and prioritise strategies to address existing gaps. These
strategies can range from a more strategic long term to short term
actions.
• Develop a costed functional capacity development plan with clear roles
and responsibility
• To the extent possible, this should be incorporated into the national
nutrition action plan
• Resource mobilisation for capacity development

24. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 24
Excerpt of a functional national capacity development plan- Ghana
Capacity need Indicators Timeline Responsible Support
Engaging in dialogues, partnerships and networks
Define the nutrition governance structure for nutrition at
national, regional and district level, indicating linkages,
membership, roles and responsibility and include in
national nutrition policy/implementation plan.
- Endorsed coordination framework Short term SUN Secretariat CSPG nutrition, SUN
networks
Advocate for establishment and operationalization of a
nutrition inter-ministerial and a nutrition technical
committee.
- TORs
- No. of meetings
Short term NDPC- SUN focal
point
SUN Focal Point, CSPG, UN,
CSO, Donor network
Operationalize CSPG thematic working groups, identify
leadership roles from NTCC, action plans and reporting.
- TOR
- No. of meetings
Short term NDPC- SUN focal
point
SUN Focal Point, CSPG, UN,
CSO, Donor network
Establish and operationalise the SUN secretariat and
fully integrate its functions in NDPC.
- Organogram & org. profile
- Staff job descriptions
- Performance contracts
- Nutrition governance budget line
Medium
term
NDPC SUN Focal Point, CSPG, UN,
Donor network
Document lessons from existing pilots in three regions
and few districts and scale-up nutrition coordination
mechanisms at regional and district level.
- % of regions and districts with
functional nutrition coordination
mechanisms
Long term CSPG, NDPC NTCC, UN, CSO
Develop TORs for each SUN Network and strengthen
the networks internal organisation to better engage with
government.
- TORs for each network groups
- Documented SUN Network
deliverables and support
Short term SUN network
groups
NTCC and SUN Secretariat

25. Overview of the REACH approach – 2015 25
THANK
YOU