Alive and Thrive (FHI 360) in partnership with the Lagos State government has trained monitoring and evaluation officers from small the Local Government Areas (LGAs) on National Health Management Information System (NHMIS) 2019 tools for data gathering process on maternal, infant and young child nutrition (MIYCN).

According to the group, the objective of the three-day training, which had community-based organisations across the different LGAs in the state as well as representatives from the Lagos State Primary Health Care Board as well as the Ministry of Health was to build the capacity of participants on MIYCN.

The Head of Health Statistics and Health Management Information System, Lagos State, Flora Awosika, commended the organisations for the capacity building programme.

She explained that the training was to equip the monitoring and evaluation officers with the latest version of the NHMIS tools as well as the District Health Information System (DHIS).

Awosika said the NHMIS tools would be used to collate all data from the registers, starting from the health facilities.

The LGA Monitoring and Evaluation Officer for Lagos Island, Zainab Agbalaya, said MIYCN intervention data are important, noting that the capacity building for the health workers is a good initiative as capturing data for infant feeding was usually not something serious.

She noted that the main challenge in data capturing was reporting, adding that most of the data captured were not reported properly.

Agbalaya said the training would enable health-based organisations to capture and report data properly, which would help the state to make decisions on initiatives about children and pregnant women’s nutrition.