Butuan City – “Nutrition is not a single department’s agenda”, Mayor Deo Manpatilan of the Municipality of Esperanza expressed during the Local Nutrition Action Planning conducted on November 8-10, 2022 at ABC Building, Esperanza, Agusan del Sur.

The good Mayor recognized that investigating the cause of malnutrition does not stop at poor dietary intake. The nutrition worker and advocates should investigate more and ask identify the reason/s of poor dietary intake to describe the root cause of malnutrition because there are so many factors that we need to look out. He sees nutrition as a problem that should be included in social, environmental, legislative, infrastructure and administrative budgeting and planning.

He observed that one of the root causes of malnutrition is poor knowledge on appropriate infant and young child feeding and poor attitudes towards healthy lifestyle and proper nutrition.

As the Former-SB Committee Chairperson on Environment, Mayor Manpatilan said that, “Our constituents have resources, but they do not know how to maximize it.”

He also added that one of nutrition intervention that should be implemented is intensified nutrition advocacy to promote positive behavioral change towards health and nutrition.

“The planet provides for us, but we also need to give back to the planet so it could provide for us again,” he said.

Having observed this, he appealed for proper targeting of beneficiaries and prioritizing the most vulnerable population for the delivery of nutrition interventions. An organized and proper data filing system should also be accomplished to document the activities and good practices for replication in other programs.

Moreover, he said that monitoring and evaluation should be strengthened with emphasis on the importance of outcome-based monitoring instead of output-based monitoring. #MPRayco