Preparing a work plan

The role of each member of the NPER team needs to be clear. The team needs to decide on the competencies of staff and consultants from technical or financial organizations. A nutrition specialist leading this effort on behalf of the organization may want to recruit staff or a consultant with complementary skills such as public financial management. Practitioners from government entities can have varying roles, from leading the entire process to being part of the preparation team, and they can be updated throughout the process or engaged at the beginning and end of it. The team will need to weigh the benefits and costs of proposed NPER team structures and assess trade-offs. The team should consider the following:

• Ensuring that government entities are part of the preparation team, which may help to obtain easier access to public expenditure data. Public officials can facilitate access to information from different government sources and aid in the interpretation of the NPER. • Engaging senior government officials at various stages of preparation to speed up the adoption of recommendations. • Involving a large group of technical experts in the analytical process, which could enhance the rigorousness of the exercise but would likely add to the cost and time required to complete it. To ensure the uptake of recommendations, the team could encourage broad stakeholder engagement by adopting a participatory process and plan (at least during the planning and dissemination and follow-on dialogue stages) that include platforms to facilitate a dialogue across sectors.

PREPARING A WORK PLAN

Best practices suggest preparing a work plan that covers the areas addressed in this preparatory phase as well as any country-specific issues and including administrative elements such as budget, time frame, and team composition. This plan can be used to form a common understanding between all parties of the NPER team, including government entities, to ensure there are no misunderstandings. A well-researched work plan should facilitate the actual drafting of the NPER and clarify agreed-on objectives, concepts, and scope. Although each work plan should be customized to satisfy the requirements of the funding organization (or other stakeholders), common elements include the following:

• Context • Government request (if applicable) • Objectives and audience • Synthesis of recent literature, link to past and ongoing activities, and value addition of the proposed NPER • Scope and methodology of the study • Consultation plan with key stakeholders • Dissemination plan • Resources/budget • Team composition of technical agency staff or consultants and government officials (with expertise identified), potentially including experts from outside the nutrition field, such as those from public sector management or agriculture