The future shines brighter for the world’s nutrition sector as countries from different parts of the world unite for the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement Global Gathering (SUNGG) at the Milano Congressi (MiCo) in Milan, Italy, 20-23 October 2015.
55 SUN Movement Country Networks including the Philippines participated in this year’s global gathering to take stock of the lessons from the past years and chart the direction of the Movement for 2016-2020 in line with Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and its potential impact for improving nutrition.
The SUN Movement identifies ways to bring people and institutions together to better convene, mobilize, share, learn, advocate, align, and coordinate actions that contribute to ending malnutrition in all its forms.
The SUNGG is also timed to take place with the support of the 2015 EXPO Milano – an international exhibition, which promotes creativity, increases awareness, and seeks participation in the drive for sustainable food production and delivery across the globe with this year’s theme, “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.”
Assistant Secretary of Health and National Nutrition Council Executive Director Maria-Bernardita Flores led the Philippine delegation who presented materials and a video on the scaling up nutrition experiences of the country through the First 1,000 Days intervention package in the context of the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) program.
Also among the Philippine delegates in the global gathering are Assistant Secretary for Health Operations Dr. Nestor Santiago, Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Administration Allan Umali, UNICEF Philippines Nutrition Manager Dr. Aashima Garg, and World Vision’s Advocacy Manager Kathrine Yee.
A/Sec Flores rendered a presentation in the plenary session on “Empowering women and girls across the Movement,” which focused on the issue of women and girl empowerment and gender based violence and their nutritional impact on the household.
In her presentation, A/Sec Flores emphasized that NNC actively uses mass media to promote nutrition with a conscious effort to mainstream gender issues particularly on women empowerment. She highlighted that NNC’s use of mass media is complemented with social media, interpersonal communication such as the use of peer-to-peer counselling for infant and young child feeding and capacity building of nutrition implementers at the local level.
She believes that mass media programs, as that of NNC, are more empowering especially to women and children when it includes feedback mechanisms such as text messages that allow the audience to seek more information on nutrition.
A/Sec Flores was also given the opportunity in another panel discussion to discuss Conflict of Interest (COI) in Nutrition Programs in the Philippines. She stressed in her presentation that the slow decline in malnutrition levels and increasing overweight and obesity in the Philippines calls for more investments to be able to scale up nutrition actions, and the private sector would be able to provide additional support to scale up these interventions. However, perceived or potential as well as actual instances of conflict of interest arise resulting from this situation.
Flores shared examples of COI both from the government and the industry or private sector perspective.
The support and promotion of breastfeeding is the area of the most conflict of interest for the government perspective. Under EO 51 or the Philippine Milk Code, health workers are prohibited to accept support from milk companies, as milk companies are also not allowed to provide sponsorships and using health system for its marketing.
However, professional organizations in nutrition and even government agencies seek sponsorship from food manufacturers in the conduct of conventions, seminars, fora, and other events. The conflict of interest arises when government agencies and nutrition organizations espousing healthy diets would solicit sponsorship of companies that manufacture softdrinks, sugary drinks, and milk products, among others.
According to A/Sec Flores, NNC being the coordinating body on nutrition in the Philippines will lead in the development of the policy on addressing these conflicts of interest and engaging private sector in nutrition. However, mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure that conflicts of interest are minimized and managed and at the same time be able to maximize opportunities for support from the private sector.
