Venue: Kenenisa Hotel, Date: February 25, 2022

The advocacy meeting was held on February 25, 2022, at Kenenisa Hotel, Addis Ababa. The meeting was organized as an advocacy meeting to support strong enforcement of SF provisions and a platform to announce scaling up of AASFI in newly added Arada districts and Kirkos sub city as a whole. The meeting brought wide range of stakeholders, officials and medias together. The participants were AA-FMHCA, Arada-FMHACA, Code-enforcement, CTFK representative, District professionals and MCDO.

The meeting was organized in two main sections, presentations and discussion on the presentation and any outstanding issues. Three presentations from AAFMHACA, Arada-FMHACA and MCDO were presented. The overall activities of AASFI were presented by AAFMHACA, what has been done in Arada was presented by Arada-FMHACA, and the status of SF implementation in Arada selected districts were presented by MCDO. In the meantime, IEC/BCC materials and No smoking sign stickers were handed over to Arada districts via Mr. Siratu, Arada-FMHACA office head. The second session after health break was dedicated for discussion and way forward, which involved the participants of the meeting. Night inspection, scaling up and onboarding as many as possible stakeholders were the main points raised during the discussion.

Ms. Tigist, AA-FMHACA, Deputy manager, Mr. Elias, MCDO Executive director and Mr. Siratu, Arada-FMHACA office head led the discussion and responded to questions raised. The main points discussed were:

• Including the AASFI endeavour as every organization’s daily routine.
• Engaging volunteerism in the activity of AASFI.
• Documenting the before and after comparison of inspection result with photos.
• Confidentiality and professional integrity of professionals during inspection.
• The necessity of rehabilitation center after necessary SF implementation steps are taken
• The need for joint collaboration to execute night inspection.
• The responsible body to execute punishment and legal procedures
• How to structure the scaling up plan. Selecting variety of districts from more than one sub city was suggested.
• On this stage, engaging more on enforcement than awareness creation.

The participants reflected on the main ideas and raised other related issues. The meeting was fruitful in engaging newly added districts and strengthening the already existing ones. Closure remark was given by Mr. Elias, to work together and achieve the scaling up in a better performance.