El Salvador

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On 24 September 2012, the Republic of El Salvador joined the SUN Movement with a letter of commitment from Maria Isabel Rodriguez, the Minister of Health and President of CONASAN. At the time, a coordinating inter-ministerial body for food security and nutrition (Consejo Nacional de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional) had been set up led by the Minister of Health at national level. A health reform had also sharpened the focus on the critical 1000 day window of opportunity with emphasis on support measures for breastfeeding women.

Progress

Bringing people together

83% 2019

Bringing people together

Coherent policy and legal framework

88% 2019

Coherent policy and legal framework

Aligning programs around a Common Results Framework

75% 2019

Aligning programs around a Common Results Framework

Financial tracking and resource mobilization

69% 2019

Financial tracking and resource mobilization

TOTAL

79% 2019

TOTAL

Panorama 2019: rise in hunger and obesity in Latin America and the Caribbean

December 5, 2019

Optional

Parliamentarians in Latin American and the Caribbean call for urgent action to tackle rising hunger

August 8, 2019

Prolonged droughts and heavy rain in Central America leave million people in urgent need of food assistance

May 9, 2019

Optional

Second Global Conference of the Sustainable Food Systems of the UN in Costa Rica

February 26, 2019

Senegalese civil society takes action to make nutrition a key issue of the presidential election

February 22, 2019

El Salvador launches its National Food and Nutrition Security Policy for 2018-2028

November 27, 2018

Reflections from my grass roots mission to El Salvador

April 4, 2016 0

Dr. Claire Blanchard, Civil Society Network Coordinator, reflects on her mission to El Salvador, 2016 Returning from my field visit to NUTRES (Alianza de las Organizaciones de la Sociedad Civil por la Soberanía y Seguridad Alimentaria Nutricional), the SUN CSA in El Salvador hosted by CALMA (Centro de Apoyo de Lactencia Materna) - a local CSO working on breastfeeding, I wanted to share my invaluable experience of an engaged, dedicated and committed alliance of 7 grassroots organisations.

Experience of advocacy and lobbying by the alliance of civil society organisations for food and nutritional sovereignty and security in El Salvador.

April 16, 2015 0

The Alliance of Civil Society Organisations for Nutritional and Food Sovereignty and Security has actively participated in advocacy spaces to request that the Legislative Assembly reform the provisions of the criminal code relating to the market, free competition and consumer protection. This has arisen with the bean stockpiling crisis and a piece of correspondence on the issue was submitted in July 2014.

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Nutrition situation

13.6%

Under Five Stunting

2.1%

Under Five Wasting

6.4%

Under Five Overweight

46.7%

0-5 Months Exclusive Breastfeeding

22.7%

Woman Anaemia 15-49 years

26.4%

Adolescent Overweight Male

32.5%

Adolescent Overweight Female

39.2%

Adult Overweight Male

33.9%

Adult Overweight Female

19.6%

Adult Obesity Male

30%

Adult Obesity Female

9.3%

Adult Diabetes Male

10.7%

Adult Diabetes Female

Nutrition Data Definitions

Strategic objectives

In recent years, El Salvador has continued to strengthen the coordination of actions at national, departmental and municipal levels. The National Food and Nutritional Security Council (CONASAN) has developed a multi-sectoral territorialisation model of the National Food and Nutritional Security Policy, forming departmental, municipal and community committees. The Civil Society Alliance for Nutrition has been strengthened. This alliance has carried out lobbying and advocacy activities for the adoption of the Law of Food and Nutritional Sovereignty and Security. The process to establish the private sector working group for the promotion of food and nutrition security is currently under way. As President pro tempore of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in the period from 2017 to 2018, El Salvador has promoted food and nutrition security as one of the four main items on the regional agenda.

Last updated: November 2017

2016

The National Council for Food Security and Nutrition (CONASAN) is the inter-institutional and multisectoral coordinator for nutrition. In 2016, the country has focused its efforts on strengthening cooperation with regional Governments, which are responsible for implementing multi-sectoral policies and programmes, as well as strengthening the mechanisms for dialogue with civil society to coordinate joint efforts. CONASAN heads the multisectoral board that manages resources and the coordination of nutritional and dietary support for the El Niño-affected population.

Last updated: December 2016

2015

The National Council for Food Security and Nutrition (CONASAN) is the body responsible for coordinating interventions in Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) and promoting coordination between sectors and institutions. It is made up of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Technical Secretariat of the President’s Office, the Technical Secretariat for Social Inclusion and an Inter-Institutional Technical Committee made up of 17 members. It has begun the process of establishing departmental and municipal FSN councils. El Salvador also has a parliamentary group against hunger. The Civil Society Alliance for nutrition has been strengthened by the involvement of local organisations. It has been very active in lobbying for and advocating the Food Sovereignty and Security Act and other binding laws, such as the Water Act and the School Meals Act.

Since September 2014, CONASAN has facilitated dialogue between 16 government institutions and over 250 civil society organisations, with the aim of generating a shared vision, to be incorporated in the future Food Sovereignty, Security and Nutrition Act.

Last updated: October 2015

El Salvador has made progress on strengthening the legal framework of the National Food and Nutritional Security Policy, in coordination with the different sectors. The country currently has an updated food and nutrition security assessment and has started the process of updating the National Policy. In June 2017, regulations came into force on the selling of food in school canteens to improve the quality of food, and at local level, municipalities have been en-couraged to make orders for this purpose. In the last year, CONASAN has, together with civil society organisations, advocated for the adoption of the Law of Food and Nutritional Security.

Last updated: November 2017

2016

El Salvador has started updating its National Policy on Food Security and Nutrition with the involvement of the multi-stakeholder platform. In 2016, the country has monitored the development of legislation on breastfeeding, school canteens and technical aspects of food fortification.

Last updated: December 2016

2015

It is hoped that the bill for the Nutrition, Food Sovereignty and Food Security Act will end up as the main framework for intersectoral coordination and decentralised policies and plans. El Salvador has made progress in creating a nutrition-sensitive legal framework through the following laws:

Bill for the School Meals Act
Universal Social Protection and Development Act
Consumer Protection Act
Comprehensive Protection for Childhood and Adolescence Act
Land Use and Development Act
Breast-Feeding Promotion, Protection and Support Act
Glass of Milk Act

The actions to promote and establish implementation mechanisms for the Breast-Feeding Act reflect the impact of having increased the percentage of breast-milk as the sole food source in infants in the first six months of life from 31.4% in 2008 to 47% in 2014 (according to the latest National Health Survey).

Last updated: October 2015

El Salvador has worked in coordination with various national and international agencies and with civil society on initiatives included in the National Food and Nutritional Security Plan. In 2017, the actor mapping was updated and the National Food and Nutritional Security Observatory was launched. El Salvador completed the National Census of Height and Weight of Schoolchildren, obtaining the main national indicators for all the municipalities in the coun-try. As part of its international commitments, the CELAC Food and Nutritional Security Plan is being implemented. This plan is aligned with the National Plan.

Last updated: November 2017

2016

The 2014-2019 National Strategic Plan for Food Security and Nutrition can be seen as the country’s common results framework. Efforts to finance and
implement actions by different partners on national objectives are reflected in the national, regional and municipal nutritional and food security plans. In 2016, with the support of development partners and academia, the country has continued its programme to build the capacity of key stakeholders, has begun developing a pilot project for municipal-level food security information systems, and has carried out the National Height and Weight Census in schools to give the country up-to-date indicators.

Last updated: December 2016

2015

The 2014-2019 National Strategic Plan for Food Security and Nutrition, which provides for the eradication of all forms of undernutrition in the country, is El Salvador’s common results framework in FSN. Various government sectors were involved in drafting it and recently updating it, as well as numerous stakeholders from academia, international cooperation initiatives, NGOs and civil society organisations.

With the objective of facilitating the implementation of the Departmental FSN Plan and the Municipal FSN Plans, Chalatenango became the first department in the country to define a departmental intersectoral FSN plan in line with the objectives of the National Plan and to set up a Committee. This commitment led to the signing of a cooperation agreement between institutions at the national level (CONASAN), the departmental level (CODESAN) and the municipal level (COMUSAN). A further 12 municipal governments are forming FSN Committees.

Given the need to speed up the progress of the implementation of the Plan, CONASAN has launched a decentralised programme to enhance functional capacities and knowledge on the analysis and management of FSN indicators, in coordination with private universities. Likewise, in coordination with FAO, civil servants have been given further training on the right to an adequate diet.

Last updated: October 2015

In 2016, El Salvador completed its budget estimate for public investment in food and nutritional security, identify-ing resource needs to be negotiated with the Government and international cooperation. The country has made pro-gress on aligning national objectives and those of United Nations agencies. International cooperation contributes nearly 30% of financing towards achieving food and nutrition security goals.

Last updated: November 2017

2016

El Salvador completed its exercise to estimate public investment in nutritional and food security in 2016, which has shown an increased investment over the last few years. Under the Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information, the financial data of all Government institutions is published online.

Last updated: December 2016

2015

United Nations agencies have aligned their interventions to the 2014-2019 FSN Strategic Plan objectives through three national projects of approximately seven million dollars. This year, with the support of the SUN Movement Secretariat, CONASAN is performing the costing of the Plan and estimating funding gaps, which will be a vital part of the resource mobilisation.

Last updated: October 2015