On September 15–16, 2016, the Coordination Directorate of Côte d’Ivoire’s National Nutrition Program (DC-PNN) and technical partners including FANTA, co-sponsored a resource mobilization round-table event in Abidjan, with support from USAID/Côte d’Ivoire Mission, to identify funds for the country’s first five-year Multisectoral Nutrition Plan (MSNP) 2016–2020.

The MSNP is the product of several years of close collaboration between the Government of Côte d’Ivoire and technical partners, which began in June 2013 when the country joined the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement to end malnutrition. In 2014, Côte d’Ivoire set up a national nutrition committee to work together with the UNICEF-led technical and financial partners committee, which includes international organizations such as the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as technical partners such as FANTA, to support the country’s SUN process. After first mapping out the nutrition-related interventions of each partner in a shared tool, the partners began meeting every other month to discuss technical support issues and to coordinate activities.

MSNP Funding Roundtable

This year, one of the issues requiring attention was how to fund the MSNP, which the Government of Côte d’Ivoire had approved in May 2016 to support the country’s SUN process. To begin addressing this challenge, the country asked the technical and financial partners committee to help organize an international event on the MSNP.

With partner support, Côte d’Ivoire’s DC-PNN hosted a roundtable in September 2016, that brought together 350 participants from 30 countries, and included representatives from UNICEF, the World Bank, WHO, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the African Development Bank, the European Union, USAID, and FHI 360, among other partners, as well as officials from the health, agricultural production, livestock and fisheries, water, sanitation, social protection, and education sectors. At the meeting, participants discussed challenges and opportunities for collaboration around the seven components of Côte d’Ivoire’s new MSNP:

• Promoting good nutritional practices and measures to prevent malnutrition
• Strengthening the management of malnutrition
• Increasing the availability of and access to diverse, nutritious foods
• Enhancing food safety
• Strengthening families’ resilience to food and nutritional crises
• Improving hygiene, access to drinking water, and sanitation
• Creating an enabling environment for nutrition and strengthening governance

As part of the discussions, participating donors and partners pledged their financial support at the round-table event to help Côte d’Ivoire realize its multisectoral nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive goals, which are laid out in the MSNP. According to a letter from Côte d’Ivoire’s Prime Minister, which recognized the technical support provided by FHI 360 through the FANTA project to the country’s nutrition program, financial commitments to the MSNP increased from 227 million CFA francs to 401 million CFA francs, or 77%, by the end of the round-table meeting.

Next Steps

As a next step to the roundtable, Côte d’Ivoire’s national nutrition office invited FANTA to participate in a “follow-up” committee that also includes international agencies such as WHO, to help the country manage the funds, establish a clear process for their disbursement, and generally ensure their optimal use in support of the MSNP. In addition, FANTA will continue to participate in regular technical committee meetings to plan and support additional nutrition activities in line with the MSNP.

Read more about FANTA’s support for the national integrated nutrition program in Côte d’Ivoire.