March 15, 2018

Alumni Spotlight: Birara Melese

Although the nutrition case team is in its final structure, we are hoping to elevate it to the Directorate level. To accomplish this, I am developing a concept which will be submitted to the Minister of Health. In addition, Ethiopia currently has no National Food and Nutrition Policy. Together with my team, we have engaged stakeholders and advocated with higher officials in an effort to finalize our every first National Food and Nutrition Policy. The policy is now almost final and will be submitted to the council of ministers for their approval. With my team, I organized and conducted a large national nutrition program review and operationalization meeting; attended by more than 500 people. This meeting was the first of its kind; with both federal and regional high level officials attending. We also organized the integrated, multisectoral coordination, linkage, and implementation of  both nutrition specific and sensitive interventions as well as supportive supervision to regions, zones, woredas and kebeles levels; again, a first of its kind.

Since the program, I have found ways to exercise the knowledge and skills I acquired. Before the IPPHL training, I was directly supervising and coordinating 13 staff members. However, after the training, I have divided the team in to three sub-teams and assigned sub-team leaders; empowering and trusting them to take on assignments and serve our customers. This new structure minimizes my engagement in routine activities allowing me to focus on more strategic area, to invest in myself, and to exercise different influencing styles.

My policy memo is currently considered a ‘live’ document which my organization and nutrition development partners are focusing on. I am negotiating with UNICEF to start implementation in 100 woredas (sensitization, incorporation in to the annual plan, etc. have started), and we are also working to develop the services packages which will be distributed to all facilities.

Lastly, I have created a personal development plan and started implementation. I am dedicating more time for myself compared with the previous time in which I was totally engaged and sometime overwhelmed with work. I try to exercise delegation, empowering others in order to spend more time on strategic thinking. In addition, I am working to improve my influencing style which were identified as low score across different scales (negotiation, rationalization, assertion, inspiration, bridging). I am exercising each style in order to improve.