Somalia Health and Nutrition Programme M&E Technical Support

The Issue

The DFID-funded Somalia Health & Nutrition Programme (SHINE) is a five-year programme to reduce mother and child deaths in Somalia by improving supply and demand for health and nutrition services. The programme’s supply component aims to provide access to basic health and nutrition services to 2 million inhabitants of Somalia and Somaliland and strengthen the capacity of the health authorities to provide essential health services. Mott MacDonald is the fund manager of this component.

Tropical Health was commissioned in the first phase to conduct project monitoring system design, testing and training. In the second phase (2020-21), Tropical Health was commissioned to provide ongoing support to monitoring systems operationalization and data collation, analysis and reporting to the donor.

Our Approach

Tropical Health was consulted as needed on development and finalization of the overall M&E strategy. Tropical Health reviewed the requirements for, proposed an approach to, and supported the development of monitoring, evaluation and learning tools and protocols. Then Tropical Health was responsible for developing a routine M&E system, testing it and training SHINE supply and implementing partner staff in the use of the system. Subsequently, Tropical Health began supporting the system operationalization and assisting with collation and analysis of data as well as reporting to the donor. Throughout the two phases, Tropical Health built capacity and provided ongoing mentoring to staff on the reporting system, tools and templates.

Tropical Health delivered a monitoring operational manual, reporting template for implementing partners, a DTL reporting template, M&E reporting template for UK DFID and monthly and quarterly reports on logframe targets as well as support to DFID annual review preparation, capacity-building for project staff involved in monitoring, and supporting the improvement of local Ministry of Health M&E systems. Throughout the second phase, Tropical Health was on-call to support the country’s Covid-19 response by providing expertise in epidemic projections, surveillance and data management systems if/when requested by DFID.

Our Findings

Tropical Health’s expertise and experience in project monitoring systems review and operationalization helped deliver services aimed at effective management of the SHINE programme, whose objective is to increase access, utilization and quality of health services especially for women, children and vulnerable populations, as well as strengthen the health system.