LGUs told to prioritize nutrition

CEBU, Philippines —  All local government units in the country are called on to prioritize and to allocate funding for their health and nutrition programs in a bid to address malnutrition.

Eduardo Año, officer-in-charge of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), said LGUs must give priority to health and nutrition in support of Duterte administration’s 10-point economic agenda.

He also directed all LGUs to ensure that priority Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition (PPAN) programs are included in the Provincial Development Physical Framework Plans, Comprehensive Development Plans, and Local Development Investment Programs or Annual Investment Program.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, on the other hand, enjoined all LGUs to prioritize the allocations for the projects and activities included in their respective local nutrition action plans.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the DILG recently issued their respective memoranda backing the implementation of PPAN from 2017 to 2022, the country’s blueprint of actions for nutrition improvement.

Under the PPAN, the "ambitious" target is to reduce stunting from the current 33.4 percent to 21 percent.

The PPAN, which is anchored on the Philippine Development Plan, is the country’s contribution to the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 2 which is to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.

PPAN 2017-2022 also aims to support the World Health Assembly Global Targets to improve maternal, infant, and young child nutrition by 2025.

Parolita Mission, National Nutrition Council in Central Visayas (NNC-7) program coordinator, said malnourished or stunted children would affect the economy in the long run as the latter would become unproductive members of the society.

In yesterday’s second quarter meeting of Central Visayas’ Media Information Network for Nutrition and Development, NNC-7’s media network, Mission said the country is losing P220 million a year due to malnutrition.

Based on the 2015 National Nutrition Survey of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), 3.8 million children or 33.4 percent are stunted while 807,057 or 7.1 percent are considered wasted in the Philippines.

The Philippines would remain in the quagmire of poverty if the problem is not addressed properly, according to a health official.

NNC, in a statement, said malnutrition is a multi-faceted problem, requiring comprehensive interventions to stop or reduce reduction.

"It is critical that all LGUs have functional local nutrition committees to efficiently and effectively implement and manage the nutrition," the council said.

As key to achieving improvements in nutritional outcomes, PPAN’s strategic thrusts are the first 1,000 days in life, complementation of nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programs, intensified mobilization of LGUs, and reaching geographically isolated and disadvantages areas (GIDAs) and communities of indigenous peoples.

The new PPAN features eight nutrition-specific programs devised to address the immediate causes of malnutrition: inadequate food and nutrient intake, poor care-giving and parenting practices, and infectious diseases.

This will be complemented by nutrition-sensitive programs already existing in developmental programs that can be tweaked to produce nutritional outcomes. These programs will be done through the intensive mobilization of LGUs and will involve capacity-building and mentoring on nutrition program management.

NNC through its regional offices will provide technical assistance to LGUs in the preparation, monitoring, and evaluation of their nutrition action plans to ensure the intensified implementation of PPAN. — KBQ (FREEMAN)