Yemen will soon be formally launching its new multi-sector plan for nutrition with an allied investment case. N4D looks back at the situation three years ago when we first started working with the SUN Yemen Secretariat (SYS), different sectors and many international actors involved in the process. It has been a very rewarding journey, largely because of the tenacity of the leadership in country. This short blog highlights the key lessons learnt from
our perspective.
What was the situation when we started work?
N4D’s engagement with Yemen began in 2021 supporting a large national NGO (Building Foundation for Development) to develop their first multisectoral nutrition strategy. Through this engagement, we started working with the SUN Yemen Secretariat (SYS) based in the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MOPIC) in mid 2022. At the time we started working with the SYS, many international actors did not know of the existence of Yemen’s first Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Action Plan (MSNAP) which covered all the country, or of the coordinating role of the SYS within MOPIC.
But why was this the case?
- As with many protracted crises-affected countries, nutrition is often approached through the humanitarian system with its focus on the treatment of malnutrition, food assistance etc. and only limited resources and attention afforded to long-term programmes aiming to reduce the prevalence and burden of malnutrition;
- Humanitarian actors focussed on implementation within sectors and not on engaging with national multisectoral planning, coordination and accountability mechanisms;
- A lack of political economy analysis among humanitarian and development actors limited the understanding of existing national governance systems and identifying with which national actors to work;
- Humanitarian principles were sometimes being used as an excuse for not engaging with national governments;
- Amongst international actors a tendency to not differentiate between the technical engagement with sectoral line ministries such as the Ministry of Planning andpolitical actors. This meant that opportunities were being missed to help strengthen align with national nutrition priorities.
- Physical location of SYS in Sana´a led to misplaced concerns about association with the Houthi authorities; and. The COVID pandemic led to a high turnover of international staff and a loss of institutional memory and awareness.
Even though there was a detailed MSNAP when we started working with the SUN Yemen Secretariat, it was very difficult to ascertain the level of implementation.
Again, why was this the case?
- The MSNAP ‘existed mainly on paper’. It was technically sound and ticked all the right boxes with a detailed Common Results Framework (CRF) and a costed plan, but international consultants ‘held the pen’ and the level of political and senior management buy-in in Yemen was not high;
- This meant there was little commitment to align investments and actions with MSNAP strategic priorties and to report on delivery and results;
- There was no investment case to accompany the MSNAP and locate it within broader national development strategies and plans, meaning that there was inadequate high level Yemeni political ownership and prioritisation, thereby impacting high-level ownership by international partners; and
- The MSNAP was not designed with a political economy lens to fully understand the systems and actors that needed to be influenced and harnessed.
Where are we now and how did we get here?
Three years later and the SYS/N4D collaboration has evolved to catalyse and build momentum for realising Yemen’s longer-term nutrition priorities. Our working approach has been multi-pronged and centred around very frequent interactions in-country and at the regional level between the SYS, various working groups and key stakeholders.
Updating the first MSNAP has been the main ‘hook’ to catalyse much-needed change to the nutrition landscape in Yemen by raising its profile, the level of nutrition literacy among international and national actors, and by garnering a broad understanding of nutrition as central to the country’s longer-term development.
The SYS has successfully coordinated the following processes with N4D support, including:
- Getting to grips with the political economy of aid in Yemen through country and regional mapping, resource flow analyses, in-country visits, and regional and global level meetings;
- Organising a Call to Action to galvanise broad stakeholder engagement in a SYS-led update of the MSNAP;
- Hosting the first ever SUN Yemen-wide gathering of national and international actors to develop a country-wide nutrition strategic approach;
- Developing National Guidelines on scaling up multisectoral nutrition actions through a Humanitarian Development Peace (HDP) Nexus approach and embedding a nutrition focussed nexus approach into the MSNAP;
- Developing a Common Results Framework (CRF);
- Developing an MSNAP investment case;
- Identifying strategic geographical and thematic priorities within the MSNAP and developing an implementation modality; and
- Developing a targeted programme approach to provide ‘proof of concept’ for multisectoral nutrition convergence of actions across the nexus in high burden geographic locations.
What factors have affected the process?
- There were no government-led structures in place to bring different stakeholders together for jointly developing the plan and writing the new MSNAP , in order to capitalise on their expertise, resources and build mutual ownership of the plan. It is only through a long process of engagement that buy-in and alignment with the MSNAP can be assured;
- There was an on-going reticence to engage in a government-led process;
There was a dominant focus on humanitarian implementation rather than longer-term planning and capacity strengthening; - Sector engagement has also taken time as the new CRF promotes responsibility and accountability of the line ministries; and
- Nutrition in Yemen was characterised by highly siloed ways of working, with international actors defining their programme priorities and areas of focus.
- Changing entrenched ways of working and recognising the SYS as the main coordinating authority for nutrition has been a gradual process.
The new MSNAP – what’s different?
- There will not be a detailed plan of implementation with the allied costings as getting this to a level of reliability is not realistic… and it is disproportionately time consuming
- The CRF is organised along the lines of the main sectors so that nutrition can be better integrated into sector specific nutrition objectives and plans
- The plan focusses on starting small and scaling iteratively. There will be geographic and thematic accelerator programmes that will target high-burden districts where stunting and wasting are high and where the convergence of multisectoral actions are needed, led by the respective line ministries. Interestingly, this is like the
approach used in Ethiopia through the Seqota Declaration programme; - The Accelerator Programme approach will provide ‘proof of concept’ for the multisectoral approach through a nexus lens, bringing together humanitarian, development and peace building efforts; and
- Donors and international actors can use the MSNAP framework as the umbrella for their nutrition investments by aligning with the agreed objectives and by supporting SYS to coordinate its implementation.
Key takeaways
Updating a national MSNAP is anything but straightforward. Surprisingly, there is no readily available resource or mechanism to actively support a country-owned process. Instead, each country must negotiate its own pathway to updating and upgrading their nutrition plans.
The process needs to take account of what has worked and hasn’t worked with the previous plan. It also needs to include national evidence, nutrition trend data, global evidence and standards, and take account of the changes to country and global context over the intervening years. It needs to be aspirational on the one hand and practical and
doable on the other. Many MSNAPs have fallen into the trap of wanting to include everything all at once, often with high and unrealistic programme targets and budgets. It needs to bring together everyone with a role in tackling malnutrition, recognizing their contribution and ensuring that they help shape the plan.
To achieve all the above, the work in Yemen has taught us a simple tenet, that we need to ‘do better’ at listening to national experts and respecting national leadership for driving forward initiatives such as updating country MSNAPs.
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