COMCEC

Malnutrition in the OIC Member

Countries: A Trap for Poverty

To respond to the alarmingly high rates of child malnutrition in South Asia, the potentially

severe consequences of the problem, and the multi-sectoral nature of its determinants, the

South Asia Regional Management Team (RMT) adopted nutrition as a regional priority. The

RMT also identified the need for a framework that would ensure that the region maintains and

delivers on the results focus, and hence a Results-Based RAS for Nutrition was developed with

extensive consultations at the country and regional levels with staff from different sectors. The

strategy outlined the region's vision and approach to improving nutrition. It drew upon

collective knowledge, experience and thinking, and distilled concrete actions that the region

could take in the immediate to the medium term to translate commitment into results.

To achieve this vision, the strategy outlined some key results and provided a road map to scale

up South Asia Region's work program on nutrition. It proposed some strategic approaches to

guide the scale up of this work program, with an emphasis on working across sectors, focusing

on the Bank's areas of comparative advantages to support client countries implementation of

comprehensive programs that integrate critical nutrition-sensitive actions in multiple sectors.

The overall objective of the RAS is to expand the scale, scope, and impact of the region's work

program, while building staff's and clients' commitment to, and capacity for a multi-sectoral

response to the nutrition crisis. The RAS met its objective through four key results:

• Improved awareness and commitment by Bank staff and clients to addressing maternal

and child nutrition;

• Increased World Bank lending for operations aimed at improving maternal and child

nutrition;

• Increased World Bank funding/management of analytical work to address knowledge

gaps in maternal and child nutrition;

• Successful implementation of a multi-sectoral convergence model project aimed at

improving child nutrition indicators.

Critical Success Factors and Risks for Achieving Nutritional Targets

Common Results Framework (CRF)

One agreed upon critical success factor is the development of a Common Results Framework

(CRF). Developed by the SUNmovement, the CRF is as a single and agreed set of expected (or

common) results generated through the effective engagement of different sectors of

Government and the multiple (non-government) actors who have capacity to influence

people's nutrition. This set of results should be based on the national goals and targets for

nutrition, and reflect the ways in which different sectors and actors can best contribute to the

achievement of these targets through their individual and collective actions. While the

“results” referred to in a CRF are guided by the 1000 days window of opportunity to improve

nutrition, CRFs may also include targets for obesity or overweight reduction (Walters, Dohan

and Shoham 2015).

The Common Results Framework includes a table of expected results: it also consists of a

costed implementation plan describing the steps needed for implementation. There may also

be compacts, or memoranda of understanding, which set out mutual obligations between

different stakeholders. In practice, the implementation plan is often an amalgamation of

several plans from different sectors or stakeholders.