A Regional Conference on Stop Stunting │ No Time to Waste was organized jointly by the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Regional Office for South Asia (ROSA) from 16 to 18 May 2017 in Kathmandu, Nepal to discuss and identify actions to accelerate progress in the care of severely wasted children in South Asia. The Conference brought together over 90 government representatives, UN partners and civil society organizations from across South Asia to exchange regional analyses, expertise and experience on addressing wasting in the context of overall nutrition programming.
The specific objectives were to:
1. Position the care of children with severe wasting as an essential component of evidence-based interventions to support optimal nutrition and development in the first years of life in South Asia;
2. Celebrate positive developments, and share lessons and best practices in the community-based care of severely wasted children in the region; and
3. Identify actions to accelerate improvements in the care of severely wasted children at scale across the region, within the context of ongoing multi sectoral actions to improve nutrition.
During the three-day Conference participants shared country achievements in the care and treatment of severe wasting across South Asia, as well as best practices and lessons learned. Global policy and programme updates on the care and treatment of severe wasting were shared, and key pathways to accelerating scale-up were examined, drawing from lessons learned in applying a health systems approach, lessons learned from the scale-up of child health programmes in the region, and the role of implementation research.
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Countries profiles
PRESENTATIONS
Tuesday May 16th
Session 1: INAUGURAL SESSION | |
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Keynote address: Childhood wasting in South Asia | Dr. Harriet Torlesse, Regional Advisor Nutrition for South Asia, UNICEF |
Session 2: SETTING THE SCENE | |
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SAARC Regional Action Framework for Nutrition | Ms. Fathimath Najwa, Director Social Affairs, South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation |
Managing childhood wasting in the context of IYCF and the care of common childhood illnesses in South Asia | Dr. Tahmeed Ahmed, Senior Director, Nutrition & Clinical Services Division, ICDDR,B |
Session 3: COUNTRY EXPERIENCES ON THE CARE OF SEVERELY WASTED CHILDREN | |
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Afghanistan country presentation | Government of Afghanistan |
Bangladesh country presentation | Government of Bangladesh |
Bhutan country presentation | Government of Bhutan |
Maldives country presentation | Government of Maldives |
Nepal country presentation | Government of Nepal |
Pakistan country presentation | Government o Pakistan |
Sri Lanka country presentation | Government of Sri Lanka |
Wednesday May 17th
Session 4: KEY PATHWAYS TO ACCELERATING THE SCALE UP OF CARE FOR SEVERELY WASTED CHILDREN | |
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Addressing severe wasting in children: understanding and responding | Dr. Victor Aguayo, Associate Director Nutrition, and Ms. Diane Holland, Senior Nutrition Advisor, UNICEF New York. |
A systems perspective to the sustainable delivery of care for severely wasted children | Dr. Hedwig Deconinck, Public Health Researcher, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium |
Implementation science and research in nutrition scale up efforts | Dr. Purnima Menon, Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute, South Asia |
Lessons from the large scale up of IMNCI in South Asia | Dr. Meera Upadhyay, World Health Organization Nepal |
Thursday May 18th
Session 6: ACCELERATING PROGRESS AND MAKING LARGE SCALE IMPROVEMENTS IN CARE FOR SEVERELY WASTED CHILDREN | |
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Afghanistan | Government of Afghanistan |
Sri Lanka | Government of Sri Lanka |
Pakistan | Government of Pakistan |
Nepal | Government of Nepal |
Maldives | Government o Maldives |
Bhutan | Government of Bhutan |
Bangladesh | Government of Bangladesh |
Session 7: CLOSING CEREMONY | |
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Call to Action | Representative of the government participants |