The Common Results Framework, developed by National Nutrition Agency (NaNA) alongside key stakeholders, seeks to assess and know the impact of progress made with regards to improving the nutrition status in the country.
Welcoming the participants, Lamin Cham, programme Associate at the World Food Programme (WFP), underscored the importance of the document and the involvement of key stakeholders in the validation.
He challenged participants to put in their candid contribution as the document is a national one, saying nutrition is a cross-cutting issue, thus the involvement of all stakeholders.
“In view of this fact, therefore no single institution can lead it. So, NaNA is here to lead and guide in developing a Common Results Framework to improve nutrition status in the country.”
Cham lamented that with increase in obesity and other ailments associated with poor nutrition, there is need to improve nutrition in the country.
For his part, Dr. Mustapha Ceesay from Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), described the validation of the CRF for nutrition is indeed a big milestone in the nutrition policy and strategic framework development of The Gambia.
“The United Nations has been leveraging under the leadership of NaNA in the area of nutrition and a lot of progress has been made in this direction especially in the area of policy directive and strategy development. Today as we validate this CRF on behalf of UN country team, I would like to thank NaNA for their leadership role and all stakeholders for their contribution towards this development of this strategy document.”
Nutrition, he added, is everyone’s business and thus commended all who participated in the development process.
Dr. Amat Bah, executive director of National Nutrition Agency, underscored the importance of nutrition and challenged participants to critically look at the draft and make their candid contribution before giving it a go ahead. “Nutrition belongs to all of us and so it is everybody business.”
Dr. Bah reminded that nutrition is a human right and that all stakeholders in one way or the other have a link to nutrition.
“It is cross-cutting and the basic block of human being. Because the cells that form human being is made of proteins. So it is the right of every Gambian to have right to good nutrition.”
He disclosed that against all odds, the indicators for nutrition are doing reasonably well, however they are not as good as where ‘we want it to be’, but that there is reduction in the prevalence of malnutrition.
These indicators, he added, are not easy to turn around, but the country is turning them around.
“And we believed it is also contributing to the health indicators, because if you begin to reduce malnutrition then you begin to reduce health indicators.”
