PSVT Workshop sets stage for PRIMEX involvement in Indonesia’s NICE Project

 
Senior health ministry officials converged at the Novotel Resort Hotel in Bogor, Indonesia on 14-16 January 2010 to review, with the PRIMEX Consultant Team, the terms of reference and scheduling of inputs of the individual specialists who will support the Ministry of Health (MOH) in their implementation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan-funded Nutrition Improvement through Community Empowerment (NICE) Project (Loan No. 2348-INO).

The $71-million Project aims to reduce and prevent malnutrition among about 1.48 million Indonesian children under 5 years and 500,000 pregnant and lactating women in about 4,000 poor villages in poor urban areas in 24 districts and cities in the provinces of East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, North Sumatra, South Sumatra, South Sulawesi, and West Kalimantan. The Project hopes to contribute to the overall achievement of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on the reduction of maternal mortality rate (MMR) and infant mortality rate (IMR) by reducing by half the number of underweight children under 5 years old by reducing anemia among pregnant women by 2015.

The Project Scoping, Visioning, and Teambuilding (PSVT) Workshop was attended by senior representatives from the MOH Directorate of Community Nutrition under the Directorate General of Community Health (DCN-DGCH), the NICE Central Project Management Unit (CPMU), the national development planning agency (BAPPENAS), and the Consultant Team from PRIMEX and its Indonesian associate, PT Trans Intra Asia (TIA) served as Workshop Moderator.

Ms. Elvira C. Ablaza, PRIMEX CEO and NICE Consultant Project Director, flew to Indonesia to be with the PRIMEX-TIA Consultant Team at the Workshop. The PRIMEX consultants are: Dr. Jose Rodriguez, Team Leader and Nutrition Policy and Institutional Development Specialist; Dr. Florante Magboo, Nutrition Surveillance Specialist; Mr. Henry Briones, Nutrition Training Specialist; and Ms. Joana Finchley, IEC Specialist.

The consultants and their counterparts presented their understanding of the Project and their respective roles in its implementation, described the Consultant Team’s expected contributions towards achieving the Project’s outputs and deliverables, outlined the specific task assignments of each national and international consultant, facilitated the harmonization of the different Consultant team inputs, and drafted a two-year work plan for the Consultant Team and the CPMU.

The Workshop participants agreed to ensure that the work of the Consultant Team builds on what have been done and accomplished, achieves the milestones on a timely manner and in a quality that meets expectations, and is responsive to current and emerging needs.