MiracleFeet Partners Exchange Meeting 2024

REPORT OF THE MIRACLEFEET KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE MEETING
FOR THE NIGERIA CLUBFOOT PROJECT IMPLEMENTING PARTNERS

Date: 3^rd – 5^th April, 2024

Venue: The Panama Hotel, Abuja.

Attendance: MiracleFeet WCA Clubfoot team, TSCF, HANDS and PCDF teams.

MiracleFeet Team

Dr. Ekene Isikaku

Mr. Emmanuel Otoo

Mrs. Agnes

Mr. Seth

Mr. Che Frungwa

Mrs. Meredith

TSCF Team

Dr. Peace Amaraegbulam

Dr. Uchenna Oluwatosin

Mr. Uchenna Egeb-Eni

Mr. Asu Costedian Asu

Mr. Bright U. Amadi

Introduction:

The 3-day Knowledge Exchange Meeting was convened by the leadership of MiracleFeet for the Clubfoot Project Implementing Partners in Nigeria, as an opportunity for all to come together at one location, to review their past work and strategies, provide peer learning opportunities, review CAST-related issues, each partner’s awareness creation strategies and discuss collaborative advocacy efforts, towards the achievement of a more robust National Clubfoot Program for Nigeria.

Key Objectives:

1. Facilitate knowledge exchange at national level with reflection on previous years to refine program strategies & overall grant making process.
2. Promote collaborative problem-solving while addressing unique challenges faced by each partner.
3. Consolidate collaboration among Nigeria partners and to facilitate partners feedback to improve program strategies for FY25 and beyond.
4. Standardize program management practices and protocols & improve overall grant making process for FY25.

Summary of Activities:

Day 1:

Clubfoot Global, Regional and National Overview:

• Emmanuel Otoo, the Program Manager of MiracleFeet presented the global and regional clubfoot burden, with Nigerian new clubfoot cases estimated at 10,000 children per year. The intervention coverage of Nigeria was shown to be less than 10%. He called on the Nigeria Clubfoot Program to do more towards ensuring full coverage of the zones and states of the nation to improve access to clubfoot care. He informed the partners that MiracleFeet intended to have 1 or 2 more implementing partners for the currently unreached states. He emphasized that the project implementation under the MiiracleFeet should be seen as a collaboration of multiple partners running with one aim – “A Nigeria Clubfoot Program, for the Nigerian Children”.

Partners’ Presentations: The Nigerian partners made presentations about their activities, highlighting their clubfoot project coverage areas, achievements, strategies, learning points and future plans.

Break-out Sessions: The session was broken into three sub-sessions (programs, finance, and governance), with every partner meeting with the MiracleFeet sub teams, for assessment and feedbacks.

Day 2:

Child Safeguarding: Mrs. Agnes, the WCA Program manager called on the partners to improve their child safeguarding activities by providing child safeguarding trainings for providers; engaging the participating clinics to sign a child safeguarding policy; and appointing a focal person for child safeguarding. Education on the rights of the child and reporting channels for the violation of the rights of the child should be incorporated into the counseling of parents.

CAST App Improvements: Mr. Jerry of the MF Technical Team made a virtual presentation on improvements in the CAST App.

Technical Priorities and Focus for FY25, MF KPIs: Debra presented an overview of the KPIs for the Nigeria program, highlighting the key priority areas for FY25.

Strategic Focus of MF’s Technical Priorities in Alignment with Nigeria Partners: the coverage map was reviewed by the three participating partners with the resulting map showing below.

Fig. 1: Graphical Presentation of Nigeria Clubfoot Program Partners Coverage, including the ‘NEW’ Partners and Ponseti International Association.

Day 3:

Partners Presentations: The Nigeria Clubfoot Program partners presented their individual SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats), as well as their Scopes oof Work (SOW).

Key Outcomes:

• It gave an opportunity for better inter-partner understanding, and enhanced networking and relationships for the promotion of collaboration
• It provided the opportunity for a clear understanding of MF’s current program priorities, with actionable strategies for addressing challenges related to enrolments, budgeting, advocacy, KPI improvement.
• We were able to gather all that we required for the finalization of FY25 budget and SOW with data-driven decision-making, to ensuring a smooth transition from FY24 to a strong start in FY25.

Fig 2: TSCf Team, with Mr. Emmanuel Otoo, Program Manager MF Team

Fig. 3: Cross Section of Participants and Facilitators at the Knowledge Exchange Meeting

Compiled:

Amadi Bright U.

Project Supervisor – TSCF

Reviewed:

Egbe-Eni Uchenna

Project Coordinator – TSCF