The National Nutrition Council (NNC) launches the online Compendium of Local Ordinances on Nutrition, one of the highlights of the opening day of the online 6th National Conference of Nutrition Action Officers on 01 October 2020. The Compendium serves as a knowledge-sharing platform for local government units to learn from initiatives of other local government units who have successfully harnessed the strength of policy instruments in scaling up nutrition. The Compendium was developed in partnership with the Nutrition Officers Association of the Philippines (NAOPA), with support from Nutrition International and UNICEF Philippines.
NNC Executive Director Dr. Azucena M. Dayanghirang expressed in her message her hopes that the Compendium will be an instrument to mobilize more local governments in crafting responsive local policies towards sustained improvements in nutrition.
Dr. Dayanghirang added that “today’s launch of the Compendium is another mechanism to mobilize local government units for nutrition improvement as envisioned in the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition. Despite and because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to push nutrition especially among local government units. LGUs are the key for our country to eliminate all forms of malnutrition.”
NAOPA President Jan Dmitri Sator said in his message that the Compendium will provide local government units especially the local legislative bodies a ready reference in crafting their own legislation:
“LGUs can now navigate through the online portal and download local legislation to refer and adapt to support their work on nutrition. There is no need to invent the wheel, so to speak. With the online portal, these ordinances and executive orders are just a click away.”- NAOPA President Sator
The online portal has initially uploaded 208 local ordinances and 45 executive orders, contributed by provincial, city, and municipal local governments across the 17 regions of the Philippines. The uploaded local ordinances and issuances in the portal have been selected based on four criteria namely: responsiveness, coverage and reach, impact, and replicability.
The Compendium is a dynamic and living project. Both the online Compendium portal and the printed publication shall be updated progressively through the years to include new local ordinances and issuances on nutrition from local governments who wish to contribute to the collection and share their effective local policy development initiatives to scale up nutrition. The portal has been designed for easy navigation and can be accessed through www.nnc.gov.ph/compendium.
Does your local government unit have a local ordinance, executive order, or resolution that has facilitated the improvement of the local nutrition program and the achievement of positive nutrition outcomes in your LGU? Submit your local policies and have them considered to be featured in the online portal of the Compendium of Local Ordinances and Issuances on Nutrition. Contribute to the knowledge-sharing platform of local government units to scale up local policy development for nutrition in the country, invest in nutrition, and access the portal now!
(Daniel G. Salunga)
