By J.K. Nuwamanya Former Director, Coordination & Monitoring Office of Prime Minister

1. Ensuring coordination of Government Sectors/MDAs for effective performance.Presented at the workshop on nutritionalisation of agriculture in Uganda: The role of Agriculture in improving the nutritional status of women and children 12 August 2010 ByJ.K. NuwamanyaFormer Director, Coordination & Monitoring Office of Prime Minister

2. Focus of Presentation • Mandate • National Coordination Frameworks • Institutional Coordination Framework • Monitoring & Reporting Framework • Coordination of Sectors/MDAs for improvement of Nutrition in the context of the National frameworks

3. Mandate of OPM • Mandate : • Under the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, the OPM is mandated to ensure coordination in the implementation of Government policies and programmes across MDAs. • This mandate is operationalised through two frameworks: • The Institutional Coordination Framework established by Government in 2003 • The Monitoring and Reporting Framework

4. Institutional coordination framework Parliament Cabinet Policy Coordination Committee (PCC) Implementation Coordination Steering Committee (ICSC) Technical Implementation Coordination Committee (TICC) Public Sector Management Working Group (PSMWG) Sector Working Groups (SWGs) Public Service Reform Technical Working Group DecentralisationTechnical Working Group Coordination , planning & MonitoringTechnical Working Group

5. Institutional coordination framework • The Coordination framework consists of 4-tiers: • The Policy Coordination Committee (PCC), comprising Ministers of central coordinating ministries under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, reviews performance and reports to Cabinet twice a year • The Implementation Coordination Steering Committee (ICSC), composed of all Permanent Secretaries under the chairmanship of the Head of Public Service and Secretary to Cabinet reviews performance on quarterly basis and reports to PCC twice a year

6. Institutional coordination framework • The Technical Implementation Coordination Committee (TICC), a multi-sectoral technical committee, including donors and NGOs, chaired by the Permanent Secretary, Office of the Prime Minister meets and discusses performance every two months and reports to ICSC on quarterly basis. • The Sector Working Groups (SWG’s) bring together all sectoral stakeholders to plan, budget and monitor the efforts in implementation of sector activities and report to the OPM on quarterly basis

7. Institutional coordination framework • Public Sector Management Working Group( PSM-WG), is another set of committees, comprising three Technical Working Groups (TWG): • Public Service Reform TWG • Decentralization TWG • Coordination, Planning, and M&E TWG • The PSM-WG monitors and coordinates issues of: • public sector reform • decentralization • planning and M&E and reports to ICSC. • The PSM-WG is chaired by PS/OPM and comprises the PSs of Central Government Ministries & agencies, heads of LoG institutions, Donor group, Humanitarian agencies and NGOs:

8. Institutional coordination framework • Office of the President • Office of the Prime Minister • Min. of Finance, Planning & Economic Development • Min. of Public Service • Min. of Local Government • Min. of East African Community Affairs • Min. of Information & Communication Technology • Public Service Commission • National Planning Authority • Local Gov’t Finance Commission • Uganda Local Governments Association • Uganda Urban Authorities Association • Development Partners Group • Humanitarian Assistance Agencies • Uganda National NGO Forum

9. Institutional coordination framework • The committee arrangement facilitates institutions to work together through dialogue, consultation, discussion, thus enabling better planning, budgeting, harmonisation of issues and decision- making at all levels

10. Monitoring & Reporting framework • The Committee system is supported by regular flow of information about issues of performance and results of policies and programmes • This facilitates discussion and harmonisation of cross-cutting issues and decision-making at all levels of Government

11. Monitoring & reporting framework • For the last 3 or so years, Government has been putting emphasis on linking budget resources with vote function and vote function outputs to improve accountability in Government • Hence, during the budget process, all sectors, MDAs and LoGs are required to specify their medium- term objectives in their BFPs and Policy statements • They are also required to specify key outcome and output indicator targets that they need to meet in order to achieve their objectives

12. Monitoring & reporting framework • At the end of each quarter, all LoGs and MDAs are required to report to MoFPED on all project and programme output indicators and associated expenditures as a pre-requisite for quarterly disbursements. • LoGs also report to sectors, such as education, health, water, agriculture, etc, on specific performance indicators relevant to the sector. • All 16 sectors report to OPM on the performance of outcome and output indicators, critical to achieving their sector objectives to provide Cabinet with critical information on performance for decision making.

13. National Monitoring Framework

14. Monitoring & reporting framework • On the basis of these reports: • MoFPED produces a semi-annual and annual Budget Performance Reports based on: • MDAs and LoGs quarterly submissions, focussing mainly on accountability- i.e. how resources are used to produce outputs. • OPM produces a semi-annual and annual Government Performance Reports based on: • the sector quarterly submissions, focusing on broader performance issues

15. Monitoring & reporting framework • The Budget Monitoring and Accountability Unit in MoFPED produces the Budget Monitoring & Expenditure Reports based on: • the field verification exercise of the reported outputs and associated expenditures in five targeted sectors of Education, Health, Water, Works and Transport, and Agriculture

16. Monitoring & reporting framework • The three complementary reports are: • shared upwards through the committees (TICC, ICSC and PCC) of the Institutional Coordination Framework, • culminating in a Cabinet Retreat to discuss and take decisions based on information. • This arrangement has: • Improved coordination in Govt, • Also been a major step in Government’s drive towards evidence- based policy making. 

17. Coord. Of Sectors/ MDAs to improve Nutrition • Improving nutrition for women and children is a shared objective among many sectors, such as MoH, MAAIF, MoES, MoLG, MoGLSD, MWE, MoFPED, and other stakeholders, such as NGOs and CBOs, etc, in the sense that each of these has a positive contribution to make in achieving it. • Each of these sectors needs to prioritize interventions that have positive impact on nutrition status in their SSIPs and BFPs, demonstrating clearly how their work is reducing under-nutrition

18. Coord. Of Sectors/ MDAs to improve Nutrition • Each sector should appoint a champion to promote nutrition and build strong links with other sectors and MDAs • The relevant sectors/MDAs should form an Inter-Sector Working Group to facilitate planning, budgeting and monitoring their efforts together in implementation of activities which promote nutrition in order to enhance their synergies • Sectors should regularly monitor whether progress is being made by measuring indicators, such as weight for age, height for age & weight for height, etc. and report and discuss the results and challenges through the national coordination framework

19. Coord of Sectors/ MDAs to improve Nutrition • The Inter-Sector WG will then feed into the national institutional coordination framework through the Technical Implementation Coordination Committee (TICC) under the OPM for the overall policy coordination and decision-making. • It may also be necessary to have a wider forum of all stakeholders engaged in interventions aimed at improving nutrition for women and children to share experiences and practices at least once or twice a year.

20. I Thank You