By; ALEX UANGBAOJE, Kaduna
The World Bank-supported Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN), has sensitised stakeholders in Kaduna State on the project’s Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) and Health Care Waste Management (HCWN) plan.
The Project Coordinator, Dr Zainab Muhammad-Idris explained at the orientation meeting in Kaduna, that the goal was to provide an overview on the safeguard due diligence of ANRiN project’s GRM and HCWM plan.
Muhammad-Idris said that ANRiN, a five-year project was designed to increase the utilisation of quality, cost effective nutrition services for pregnant and lactating women, adolescent girls, and children under five years.
She said that the project was providing Basic Package of Nutrition Services (BPNS) and Adolescent Health Services at community level through non-state actors.
She said that the BPNS requires a mechanism where beneficiaries could report concerns, complaints, dissatisfactions, and claims resulting from the project or service provider or make a request or enquiries.
The coordinator said that the project had put in place the GRM through which beneficiaries of the project could get solutions to perceived or actual concerns or complaints in good time.
She described GRM as a “local and formalised way to accept, assess, and resolve community feedback or complaints emanating from project activities”.
She equally said that GRM was also an effective tool for early identification, assessment, and resolution of complaints on project activities.
She added that one of the objectives was to ensure that the views and concerns of beneficiaries under the ANRiN project were heard and resolved in a timely, effective, and transparent manner.
The coordinator said that the GRM would be implemented on three levels: Community Based Grievance Redress Committee (GRC), State Project Implementation Unit GRC and Federal Project Monitoring Unit GRC.
According to her, the mechanism creates a platform for effective handling of complaints and grievances that are aimed at avoiding lengthy litigation, which may mar or delay project implementation.
“As a project, we envisaged there might be issues, concerns, complaints, requests, inquiries, which project beneficiaries and stakeholders might want to know, ask or air.
“There could be an issue, concern, problem, or claim, whether perceived or actual, that an individual or community group wants a company or contractor to address and resolve.
“This is where the GRM, a feedback platform, comes in, because we do not want issues to degenerate to unmanageable levels.”
On healthcare waste management, the Project Nutrition Officer, Hajiya Hauwa Usman, said that the non-state actors providing health care services in communities may be exposed to risk of contracting diseases.
Usman explained that this could arise from infectious waste generated at the course of the project if proper waste management was not put in place and could spread the disease among community members.
She pointed out that healthcare wastes were dangerous and stressed the need to effectively manage them due to their devastating effects on human health and the environment.
According to her, the ANRiN project has provided a detailed general knowledge of healthcare waste management and good practices to be adopted during the community service delivery.
Dr Hajara Kera, Director Public Health, Ministry of Health, thanked ANRiN for initiating the GRM and the HCWM plan to ensure effective management of complaints and proper healthcare waste disposal.
Kere said that the state government was working to improve its healthcare waste management system and solicited for stakeholder’s support.
