Hi Isaac,

This sounds like a great program. Where is it located? When you say you would like to monitor performance and progress, do you mean tracking compliance with taking the supplements or health/education outcomes from taking the supplements? 

Nutrition International has some guidance on WIFAs programs on their website. There are also some resources publicly available online from the Ghana Girls’ Iron-Folate Tablet Supplementation (GIFTS) Programme. 

I hope this helps!

Elena 

Hi 

1. For monitoring the performance in IFA for adolescent Program, you can focus on the quality of performance according to the tasks that implementers team in schools  was trained about (implementing of the main activities of IFA program that lead to outputs of the program) and comparing between the current performance level and the performance indicators targeted in the document of the program   

2. for monitoring progress this depends on what do you mean to monitor progress: did you mean monitoring the progress against objectives of the program or outcomes or coverage or what?

I hope that I helped by what I mentioned above

Hi !

When we talk about monitoring WIFAS programme, the general question arising is at what level - output, outcome or impact level? In our case, WIFAS monitoring is focussed at outcome level, where we are monitoring # percentage of adolescent girls aged 10-19 years who received weekly iron folic tablet for 13 weeks within 6 months period [ 26 weeks within a year]. On frequent basis, it is very challenging to monitor the impact of weekly iron folic acid supplementation since we may need robust system of data collection, either through health facility level data or nutrition surveillance system/ nutrition survey. We just have baseline data on the anaemia status of adolescent girls and boys aged 10-19 years from 2016 Nepal National Micronutrient Status Survey and we yet have to monitor the impact of WIFAS among adolescent girls in Nepal. If require, we can share the recording/ reporting template that we use in Nepal.

Hope that this response remains helpful on further discussion over WIFAS programme monitoring. 

Best,

Hello,

Thank you for the implementation of the weekly program in schools, I imagine, since the activity is in partnership with the National Ministry of Education. For me, in the context of the fight against anemia or iron/folic acid deficiency, this strategy has always existed in addition to the supplementation of pregnant women during prenatal consultations.

Despite this strategy, the effectiveness of which is not in doubt, anemia persists in pregnant women.

The question is what strategy, how to reach a large number of adolescent girls outside of school in terms of iron/folic acid supplementation?

cordially

Lambert KOUAME,

International Nutrition Specialist,

Email: kouadio_lambert@yahoo.fr

Hi Issac, thank you for your question. Currently, we are supporting Adolescent Nutrition Program in 8 countries of Asia and Africa. We will be happy to share the WIFAS monitoring tools however it will be helpful if you can tell us your program location so that we can share the most relevant tools with you.  We are supporting school-based programs and in some cases community and facility based delivery of WIFAS. We can share our experiences with harmonizing forecasting, supply and reporting with the collaboration of multiple sectors. There is also a module on monitoring and evaluating Adolescent Nutrition Programs within our online Adolescent Nutrition & Anaemia course which you can find at Nutrition International Learning (nutritionintl.org) – within the course -Module 13 - Monitoring and Assessing Adolescent Nutrition Programs and Progress (ANA-M13). If possible, please let us know your email ID or write to my team member Shibani at sh2sharma@nutritionintl.org and we can share resources and connect with with country colleagues if helpful. Nutrition International

Hi Issac, thank you for your question. Currently, we are supporting Adolescent Nutrition Program in 8 countries of Asia and Africa. We will be happy to share the WIFAS monitoring tools however it will be helpful if you can tell us your program location so that we can share the most relevant tools with you.  We are supporting school-based programs and in some cases community and facility based delivery of WIFAS. We can share our experiences with harmonizing forecasting, supply and reporting with the collaboration of multiple sectors -especially health and education. There is also a module on monitoring and evaluating Adolescent Nutrition Programs within our online Adolescent Nutrition & Anaemia course which you can find at Nutrition International Learning (nutritionintl.org) – within the course -Module 13 - Monitoring and Assessing Adolescent Nutrition Programs and Progress (ANA-M13). If possible, please let us know your email ID or write to my team member Shibani at sh2sharma@nutritionintl.org and we can share resources and connect with with country colleagues if helpful. Adolescent and Women's Health & Nutrition team,  Nutrition International

Dear Issac,

Thank you for sharing your query.

Across many countries, UNICEF supports Ministries of Education and Health to implement and monitor the WIFS programme. I agree, regular monitoring and evaluation is important to assess coverage and uptake, and also review programme implementation. Most of the programme countries have developed indicators at various levels -input, process, output, and outcome. However, impact is mostly assessed through population-based surveys.

To support you in your work, I am happy to share the following resources

1.UNICEF’s Programme guidance on nutrition of school-age children and adolescents (https://www.unicef.org/media/106406/file)

2.WHO Publication on Weekly iron and folic acid supplementation as an anaemia-prevention strategy in women and adolescent girls: lessons learnt from implementation of programmes among non‑pregnant women of reproductive age (included list of indicators proposed by WHO (https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/274581)

3.Link to the reporting and monitoring dashboard of a nationwide anemia prevention and control programme from India (https://anemiamuktbharat.info/view-your-data-monthly/)

Hope you find these resources useful.

Warm regards

Deepika

Thank you everyone for your resourceful guidance and sharing very essential and informative contents. 

I truly got the best insight and guidance from all your assistance.

May God bless you

Hello, we have just started a program on adolescent nutrition and more particularly, weekly supplementation of IFA for out-of-school adolescent girls. So my concern is what community strategy to put in place for better coverage?

Align you to WHO guidelines/ directives.