Summary of publication

This report identifies key bottlenecks, needs, and recommendations for technical support to assist the Ministry of Health and Population in achieving the nutrition-specific goals and concepts presented in the National Health Sector Plan Phase II.


While the NHSSP is a sector-wide support program this assessment concerns itself only with nutrition and the nutrition components of the NHSP-2 and will contribute to the wider NHSSP capacity assessment. This assessment used two methods for drawing recommendations and conclusions. The first method employed was an extensive document and literature review of Nepal-specific policy, planning and analysis documents pertaining to nutrition and the health sector. The second method utilised interviews guided by a common questionnaire of key stakeholders in government, EDPs, and academia. The assessment reviewed over 30 relevant documents and interviewed 20 stakeholders during the course of this assessment.


Key recommendations of this assessment are:

• Development of Health Sector Nutrition Plan of Action to guide the MoHP and support the wider multi-sectoral National Nutrition Steering Committee. This plan should address the technical gaps discussed below.
• Align the NHSP-II Result Framework with the current nutrition initiatives of the MoHP and the text of the NHSP-II
• Expand the number of MoHP staff and improve their capacity to design, plan, implement and monitor nutrition programming on the central, regional and district levels.
• Improve inter-departmental coordination within DoHS and improve EDP coordination with regards to nutrition
• Improve planning, program designing and budgeting coordination between central, regional and district levels
• Form a long-term part-time non-embedded technical assistance team to support these processes in collaboration with the other components of the NHSSP.

Full publication

National Health Sector Support Program Capacity Assessment for Nutrition November 2010 [Word 89 KB]