The document outlines guidelines for creating an innovation plan aimed at enhancing coordination among civil society organizations in Malawi to address malnutrition. It emphasizes developing a stakeholder mapping strategy to improve resource allocation and nutrition interventions in specific districts. Key elements include ensuring sustainability, collaboration among stakeholders, and clarity in objectives and actions, all while adhering to a six-month implementation timeframe.

1. INNOVATION PLAN FORM
Guidelines for the design of the Innovation Plan
The design of the Innovation Plan intends to support participants in capitalising on the knowledge acquired
during the Learning Route in Rwanda, transforming this knowledge into practical actions to strengthen SUN
Civil Societies Alliances’ coordinated activities to address malnutrition.
The Innovation Plan has to be framed within the strategies and initiatives currently carried out by Civil
Society Organizations, part of the SUN Alliances, participating in the Learning Route. The Plan aims to
enhance the results of on-going activities, adding value to existing initiative and furthering efforts made by
Civil Society to improve nutrition in their own countries.
The Innovation Plan will have to address, through an integrated approach, at least two out of of the
thematic areas of the Learning Route:
I. Advocacy
II. Policy review and policy tracking
III. Campaign and social mobilisation
IV. Multi-stakeholder coordination
V. Communication for behavioural change
VI. Integrated approaches to fight malnutrition
VII. Governance
The Innovation Plan must be the result of your coordinated work as Country Team and representatives of
the SUN Civil Society Alliance (CSA) of your country. Take this opportunity to work together, consolidate
existing partnerships and open-up opportunities for new collaborations!
Very important! The timeframe of your Innovation Plan should not exceed 6 months.

2. Key criteria for the self-assessment of the Innovation Plan
Here you can find some smart criteria to assess the quality of your Innovation Plan. We suggest you to
check them carefully and try to score your Plan before delivering it.
CRITERIA GUIDING QUESTIONS
1. INNOVATION (a) Is the proposal referring to experiences that can be considered innovative in your
country, in relation to the strategies, approaches or methodologies employed?
(b) Does the Plan have the potential to contribute substantially to address nutrition-
related issues at country level?
(c) Does this Plan have potential to be scaled-up?
(d) Is it feasible to implement the Plan with the stakeholders’ available human and
financial resources and in the proposed timeframe?
2. SUSTAINABILITY
AND GOVERNANCE
(e) Sustainability: Can the changes of the Plan be sustained beyond the timeframe of 6
months?
(f) SUN Civil Society Alliance: is the Plan contributing to the long-term goals of the SUN
CSA and its sustainability?
(g) Governance: Does the Plan apply inclusive, participatory and transparent
approach/management?
(h) Collaboration and mutual support: does the plan contribute to the enhancement of
collaboration, learning and mutual support among CSAs of the region?
3. CLEARNESS AND
GENERAL QUALITY
(i) Is the Plan presenting, with a clear and direct language, the opportunities and
challenges that are going to be addressed?
(j) Are the stakeholders clearly described?
(k) Are the objectives clearly defined?
(l) Are the activities result-oriented?
INNOVATION PLAN - SOME KEY CONCEPTS
Change What is the change you would you like to achieve with this Innovation Plan?
Relevance/
Justification
Why is this relevant for the CSA in your country? Who will benefit from the Plan?
Enabling Factors What kind of favourable conditions, existing today in your country, can enable the
achievement of this Plan?
Main Objectives What are the short-term objectives that lead you to the expected change?
Strategic Actions What strategic actions or innovative practices would be implemented in order to reach these
objectives?
Stakeholders Which organizations and institutions from the Civil Society, public and/or private sector,
donor and/or and international cooperation agencies should be involved in the
implementation of the Plan? What would be their role?
Follow-up and
dissemination
How are you going to evaluate the results of the Innovation Plan and how are you going to
disseminate these results at the national (CSA) and or/ regional level?

3. LEARNING ROUTE
Leveraging the Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Network: building regional platforms to promote
learning on how to address malnutrition
The Learning Route in Rwanda
INNOVATION PLAN FORM
I. OVERVIEW
Country/ Team: Malawi
CSA representatives:
Name Organization
1. Bessie Ndovi CSONA
2. Hazel Kantayeni CARE Malawi
3. January Mvula SURCOD
Innovation Plan´s Title:
Thematic
areas
addressed
by the
Innovation
Plan
Mark Thematic Area
Advocacy
Social campaign and mobilisation
 Multi-stakeholder coordination
Communication for behavioural change
Integrated approaches to fight malnutrition
Governance
1.1 CHANGE
What is this Innovation Plan for? What is the change you would you like to achieve with this
Innovation Plan? (50 words max.)
Poor coordination of nutrition activities is one factor which leads to poor progress; therefore, CSONA
would like to conduct a district nutrition stakeholder mapping initially in Nsanje and Zomba Districts.
• To have detailed district stakeholder nutrition information to inform programming on;
– District coverage
– Resource allocation
– Project lifespan

4. 1.2 CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
What are the main challenges the Innovation Plan is addressing? How does the Plan link to the on-
going initiatives carried out by the SUN CSA in your country to address malnutrition? (75 words max.)
Malawi has information on stakeholder mapping all which districts they work in, but at district level
they do not have well segregated data on where these stakeholders are operating, longevity of their
projects, or how much resources are channeled to nutrition. This IP will assist districts in knowing how
many nutrition stakeholders are in their districts, coverage of nutrition interventions in the districts
and knowing how much resource is allocated to nutrition
1.3 RELEVANCE AND JUSTIFICATION
Why is this Plan relevant for the CSA in your country? Who will benefit from the Plan? (75 words max.)
Conducting stakeholder mapping is very important as currently there’s no detailed mapping in districts
to inform programming as well as to improve coordination of nutrition interventions at the district
level. The nutrition stakeholder mapping will benefit a wide range of nutrition stakeholder such as:
 The department of nutrition, HIV and AIDS (DNHA)
 The civil society organisation nutrition alliance (CSONA)
 The Malawi government at the national level
 District local councils
 CSO
 Development partners
 The Area Development Committee (ADC)
II. DESCRIPTION
2.1 OBJECTIVES
What are the Plan´s main objectives? (No words limit)
Objectives
1. To develop and produce a comprehensive database of all nutrition stakeholders in Nsanje and Zomba
districts by June 2017
2.To improve coordination of various key prayers implementing nutrition interventions in Nsanje and
Zomba District
2.2 TARGET GROUPS
Who are the main target groups (direct beneficiaries) and what would be the significant change for
them? Define the main outputs and outcomes (in quantity and quality) of the Innovation Plan. (75
words max.)
The main target groups are the
 nutrition stakeholder
 the beneficiaries of the interventions
 district councils
This stakeholder mapping will allow district councils to:
 know how much resources are available for nutrition in the district from all stakeholders and
how to effectively allocate resources to more deserving areas
 determine the lifespan of projects implemented by stakeholders and be able to monitor the

5. impact
2.3 GOVERNANCE
How will the Plan ensure that all stakeholders will take active part in the decision-making process?
What mechanisms will be put in place to guarantee transparent and accountable management of
the Plan’s resources? (75 words max.)
CSONA is a network which is composed of various CSO members in various districts; the members are
empowered to make decision based on the nutrition issues in their district. This would make it very
simple for the District members to make their own decision. One pillar of CSONA is for its members to
be transparent and work as the team. All members are empowered to work in collaboration and in a
very transparent manner.
2.4 KEY ACTIONS / INITIATIVES
What are the actions or initiatives each stakeholder will have to take in order to achieve the Plan´s
objectives? Link each action to the respective stakeholder/s and the approximate length of time for
implementing the proposed initiatives. (No words limit)
Description of activities per objective Stakeholders´ role Length of time
(when will you start
and how long will it
last?)
1.Objective 1: To develop and produce a
comprehensive database of all nutrition
stakeholders in Nsanje and Zomba districts
by June 2017
Act. 1.1. Planning for the exercise
Act. 1.2. Implementation i.e. actual data
collection, interface meetings, data entry,
cleaning and analysis
Act. 1.3. Dissemination of results
 Participate effectively in
the stakeholder mapping
exercise
 Provide all the necessary
information by filling in the
questionnaires and other
data collection tools
 Provide resources for the
mapping
 Provide human resources
for the mapping
 Mid
February
2017 and it
will last for 3
months
2. Objective 2:
To improve coordination of various key
prayers implementing nutrition
interventions in Nsanje and Zomba District
Act. 2.1.
 Participating in partnership
meetings in the District
 Contributing effectively to
create a conducive
 February
and March
2017

6. Initiate partnership drive amongst CSO
members in Nsanje and Zomba
Act. 2.2.
environment for
coordination in the
Districts
 Sharing of work plans with
other CSO Members and
relevant Government
Ministries
3. Objective 3:
Act. 3.1.
Act. 3.2.
….
2.5 FOLLOW-UP AND DISSEMINATION
How are you going to evaluate and capitalize the results of the Innovation Plan?
 Please consider (if appropriate) to apply qualitative evaluation techniques (e.g. Most
Significant Change, Outcome mapping…)
 How are you going to disseminate these results at the national (CSA) and or/ regional level?
 Random consultations with stakeholders to verify the usefulness of the mapping to the
districts and national levels
 Dissemination of results will be done during dissemination workshops at national (national
nutrition committee) and district levels by inviting all relevant stakeholders
2.6 SUN MOVEMENT
How could the SUN Civil Society Network support the implementation of the Innovation Plan? What
capacities need to be built or strengthened? What resources are available and which ones need to be
mobilised to successfully implement the Plan? (50 words max.)

7. The SUN CSN is the great supporter of the innovation plan as they have the technical knowhow of how
the selected thematic areas have been done elsewhere. There’s a need to build the capacity of the
local SUN alliance to be able to undertake this IP from planning dissemination specifically on data
analysis, reporting and drawing individual district maps of interventions. Human resource from the
local SUN alliance (CSONA) is there; however, there will be need to source financial resource to
implement the IP as the current funding for CSONA comes to an end in December 2016
3.6 BUDGET
Please provide us an estimation of costs broken down per category and indicate if you foresee to
complement the grant with in house funding (if so, how much)
Activity LR grant budget SUN Alliance complementary
budget
Planning (resource mobilisation,
planning meeting with district
officials and stakeholders, data
collection tools, enumerator
hiring)
$1000 0
Implementation (data collection,
interface meetings, data entry,
cleaning and analysis)
$2500 0
Dissemination of results (to all
stakeholders at national and
district level)
$1500 0
Total amount estimated
THANK YOU!