COP1 Conference Call | Country examples are shared from Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Côte d'Ivoire

On the 24^th October 2014, the second conference call to develop the Community of Practice on planning, costing, implementing and financing multi-sectoral actions for improved nutrition was held. Twenty-five participants from SUN Networks and technical agencies participated in the call as a follow-up from the first conference call held in July 2014 and the Nairobi workshop held in November 2013.

Hugh Bagnall-Oakley of Save the Children described the financial tracking process taking place in Malawi and Zambia. He emphasized the need for budget analyses to be meaningful at the district and community level where implementation takes place and how effective monitoring of implementation can help to drive results.

Professor Sue Horton looked at costing beyond the health sector. In particular, she addressed the challenge of clearly defining outcomes for nutrition-sensitive investments, especially those that do not use number of beneficiaries and unit cost per beneficiary as their measurement parameters. A specific mention was made in relation to the need for further dissemination and understanding of findings from the Columbia study on Simulating Potential of Nutrition-Sensitive Investments’ completed in January 2014.

From the Office of the Prime Minister in Tanzania, Sarah Mshiu highlighted key findings from the Public Expenditure Review (PER) for nutrition that aimed to address the lack of data on the amount and type of funds allocated and spent on nutrition. She provided an overview on main lessons, challenges and recommendations.

Dr. Ferima Coulibaly Zerbo from the World Health Organisation Inter Country Support Team in Western Africa, presented the latest developments on the use of national health accounts for nutrition. Progress and challenges from the use of a national account in Côte d’Ivoire were shared by Dr. Christelle Gbayoro from the Côte d’Ivoire National Health Account team.

Concluding remarks were made by Sue Horton and Lawrence Haddad in view of the parallel sessions on costing and financial tracking foreseen for the 2014  Global Gathering of the SUN Movement.

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