DELIVERING FOR NUTRITION IN SOUTH ASIA CONFERENCE 2021
PRESS RELEASE
Regional conference brings together stakeholders to support efforts to improve population-wide nutrition impacts of COVID-19
December 4, 2021, New Delhi: South Asia holds the key to the Sustainable Development Goals – with large numbers of people, it carries a paradoxical combination of a high burden of malnutrition as well as numerous examples of successes in tackling malnutrition. The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down the region’s steady progress towards improving nutrition, but as the region enters a new phase of tackling the pandemic itself – with lower cases than before, high rates of vaccination, and returns to economic progress, there is no time like the present to discuss how to turn the tide on malnutrition.
The 4th edition of implementation research conference in nutrition and the first ever regional conference on nutrition programming in the context of COVID-19, researchers, policymakers, program implementers from across the South Asia region gathered on Dec 1-2 virtually. They discussed new insights on the impact of COVID-19 on maternal health and young child nutrition outcomes, coverage of essential services, and learnings on strengthening nutrition program delivery and uptake in crisis contexts. Participants shared evidence, insights, and analysis from on the ground research and implementation experiences to provide practical solutions for policymakers and program implementers to act upon locally, nationally, and regionally.
Reflecting on the essence of the conference, Purnima Menon, from the International Food Policy Research Institute, the conference secretariat said, “In 2021 we live in a context where a virus reminded us of our shared humanity and of the futility of political and geographic boundaries. The region faces many forms of malnutrition, stunting, wasting, burden of anaemia, overweight and obesity and NCDs. This conference is a platform to bring learnings and experiences together along one thread, COVID-19 and nutrition to enable collective action. Together, I believe we can learn and improve many lives still hanging in the balance”.
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted marginalised vulnerable communities in low- and middle-income countries, including pregnant and lactating women and young children across the South Asia region. This context presents both an urgent need to distil emerging evidence from program adaptations and an opportunity to advance innovation and efficacy in implementation during the ongoing response to COVID-19 and beyond.
Global nutrition experts such as Margaret Bentley from The Society for Implementation Science in Nutrition, Saskia Osendarp from Micronutrient Forum, Aatekah Owais from SickKids Centre for Global Child Health, and Pooja Pandey from Helen Keller International (Nepal), shared global and regional insights on impact of COVID-19 on health and nutrition of women and children during the plenary session. The opening panel presentations ended on a positive note, “projections need not become destiny – making sure new investments can help to mitigate impacts”, Saskia Osendarp. These were accompanied by reflections from experts such as Vinod Paul from NITI Aayog, Zulfiqar Bhutta from Aga Khan University and SickKids Centre for Global Child Health, and Shahidur Rashid from IFPRI.
Reflecting on the interlinkages between nutrition and inequity as well as the issues and opportunities in the South Asia region, Zulfiqar Bhutta said, “The pandemic exposed some of the longstanding problems playing out in the region. One of those is enormous inequity, on the basis of geography, socio-economic gradient, ethnicity, caste, creed and beyond. It is a wakeup call for addressing social determinants in the region. Lot of solutions for the problems in the region area are also regional; learning from each other, learning from innovations and in a region where there is so much common cultural and social commonality in our backgrounds.”
Shahidur Rashid reflected, “South Asia region is the epicentre of nutrition challenges in the world. It is our moral and professional obligation for improving nutrition in the region. From a scientific perspective, we have robust evidence on what we need to do to change the landscape. It’s in the last mile; we can learn from implementation research, we can make course corrections and reach the desired impacts, improving the lives and livelihoods of people. As researchers, I think we need to understand whether the investments in the programs are paying off, whether programs are on the right track.”
“Even in normal times and more so during stressed times, our endeavour should really be first and foremost that severe malnutrition does not happen. It is preventable. We must also be mindful of the fact that South Asia region population is going in the wrong direction in terms of rising obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.”, Vinod Paul, Member, NITI Aayog.
Abstracts were invited from across South Asia region on research studies and implementation experiences, explicitly focused on COVID-19, and related to implementation, coverage, and quality of maternal and child health and nutrition interventions/programs and of social safety net programs. Research studies examined the impact of COVID-19 on infant and young child feeding practices, diet quality, food security, nutritional status, and other outcomes. A total of 27 oral and 45 poster presentations were programmed under the following themes – impacts on nutrition outcomes, disruptions, and adaptations to nutrition programs, impacts on food security and the role of safety net programs. The conference also hosted learning workshops on conducting phone surveys and measurement of food insecurity in the context of COVID-19.
The closing session for the conference featured a policy panel with leading policymakers in nutrition from Bangladesh (Md. Khalilur Rahman, Bangladesh National Nutrition Council), India (Rakesh Sarwal, NITI Aayog), Nepal (Kiran Rupakhetee, National Planning Commission), Pakistan (Shagufta Zareen, Planning and Strategic Planning Unit, Health Department, Punjab) and Sri Lanka (Renuka Jayatissa, Medical Research Institute, Ministry of Health). They were accompanied by regional representatives of UNICEF (Zivai Murira), the World Health Organization (Angela de Silva) and the CGIAR (Temina Lalani-Shariff). Closing the conference, the World Bank’s global lead on nutrition, Meera Shekar noted: “The pandemic has reminded the nutrition community again about the importance of food security and of the role of social safety net programs and universal health care play; it is imperative that the nutrition community stays strongly engaged in actions in these three areas.”
About the conference:
Anchored by IFPRI’s flagship nutrition initiative in India, POSHAN, the conference was co-hosted by 14 organizations, including Aga Khan University (Pakistan), Alive & Thrive (India), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) (India), Helen Keller International (HKI) (Nepal), IDinsight (India), Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) (Sri Lanka), International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) (Bangladesh), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) (South Asia), National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) (India), NITI Aayog (India), Standing Together for Nutrition (STfN) (Global), Society for Implementation Science in Nutrition (SISN) (Global), UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia (ROSA) (Regional), World Health Organization South-East Asian Regional Office (WHO-SEARO) (Regional), and World Bank South Asia (Regional).
Rakesh Sarwal, Additional Secretary, NITI Aayog, Government of India reflected, “The challenge is to build back better, to double our efforts so as to recover, so as to restore as well as to build in and accelerate journey towards the SDGs. If we work on vulnerable segments of populations through various social safety net programs, then vulnerability gets reduced. It is important to build data surveillance. Action delivered on data is precise and effective. A one-health system approach is needed where the health of human beings, animals, and the planetary health all is looked together in a single paradigm and policies are framed accordingly.”
Md. Khalilur Rahman, Director General, Bangladesh National Nutrition Council (BNNC) commented, “We have learned many new innovative ideas and approaches not only in service delivery but also in engaging communities. I wish the knowledge and learnings that we have gained from this conference will help in taking appropriate actions to tackle this pandemic situation and regain the normal life.”
Kiran Rupakhetee, Joint Secretary, National Planning Commission, Government of Nepal, and Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Country Coordinator commented, “Cross-learning is very important. Whatever India learns, because of similarity in so many aspects, they are very much valid in our country also. We need to develop such a robust system, which helps us to become resilient. We need to have a strengthened and coordinated policy response and make our food system resilient and food system approach should be there.”
Shagufta Zareen, Director, Policy & Strategic Planning Unit (PSPU), Government of The Punjab, Pakistan reflected, “Nutrition is not the problem for children less than 3 years of age, but it emerges much severely for school-going children. School-age children are being missed. We used social media to communicate awareness message for targeted audience, using the same platform that was sharing COVID-19 messages.”
Renuka Jayatissa, Head of the Department of Nutrition, Medical Research Institute, Ministry of Health, Government of Sri Lanka commented, “COVID started with no lessons, but now we have many evidence; this is very good to highlight evidence to reduce nutrition issues especially food insecurity and to develop appropriate plan of action for next years. Because most of our countries are similar in nature, we can learn from each other.”
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About IFPRI
IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. IFPRI was established in 1975 to identify and analyze alternative national and international strategies and policies for meeting the food needs of the developing world, with particular emphasis on low-income countries and on the poorer groups in those countries. It is a research center of CGIAR, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development.
For more information, please contact:
Rebika Laishram, Communications Specialist, IFPRI - South Asia at r.laishram@cgiar.org, and Esha Sarswat, Communications Specialist, IFPRI - Poverty, Health and Nutrition Division at e.sarswat@cgiar.org.
