The provinces of Abra and Apayao are the focus areas in the five-year plan for nutrition in the country for the Cordillera during the recent launching of the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition 2017-2022 that aims to address malnutrition.
National Nutrition Council-Cordillera Program Coordinator Rita Papey said the two provinces have been identified by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute survey with high stunting rates among other provinces in the region.
Papey said as the focus areas, more resources and intensive programs on enhancing nutrition would be poured in the two provinces.
During the recent launching of the Philippine PPAN in Iloilo City, Department of Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial said one of the focuses for nutrition is combating of stunting in the country.
Stunting, according to the World Health Organization, is the impaired growth and development in children due to poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation.
Ubial said from 44.5 percent in 1989, stunting cases went down to 33.4 percent in 2015, while underweight prevalence went down from 27.3 percent to 21.5 percent in the same year.
“On one side some critics have said that the decline has been very slow compared to some of our neighboring countries that have already made great strides in nutrition improvement,” she said.She said the country’s rate of stunting is one of the highest in Southeast Asia, as other countries have less than 20 percent stunting rate.
With this, she said the national target for reduction of stunting is 21 percent which entails targeting at least 90 percent of pregnant women and children for programs, increase resource commitments by national government agencies and local government counterparts.
Under PPAN, local government units are assigned to deliver services and continue capacity-building policies addressing malnutrition in their respective municipalities.Out of these 12 programs under the PPAN, eight are nutrition specific, one is nutrition sensitive, and three are enabling support programs that would also help curb malnutrition to attain the sustainable development goals.
Papey said they will work on a regional launching for the five-year PPAN in order to cascade the nutrition program to the various provinces, especially Abra and Apayao. She said the success of the nutrition plan is dependent on the area point persons in the region and the coordination of the LGUs and line agencies to attain PPAN’s goal in the Cordillera. Ofelia C. Ampian/Baguio Midland Courier
