Child nutrition in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region

28-29 September 2015. Windhoek, Namibia. Regional parliamentary seminar hosted by the Parliament of Namibia and organized jointly by the InterParliamentary Union (IPU) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The issues of malnutrition, stunting and underdevelopment are just a few of the many issues the region needs to address at an expedited pace with the objective of achieving the ultimate good for the people.

Delegates shared experiences and developed a benchmarked set of smart indicators upon which countries should work to eliminate nutrition insecurity within the SADC region. 

About 15 members of parliament from the SADC region were able to use the platform to share lessons learned, discuss the latest evidence from the region and gain a deeper understanding of the tools at their disposal to respond to, and advocate for the reduction of malnutrition in their respective countries.

Extract of the program:

Significance of nutrition security for development.

This session introduced MPs to the importance of nutrition security as a pro-development intervention/policy/agenda, explained stunting and growth and sensitized MPs to the cost of inaction. The Session included a summary of headline numbers on impact on GDP. 

• Definition of problem and importance of Scaling Up Nutrition interventions 
• Importance of investment in nutrition and first 1000 days 
• Link to economic development and poverty reduction 

Panellists: 

• Mr. Tom Arnold, Coordinator a.i. of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement (SUN) 
• Mr. Laurence Haddad, Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute