"We Will and Must Continue Working Together!"

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Development Food Security Activity (DFSA) and Save the Children (SC) Growth Through Nutrition (GtN) have forged a collaborative agreement to jointly plan, layer, implement, and assess similar nutrition-related activities in four overlapping districts (Woredas) in Ethiopia. Both projects have a similar goal, to reduce malnutrition and food security, and target mothers and young children. In order to avoid duplication of efforts, CRS and SC adopted a CLA approach, which involves creating joint action plans, sharing assessment results, conducting regular progress meetings with each other, and participating in joint government review meetings.

A key to this success is the development and use of a collaboration tracking tool, completed quarterly by DFSA programming staff. A unique feature of the tool is the rating system, which allows CRS to evaluate the strength of their collaboration on each task as weak, middle, or strong. The use of this tool will ensure this critical partnership is maintained and strengthened overtime.

Both projects focus heavily on capacity strengthening of government staff, and the partnership has yielded positive results on government capacity and relationships. The collaboration has been well received by both organizations and government staff. “Joint supportive supervision to the health facilities to strengthen the system [has] supported us sharing different organizations’ experiences," explained Dekaba Getachew Tadesse, who is the Shala Woreda Health Office Head. "Such integration/collaboration supported the Woredas in achieving the government strategies and goals.”