One billion people in the world suffer from chronic hunger and two thirds of them live in Asia. This is a crisis with devastating and far reaching effects, which is robbing millions of children of their full potential growth and development. To help fight the widespread and growing problem of under-nutrition in Southeast and South Asia, the European Union (EU) and the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have launched the Maternal and Young Child Nutrition Security Initiative in Asia (MYCNSIA) to improve nutrition security among women and young children in the region.
The MYCNSIA project aims to decrease stunting among children from two years and below by 5% points, decrease anemia rates by ? among infants and young children age 6-23 months and among the pregnant women. The programme has also identified 4 output pillars (1) up-stream policy and nutrition security awareness; (2) capacity strengthening/ development; (3) data analysis and knowledge sharing; and (4) scaling up nutrition to achieve its goals and objectives.
Region IX is one among the three regions that is covered by the MYCNSIA project. The provinces of Zamboanga Del Norte, Zamboanga Sibugay and Zamboanga del Sur including the cities of Isabela and Zamboanga are the areas covered by the MYCNSIA a total of 44 municipalities or 60% of the municipalities in the region are covered by project. Presently, the National Nutrition Council IX and the Center for Health Development Zamboanga Peninsula is pushing limits implementing the MYCNSIA activities in the three provinces of the region.
The activities being implemented aim to capacitate stakeholders and nutrition workers along Nutrition Program Management and improving the infant and young child feeding practices of mothers and child caregivers as well as better care for pregnant mothers.
The first quarter of 2013 completed the trainings on Nutrition Program Management for Barangay Nutrition Committees in Isabela City and the formulation of the 3 year Local Nutrition Action Plan 2014-2016 for the municipalities of Zamboanga Sibugay in preparation for nutrition concerns to be integrated in the Legislative Agenda of the incoming administration in July. And for this semester, the Center for Health Zamboanga Peninsula-DOH had already accomplished the Orientation on the Complementary Food Fortification with Multiple Nutrient Powder for 6-23 months old children and the Training of Trainers on MYCNSIA Unified Concepts in the provinces of Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga Sibugay and Zamboanga City.
