The National Nutrition Council in its commitment to build capacities of local government units to address and prevent undernutrition and food insecurity is now on its 4^th batch expansion of the Nutrition Early Warning System on Food and Nutrition Security Program. Among the municipalities where the program will be established this year is Jose Dalman in Zamboanga del Norte.  Being one of the top ten municipalities in the region with high prevalence of malnutrition based on the 2016 OPT, the municipality is also an ideal candidate for the establishment of the NEW-FNS because of its topography having both coastal and mountainous interior barangays and in several occasions been subjected to flash floods and landslides.

The coordination meeting with the Local Chief Executive Mayor Rachelle Dalman Ferrater together with the Municipal Nutrition Action Officer and to the Municipal Planning and Development Officer on July 5, 2017 resulted to a positive reception of the LGU officials to accept and support the program. Thus, concretizing the conduct of the initial activity which is a Consultative Workshop which was attended by the municipal core group composed of the municipal officers coming from the planning and development office, health, agriculture, social welfare and development as well as some leaders of community organizations and other stakeholders. The workshop was held on July 24-25, 2017 facilitated by the NNC9 Nutrition Officer Ms. Nimfa Ekong where the core group was able to develop the causality framework of Food and Nutrition Security, identified the five barangays of Bitoon, Lumaping, Dinasan, Lipay and Tabon as the sentinel areas for monitoring the NEWS-FNS indicators.

The municipality of Jose Dalman is the 4^th municipality in the region in addition to Polancao, Diplahan and Kumalarang that have established the Nutrition Early Warning System for Food and Nutrition Security. It is envisioned that in these municipalities food insecurities will be monitored to enable the Local Government to provide necessary interventions and prevent the occurrence of deterioration of nutritional status particularly among children.