03/12/2015 by CMN
In late August 2015, the Kenyan Ministry of Health (MoH), UNICEF, ACF and the CMN jointly organised a national workshop on the coverage of IMAM programmes. The main objective was to build and strengthen the capacity of national stakeholders, as well as provide guidance on how better to address the most pressing barriers to access identified along previous coverage assessments.
The national coverage training was actually a follow up of the workshop held in September 2014. Back then, the partners gathered unfolded the training with the objective of understanding the existing technical capacities in country to scale-up coverage assessments through a specific action plan for Kenya -by the way, one of the nine priority countries supported by the CMN. This time, the workshop's goal was to build upon the achievements of the previous year. Specifically, it intended to remind partners why coverage activities are important, along with providing them with renewed practical and theoretical skills. The other fundamental goal was to support national actors in their planning and strategy to roll-out future coverage assessments. In order to achieve this, the workshop focused on the following central points: • How to plan and conduct the core elements of coverage assessments • How to use their findings and results • How to train teams on the different coverage competencies • When to conduct coverage assessments and which ones are most appropriate to use. This last point was of particular importance, as the workshop reminded that a range of coverage methodologies are now available for different types of needs. Lately, the CMN has been developing guidelines and reference documents that help deciding which assessments suits a programme better. The Workshop concluded with the elaboration of some recommendations and the setting of a way forward, including elements such as: developing national level assessment guidelines, putting together a national nutrition Action Plan and building stakeholders capacity, among many others. [To see the full report of the Workshop please follow this link]
The national coverage training was actually a follow up of the workshop held in September 2014. Back then, the partners gathered unfolded the training with the objective of understanding the existing technical capacities in country to scale-up coverage assessments through a specific action plan for Kenya -by the way, one of the nine priority countries supported by the CMN. This time, the workshop's goal was to build upon the achievements of the previous year. Specifically, it intended to remind partners why coverage activities are important, along with providing them with renewed practical and theoretical skills. The other fundamental goal was to support national actors in their planning and strategy to roll-out future coverage assessments. In order to achieve this, the workshop focused on the following central points: • How to plan and conduct the core elements of coverage assessments • How to use their findings and results • How to train teams on the different coverage competencies • When to conduct coverage assessments and which ones are most appropriate to use. This last point was of particular importance, as the workshop reminded that a range of coverage methodologies are now available for different types of needs. Lately, the CMN has been developing guidelines and reference documents that help deciding which assessments suits a programme better. The Workshop concluded with the elaboration of some recommendations and the setting of a way forward, including elements such as: developing national level assessment guidelines, putting together a national nutrition Action Plan and building stakeholders capacity, among many others. [To see the full report of the Workshop please follow this link]