10 kumainments

Details: Category: 10 kumainments; Published: 14 January 2022

January 07, 2022 | Province of Dinagat Islands – The National Nutrition Council Caraga Region with UNICEF Philippines joins the Incident Management Team (IMT) pre-deployment briefing.

An incident management team is dispatched or mobilized during complex emergency incidents to provide a command-and-control infrastructure in order to manage the operational, logistical, informational, planning, fiscal, community, political, and safety issues associated with complex incidents such as Typhoon Odette.

As part of the strategy to harmonize disaster response efforts, Dinagat Islands IMT coordinates and provides latest and relevant information to the various disaster response clusters and response units deployed in the province.

The strategy includes the assignment of response clusters, including the nutrition cluster, to specific areas mostly affected by Typhoon Odette.

The Caraga Regional Nutrition Cluster planned to visit the 7 municipalities in the province and will assess the nutritional situation of the mostly affected areas in each of the municipalities, as well as structural condition of the evacuation centers, Barangay Health Centers and Stations, Rural Health Units and hospitals.

The result of the assessment and ocular visit will serve as one of the bases for the immediate nutrition and health response and will also serve as one of the references for the long-term interventions for nutrition and health in the province. #RPOchavo

Details: Category: 10 kumainments; Published: 31 December 2021

PALO, Leyte - The National Nutrition Council (NNC) has conducted a Nutrition Initial Needs Assessment (NINA) on three more heavily affected LGUs in Southern Leyte - Macrohon, Pedro Burgos, and Malitbog.

Typhoon Odette ransacked the LGUs with the eye of the storm being in Padre Burgos and left a trail of devastation in its wake.

As part of the Nutrition in Emergencies, the NINA tool is used to properly assess the state of the LGUs in terms of the demographic data of the affected populations, IYCF services/facilities and supplies, micronutrient supplementation supplies, availability of nutrition anthropometric tools, commodities for management of acute malnutrition, and ongoing relief efforts/assistance.

This information is later reported to DOH and members of the regional nutritional cluster so that government agencies and developmental partners can respond to the gaps and challenges faced by the LGUs. NNC8 also took the opportunity to turnover IEC materials and BNS kits to the RHUs.

Southern Leyte (and some LGUs in Leyte) is still experiencing interrupted water lines and electricity block out rendering the municipalities isolated from other LGUs as communication lines remain down. #PNFP-IFD

Details: Category: 10 kumainments; Published: 24 December 2021

CanvaDesignChallenge Cotabato City. MP and Minister Aida M. Silongan of the Ministry of Science and Technology held a consultative meeting on November 30, 2021 with NNC BARMM headed by Dr. Sinolinding regarding effective nutrition interventions in BARMM where on-going projects on fortified food production and food supplement manufacturing is coming up in the island provinces of Sulu and Tawi-tawi to augment the existing facilities now operating in Maguindanao.

With the 2015 National Nutrition Survey results presented before the Women's Sector Volunteers highlighting stunting and underweight rates of the region. Data showed consistency with the Operation Timbang Plus results of Maguindanao where Ampatuan town registered the highest number of children with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM). Included in the list of interventions were the Tutok Kainan Supplementation program in the 4 provinces of BARMM.

Minister Silongan pledged to assist NNC in securing the partnership of Mamasapano Cooperative in producing the RiceMo complementary foods and to expound the nutrition activities in the region. Further, she is considering other ways through legislation on how to curb malnutrition in the region in terms of food security and the access of the people, not to mention the nutrition specific interventions as stipulated in the Bangsamoro Plan of Action for Nutrition.

NO II Maleja Daud Jaamil

Details: Category: 10 kumainments; Published: 14 December 2021

ASec. AMDayanghirang CFS49 Photo

Assistant Secretary and NNC Executive Director Azucena M. Dayanghirang, MD, MCH, CESO III delivered the Philippines’ intervention statement during the 49th Session of the Committee on World Food Security’s (CFS49’s) Forum on the Uptake of the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition (VGFSyN) on 12 October 2021. VGFSyN aim to support the development of coordinated, multi-sectoral national policies, laws, programs and investment plans to enable safe, healthy and nutritious diets through sustainable food systems, to operationalize the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) Framework for Action in accordance with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The forum provided an opportunity to discuss and mobilize political commitments from governments, donors, civil society, private sector, and the UN system for the implementation of the VGFSyN.

In her intervention statement, ASec. Dayanghirang stated that the Philippines will sustain its commitment to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition through the implementation of the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition (PPAN) 2017-2022 and beyond as part of the Philippines' Food Systems Transformation Pathway. As the country’s framework of action for nutrition improvement, the current PPAN complements nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programs and demonstrates the link to the VGFSyN as it recognizes food insecurity as one of the underlying causes of malnutrition. She added that the successor PPAN will focus on strengthening the nutrition program of the local government units under the ambit of the food system.

Furthermore, Asec. Dayanghirang committed that the country will take off from the gains of the policies that support the PPAN, such as the National Food Policy (NFP) and the First 1000 Days (F1K) Law, adding that the Philippines will continue to assist the formulation of local nutrition action plans (LNAPs), following a results-oriented approach guided by the nurturing care framework to address the multi-dimensional causes of malnutrition.

She added that alliances and partnerships will be utilized in the promotion of the uptake of VGFSyN through the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement. The Philippines have already organized the SUN networks at the national, and partly sub-national level, and will endeavor to be fully organized in all sub-national levels to avoid fragmented actions among multi-stakeholders and ensure collective effort to fight malnutrition on a context-specific measure on the ground.

She also shared that the country will develop the National Nutrition Information System (NNIS) which shall harmonize all existing national and local nutrition databases to identify individual, groups, and localities with the highest magnitude of hunger and malnutrition. The NNIS can serve as a platform to promote uptake of the VGFSyN by providing available, updated, and accessible data on food systems and nutrition, especially on food consumption that can aid in making predictive decisions and fostering data-supported innovation in nutrition.

Asec. Dayanghirang closed the Philippines’ intervention statement by expressing her confidence that this policy tool considers the food systems in its totality and looks at the multi-dimensional causes of malnutrition.

The CFS 49 is be held virtually from 11 to 14 October 2021.

You may read and download the VGFSyN here: https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/cfs/Docs2021/Documents/CFS_VGs_Food_Systems_and_Nutrition_Strategy_EN.pdf

Written by: Nina Fritzie P. Bruce