Thank you for sharing this draft of the declaration with us.
The document reads well and the flow of the ideas is good.
Comments:
* It is good to refer to ICN1 and the targets as well as existing commitments (as stated in the footnote). Hope this will include the recent Nutrition Action Plan and some of the existing strategies as the Global Strategy for IYCF.
*Overall the document is strong on food and agriculture language and scope and not much on nutrition. It includes ideas related to food safety and non-communicable diseases (as obesity) but not much on malnutrition.
*The document does not include any reference or mentioning of nutrition in emergencies and as we know this is an area extremely important in many parts of the world.
*It will be good to include the current situation concerning IYCF (as breastfeeding/complementary feeding) on page 2, number 10….especially that we have new indicators now.
*The document also lacks mentioning HIV and infectious diseases and the relationship with nutrition.
*Under point 11 (b) many things are lumped together here that it became unclear on what we want to say.
*Point 11 (a, b, c, d and e) and the “the vision for global action to end all form of malnutrition” does not actually have any point related to nutrition or malnutrition specifically.
*The same comment goes to section (12) where (a to j) do not address specific points relate to nutrition or malnutrition.
Point (e) is the only point referring to nutrition but is broad and refer to obesity and intake of nutrients.
*For section 13 and the “Commitment to action”, good to see good reference to nutrition in point (a) but not specific enough;
*point (e) is the only place in the document where breastfeeding and complementary feeding are mentioned (this is why it will be good to set the stage before for that and give some data on where we stand); this was one of the targets within the Plan of Action in ICN1 I think and will be good to give more emphasis on this crucial area;
*It will be helpful to define or give more explanation on what we mean by “people with special needs”…..does it include emergency for example??
*It is surprising not to see the “Code” mentioned in the document…..although the Codex is. Can we include that?
*And to be comprehensive (according to recent WHA resolutions), it will be good to mention BFHI within the action points.
*Under point 14, the statement “….implementation of their national programmes and plans for nutrition” is not clear. Almost all countries have existing “Plan of action on Nutrition” and the idea here is to strengthen these and build on them and not reinvent the wheels and start from scratch again. It can be confusing to countries learning from experience of ICN1.
*Does the document need to be endorsed by WHA first??
Hope you find the above helpful.
Best regards,
Randa Saadeh
Randa Saadeh