Stop Stunting | No Time to Waste – Regional Conference 2017

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.

Download conference material

Agenda

Report

Countries profiles

PRESENTATIONS

Tuesday May 16th

Session 1: INAUGURAL SESSION
Keynote address: Childhood wasting in South Asia	Dr. Harriet Torlesse, Regional Advisor Nutrition for South Asia, UNICEF

Session 2: SETTING THE SCENE
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
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
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
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