Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture Capacity Strengthening in Ethiopia (NSA CASE) Project: Mid-term assessment report

Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture Capacity Strengthening in Ethiopia (NSA CASE) is a five-year project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that began in 2019. The project supports the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) in strengthening its capacity to plan and implement nutrition sensitive agriculture (NSA). The NSA CASE project is designed to provide technical and financial support for the MOA’s initiatives related to NSA strategies. NSA CASE has been implemented at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture (FMOA) and in the Amhara, Oromia, and Somali regions for the last three years. The national Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture Strategy (NSAS) offers guidance on what is needed to integrate nutrition objectives into existing agriculture policies, programs, and investments. The main purpose of this mid-term assessment was to evaluate the project’s implementation performance towards achieving its objectives and expected deliverables.

The assessment used both primary and secondary data collection methods to track the MOA’s capacity for incorporating NSA into different strategies and programs, NSA implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of nutrition related activities. The key informants were purposely selected from the FMOA, the Regional Bureau of Agriculture (RBOA), and the NSA development partners’ representatives. Verbal informed consent was obtained from the participants for their voluntary participation. The assessment used thematic content analysis to analyze the data and the key informant interviews (KIIs) were coded and entered into Atlas Ti 7.5 computer software for data analysis. The transcribed and coded data were then repeatedly checked to get immersion into the data and a codebook identified key themes to facilitate the coding of transcribed notes.

The MOA has been promoting the integration of nutrition objectives and indicators into the agriculture sector’s plans and programs. The findings of this assessment show that the MOA has worked with the RBOA to incorporate the identified nutrition priority areas into their annual plans and detected a notable improvement in prioritizing the implementation of NSA within the MOA. Contrary to the baseline assessment, the mid-term assessment disclosed that the majority of MOA staff had information about the existence of NSA policies and strategies. The mid-term assessment explored the readiness of directorates/departments in the agriculture sector to integrate NSA activities into existing strategies and programs and found that NSA CASE has significantly contributed to cascading NSA strategies from the federal to the woreda level as well as facilitating NSA advocacy, awareness creation, capacity building, and experience sharing. The results also demonstrated that there was also continuous follow-up on the real integration and achievement of NSA strategies within annual plans.

Over the last three years, the project saw improvements in financing NSA and mobilizing resources. Though an improvement in staffs’ commitment to NSA was reported in the mid-term assessment, both the baseline and the mid-term assessments showed a shortage of human resources for the implementation of NSA strategies. While there was no uniform data collection methods and irregular functionality of the database system, the mid-term assessment reflected the availability of different data collection methods and the intention to use the Agricultural Management Information System (AGMIS) for data collection and management. Similar to the baseline assessment, the data from the mid-term assessment also depicted that there was no well-organized or functional data monitoring and evaluation and documentation system. At the federal level and in some regions, there was an initiative to use NSA coordination for mobilizing resources, displaying sectoral planning, and nutrition information sharing. The baseline assessment identified the presence of nutrition structure at higher levels with a noticeable shortage of human resources. Similarly, the findings from the mid-term assessment explored how, at the federal level, there is a designated Food and Nutrition Office (FNO) that is directly accountable to the minister, whereas within the lower levels the nutrition structure is not well-organized. Regarding staff capacity building activities, the key informants from the three regions acknowledged the capacity building they received through NSA CASE. Findings of this assessment portrayed that NSA CASE has made a substantial contribution to addressing staff shortages and improving staff capacity. The mid-term assessment explored how there was initiation in establishing nutrition structure in the project implementing regions as independent directorate from the regional to the woreda level.

Despite the substantial progress made in NSA implementation, this mid-term assessment has also identified many bottle necks. Some of the challenges reported by the study participants included irregularity of planning, insufficient budget allocation, poor staff motivation, staff capacity challenges, staff turnover, improper data collection and management, lack of logistical support, disruption of IT services and lack of data digitalization, and incapability of data monitoring and evaluation. To address these issues, the study participants and key informants have suggested solutions like the provision of capacity building training, establishing nutrition structure independently at least as a directorate level in the regions and lower structures, allocating a sufficient budget for nutrition, strengthening multi-sectoral initiatives, developing a website for better data sharing, utilization of solar based energy, improving reporting systems, giving unequivocal job descriptions to the different directorates, and establishing continuous monitoring and evaluation on NSA implementations.