The UN Decade of Action on Nutrition in an attempt to eradicate all forms of malnutrition and hunger must involve all groups of people (under- five, adolescent, prisonner, aged, pregnant, lactating mothers, refugees, market people, etc.).
1. Awareness or campaigns is a major and insurmountable tool in eradication of malnutrition. It should be bring to the grassroot and this should not be in black and white only but it should be put into ACTION.
2. The need for all to participate in agriculture especially in Nigeria is very crucial to eradicate hunger and in case of the refugees, the government and NGOs should be able to provide nourish food. All bodies including UNICEF, WHO and others must also make it a priority.
In conclusion, working with the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture and other concerned ministries is important.
9.Francis Njuguna, New KCC, Kenya
UN Decade of Action on Nutrition is a move in the right direction simply because malnutition is an obstacle to a health nation and development and this is even more significant in less developed and developing nations.
One important aspect of UN Decade of Action on Nutrition is that it is highly significant and in line with new sustainable development goals aspects of ending hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition.
Nutrition is rapidly gaining recognition as a key area of national focus, in Kenya for example the government has adopted a high impact nutrition interventions across the country, implemented a nutrition policy and a mandatory food fortification in the recent past not to mention other interventions by other stakeholders like humantarian communities and development partners.
The subject issue here is maximising the impact of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition, this calls for a change of approach to harmonise all this interventions for a common goal which is in this case the subject of the matter; stakeholders should work together and their interventions should not target emergencies but address the root cause.
Regards,
Francis Njuguna
Dairy Technologist
KENYA
10.Ibiyemi Olayiwola, Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuata, Nigeria
I would like to congratulate all actors involved on this effort on nutrition and suggest the UN to kindly include the nutrition of the elderly as an important issue in scaling up.
Every government must be able to develop policy to promote elderly health and nutrition.
Prof Ibiyemi Olayiwola
Professor of human nutrition
Department of nutrition and dietetics.
Federal university of Agriculture Abeokuata Nigeria
11.Hélène Delisle, University of Montreal, Canada
English version
I would suggest that the following initiatives be pursued in order for the Decade of nutrition to have much impact:
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Support research in order to generate the scientific evidence where it is lacking while important, and notably on the effectiveness of nutrition interventions based on food systems coupled with behaviour change communication. In the absence of such evidence, donors are unlikely to fund such programmes.
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Strengthen capacity and workforce in nutrition: It is of foremost importance and it has to be done in close collaboration with local universities for sustainable institutional strengthening. The priority is to train community health workers in nutrition and toward this purpose, a cadre of public health nutritionists/dietitians has to be trained at university professional bachelor level and decentralized throughout countries. There is also an urgent need to demonstrate the positive impact of nutrition capacity strengthening efforts on the population’s nutritional health as evidence thereof is lacking. This brings us back to the previous item on research for generating scientific evidence.
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Assess the impact of distinguishing between nutrition « specific » and nutrition « sensitive » actions: The nutrition-specific actions are essentially all in the health sector, whereas most nutrition-sensitive actions are in non-health sectors or multisectoral at best. The nutrition-sensitive actions are likely more effective and sustainable since they address underlying or fundamental causes of malnutrition. We can therefore question the relevance of this distinction and assess whether it is counter-productive.
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Better define « nutrition »: This may appear as a futile exercise and yet « nutrition » would benefit from a clearer definition. Indeed, food science and technology, agro-biology, biochemistry and metabolism are often considered as nutrition, which gives the wrong impression that nutrition is well taken care of. At present, “nutrition” is a holdall with ill-defined boundaries. It should not be called “nutrition” unless there is an explicit link with man and his food. The specific focus should be on public (health) nutrition and there would be value in going back to the definition of the « new » nutrition (although it is not new) given by Geoffrey Cannon and Claus Leitzman. In their definition, they emphasize the societal and environmental dimensions of nutrition, beyond its health dimension. This could impact positively on capacity building and training of human resources in nutrition for the benefit of the population.
French version
Je suggère que les initiatives suivantes soient poursuivies pour maximiser l’impact de la décennie d’action des Nations-Unies sur la nutrition.
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Appuyer des travaux de recherche pour produire l’évidence ou les données probantes qui font défaut sur l’efficacité de divers types d’intervention à visée nutritionnelle encore insuffisamment investigués, en particulier les approches s’appuyant sur les systèmes alimentaires et combinées à la communication pour les changements de comportements. Car à défaut de cette évidence scientifique, il est difficile de convaincre les bailleurs de fonds d’investir dans ces approches.
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Renforcer les capacités en nutrition: c’est indispensable et ce doit être fait avec les universités locales pour renforcer celles-ci et pour la pérennité. Il faut en priorité former des agents communautaires à l’action en nutrition et pour ce développer un corps professionnel de nutritionnistes/diététistes de santé publique au niveau de la licence universitaire à déployer de manière décentralisée dans les pays. Il faudrait aussi par la recherche démontrer l’impact positif de ce renforcement des capacités en nutrition sur la santé nutritionnelle des populations, ce qui n’est pas démontré! Et on revient là au point précédent sur la recherche pour générer l’évidence scientifique nécessaire.
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Vérifier l’impact de la distinction des interventions spécifiques ou sensibles à la nutrition: Les interventions « spécifiques » sont essentiellement du ressort de la santé, alors que les interventions « sensibles » à la nutrition sont le plus souvent dans des secteurs autres que la santé ou à tout le moins intersectorielles. Or ces dernières sont les plus prometteuses et pérennes comment elles agissent au niveau des facteurs sous-jacents ou fondamentaux des problèmes nutritionnels. On peut donc se demander si une telle distinction n’est pas contre-productive…
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Mieux définir la « nutrition »: Ceci peut apparaître comme un exercice futile et pourtant, la nutrition gagnerait à être mieux définie. En effet, on parle de nutrition alors qu’il s’agit par exemple de science et technologie des aliments, d’agro-biologie, de biochimie ou encore de métabolisme. Ceci donne l’impression erronée que le champ de la nutrition est fort bien pourvu. La nutrition est actuellement un « fourre-tout » aux contours trop flous. Il ne peut s’agir de nutrition s’il n’y a pas de lien direct avec l’alimentation de l’être humain. On devrait se concentrer sur la nutrition (de santé) publique et on aurait intérêt à retourner à la définition de la « nouvelle nutrition » (même si elle n’est pas nouvelle) par Geoffrey Cannon et Claus Leitzman, laquelle insiste sur les dimensions sociales et environnementales de la nutrition, au-delà de sa dimension santé. Ceci pourrait avoir un impact positif sur les initiatives de renforcement des capacités et de formation des ressources humaines en nutrition.
Hélène Delisle, Ph.D.
Professeur émérite
Département de nutrition, Faculté de Médecine
Pavillon Liliane-Stewart, Université de Montréal
Canada
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