NegOr, Siquijor Take the First Move to Integrate Nutrition in Their Local Development Plans

In their bid to strengthen nutrition program implementation, core members of local nutrition committees of Negros Oriental and Siquijor provinces attended a workshop on the Integrating Nutrition in the Local Development Plans organized by the National Nutrition Council (NNC). The workshop was held on 10-13 September at the Southview Hotel, Dumaguete City.

Actively participated in by nutrition action officers, budget officers, planning officers and local nutrition program coordinators, the workshop had a total of ninety-two participants coming from 17 municipalities and 4 cities in Negros Oriental and 5 municipalities from the province of Siquijor.

The workshop was part of the overall local government unit (LGU) mobilization strategy in scaling up nutrition in the remaining years of the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition (PPAN) 2017-2022 implementation and it was made easier because sample documents and templates were already prepared to facilitate completion of the required outputs.

The team of facilitators was composed of NO III Dianne Kristine P. Cornejo, NO II Jesel R. Bagos, NOII Ms. Jaira Denisse Pedraja of NNC and NNC Consultant/Alcanz LLC Mr. Andre B. Flores assisted by NNC 7 technical staff headed by NPC Dr. Parolita A. Mission. The Human Resource for Health – Nutrition deployed in Negros Oriental and Siquijor also assisted their assigned local government units in the workshops.

Noting the inadequacy of integrating nutrition in the current plans and budgets of their respective province, cities and municipalities, the workshop participants vowed to correct this gap and ensure that nutrition will be integrated in the current and future PDPFP, CDP and LDIP of their respective LGUs. The sessions and exercises provided opportunity for the attendees to learn the alarming situation of malnutrition in the country and its impact to national and local development and realized the need to scale up nutrition in the provincial, city and municipal plans and budgets. They were also able to determine the absence or inadequacy of nutrition in the priority development challenges in the local development plans and formulated their nutrition situation analysis, crafted a nutrition-focus priority development challenge and define projects and budgets on nutrition especially on the First 1000 days interventions for integration in the PDPFP, CDP and LDIP. They were pleased to return home to their respective LGU taking with them a substantive draft of the Local Nutrition Action Plan 2020-2022 for presentation and approval of their local nutrition committees.

Both Negros Oriental and Siquijor Provinces hope that with the workshop and with ample follow-up activities to ensure the integration of nutrition in the local development plans, they will be able to reduce stunting and other forms of malnutrition and contribute to the achievement of PPAN targets.

The team is currently preparing for the Cebu leg of said workshops scheduled in October of this year.

Let us integrate and invest in nutrition now!