Integrating nutrition into provincial and local development plans in the Philippines

* Originally published by Nutrition Intentional

Nutrition International, through its Technical Assistance for Nutrition (NI TAN) project, supported a series of three to four-day provincial workshops benefiting 32 provinces of the Philippines, and targeting staff from municipalities and cities across multiple sectors.

The province of Zamboanga del Norte participated in a pilot workshop on integrating nutrition in the Provincial Development Plan Frameworks (PDPFP) and Local Development Plan (LDIP) from June 23-29, 2019. Ninety-two participants were trained at this first workshop, which supported the TAN TA “Long term support to the National Nutrition Council to operationalize the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition (PPAN) and advance the national nutrition agenda in the Philippines.”

NI TAN also supported the National Nutrition Council’s (NNC) workshop on formulation of Provincial Nutrition Action Plan. This workshop focused on integrating nutrition in the PDPFP, Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) and LDIP. The main objective of this pilot workshop was to gather feedback and learnings on the design and tools, prior to rolling out the tools in upcoming workshops planned in other provinces.

The workshops helped to equip participants with better understanding of malnutrition in the country, the need to scale up essential nutrition interventions, and how to formulate a nutrition situation analysis, nutrition projects and budgets for integration in the PDPFP, CDP, and LDIP. As a product of the workshop, participants developed a draft Local Nutrition Action Plan which will support increased financing and action on nutrition at the local level.

The workshop supported by NI TAN is part of NNC’s effort to ensure nutrition is considered in all local plans and budgets for FY 2020-2022 in all 81 provinces. NNC is supporting the government’s Human Resource Development and Poverty Cluster’s 32 priority provinces, including through the NI TAN and UNICEF technical assistance for operationalization of the PPAN 2017-2022, including Local Government Unit mobilization to scale up nutrition.

Following the completion of the workshops in the 32 priority provinces, a positive shift towards nutrition planning and budgeting is anticipated within the local development plans thereby providing opportunities for other provinces to learn from this on-going work.