Introduction
The Decade of Action on Nutrition and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) bring together unparalleled levels of political commitment to invest in nutrition as a core component of health and wellbeing. The Global Nutrition Monitoring Framework (GNMF) includes a set of indicators approved by the World Health Assembly to monitor the global nutrition targets to be achieved by 2025 and to support countries on setting their national priorities and measuring progress towards these nutrition targets.
Timely and credible data are essential for governments and other stakeholders for decision making, better use of resources and efficient implementation of programmes that address nutrition priorities. WHO-UNICEF Technical Expert Advisory group on nutrition Monitoring (TEAM) so far have focused on efforts to finalizing indicator definitions and developing operational guidance so that the global nutrition targets can be monitored systematically across countries. However, it is important to move towards operationalization of better monitoring and reporting at the country-level so that effects of nutrition programmes can be measured and used in a timely way to improve programmes and also contribute to better monitoring of the global nutrition targets and other indicators of the GNMF.
This meeting brings together various partners working in nutrition monitoring to share experiences to date and discuss lessons learned as we embark on the next phase of nutrition monitoring in the era of SDGs. For example, the Accelerating Nutrition Improvements (ANI) initiative, implemented by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 11 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, is a project that has improved nutrition surveillance through the strengthening of health information systems.
Surveillance activities of the ANI projects were implemented through country-led programmes and strategies and within existing systems to avoid duplication and ensure sustainability. ANI provided additional support to countries for scaling-up nutrition interventions and sustainable programmes with the support from Global Affairs Canada and the engagement of the United Nations Renewed Efforts Against Child Hunger (REACH) and the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement. Lessons learned from these and other initiatives will be discussed as we develop a joint realistic vision for nutrition monitoring and surveillance.
Within this context, the TEAM Secretariat (WHO’s Department of Nutrition for Health and Development (NHD) and UNICEF’s Data & Analytics section and Nutrition section) will convene a global meeting on nutrition monitoring and surveillance in Geneva, Switzerland in 23 – 24 March 2017.
Objectives
The aim of this meeting is to provide a forum to:
- Identify successful experiences and challenges from nutrition monitoring and surveillance efforts;
- Highlight priorities and develop a common agenda to improve the quality and availability of data in countries, aligned with monitoring progress towards the WHA global nutrition targets and for SDG reporting; and
- Foster collaboration among stakeholders and partners to support establishment, maintenance and update of nutrition surveillance systems.
Process and potential actors
This meeting will primarily focus on lessons learned from various nutrition monitoring and surveillance initiatives. The present situation of nutritional monitoring and surveillance systems based on country experiences and the potential of methodological, analytical and technological innovations will be shared in the meeting.
A large component of the meeting will showcase the experience from ANI and lessons learned in terms of how to establish an indicator framework, bottlenecks of implementation, and the political process involved. Key components of monitoring and surveillance systems will be highlighted bringing in the ANI experience including data acquisition, scaling-up and quality of service. ANI countries will share the challenges related to data flow, country capacity in data collection, data quality and complexities in routine data. Reporting of nutrition surveillance data and their policy implications will also be discussed.
Partner organizations will be invited to the meeting to exchange experiences on ongoing global nutrition surveillance activities and discuss how data can be transformed into powerful stories that influence nutrition policies in countries. Some of the potential partners actively involved in global nutrition monitoring activities, e.g., National Information Platform on Nutrition (NIPN), UN REACH, Obesity Surveillance Initiative, and Global Nutrition Report will be invited to share their experiences and discuss on data acquisition challenges, data gaps, how to fill up the current data gaps, and collaborative mechanisms for data sharing.
Some of the recent key activities regarding the mapping on global data and accountability initiatives for nutrition can be shared with participating partners to present a “map” of the nutrition data and accountability landscape, data prioritization and collection, its accessibility and use, major global initiatives in each area and how they interact with each other. Results from this mapping exercise will also provide a summary of key findings on challenges and potential opportunities for nutrition surveillance systems.
TEAM members will join this meeting immediately after its bi-annual meeting to be held 21-22 March 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland. This will provide an opportunity to update partners on what TEAM is doing in terms of global nutrition monitoring and to learn what partners are doing in relation to global nutrition monitoring. TEAM will highlight its activities related to the GNMF indicators to monitor the Comprehensive Implementation Plan on Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition and progress towards the global nutrition targets set by the WHA. A broader goal of this dynamic process is to identify potential areas of collaboration with partners, modalities of collaboration for key TEAM activities and other activities that are identified as priorities for action, and foster coordination between TEAM and partners engaged in global nutrition monitoring and surveillance.
Expected outcomes
- Common understanding of the nutrition monitoring and surveillance landscape and lessons learned from nutrition monitoring and surveillance initiatives;
- Development of a joint global initiative on nutrition monitoring and surveillance to increase efforts to generate data and resources for in-country nutrition information systems; and
- Commitment to maintain integrated sustainable monitoring and surveillance systems with updated data for in-country programming which will also contribute to better monitor WHA global nutrition targets and SDG reporting.