Asean Recruited In World Fight Against Malnutrition

The member states of Asean have taken a major step forward in pledging to work across various government ministries to improve nutrition at national level.

An Asean consultation convened jointly by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Asean secretariat was announced last week.

The consultation, involving Ministries of Agriculture, Health, Rural Development, Planning and Social Welfare, is focusing on food security and nutrition to address all forms of malnutrition.

The consultation, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the German Foundation GIZ, is the first of its kind in Asean. It was convened to take forward the recommendations of the Rome Declaration on Nutrition in 2014 to lay a foundation for promoting nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food-based approaches in Asean to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Among the outcomes, the Rome Declaration on Nutrition stressed the need for government ministries to work together to achieve comprehensive improvements to nutrition at national level.

FAO, WHO, GIZ and Asean have been working closely together in recent years to improve nutrition and better prepare countries for future food security.

"I can say that FAO is a proud partner with Asean which has shown its determination in moving toward a food-secure future for its citizenry and placed nutrition at its core mandate and has incorporated nutrition into the Asean Integrated Food Security Framework and Its Strategic Plan of Action on Food Security (2015-2020)," said Vili A. Fuavao, FAO's deputy regional representative for Asia and the Pacific. Nutrition is also an explicit part of ASEAN's "Vision, Objectives and Goals of the ASEAN Cooperation in Food, Agriculture and Forestry sector towards 2020.

To address the multiple underlying causes of malnutrition, collaboration and coordination on food security and nutrition among sectors such as agriculture, public health, food safety, rural development and social protection, through the implementation of joint strategies and programmes, is crucial.

The participants were told that greater progress could be made if nutrition objectives were to be integrated into national agricultural and food system policies, in order to achieve food security and goals to improve malnutrition, health and development.

Agricultural development plays a critical role. It can improve the food and agriculture-based aspects of nutrition security and dietary diversity and help narrow the 'nutrition gap' by increasing the availability of a diverse range of safe and nutritious foods.

The Asia-Pacific region, despite impressive economic growth, is still home to 490 million people living with chronic hunger, some 62 per cent of the world's undernourished people. Stunting of children remains a serious challenge, with over 40 per cent in several countries.

Promoting sustainable, nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food security policies, programmes and investment plans is key to ensuring action is taken to prioritize nutrition across the world food and agriculture system. This can help improve the availability and affordability of safe and nutritious food and promote healthy and sustainable diets.

Khoa Le

Source: The Nation