No. 22 Nutrition Goals and Targets
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United Nations Administrative Committee on Coordination SUB-COMMITTEE ON NUTRITION (ACC/SCN) —The UN System’s Forum for Nutrition— The Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC), which is comprised of the heads of the UN Agencies, recommended the establishment of the Sub-Committee on Nutrition (SCN) in 1977, following the World Food Conference (with particular reference to Resolution V on food and nutrition). This was approved by the Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC). The UN members of the SCN are ECA, FAO, IAEA, IFAD, ILO, UN, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNHCHR, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNRISD, UNU, WFP, WHO and the World Bank. IFPRI and the ADB are also members. From the outset, representatives of bilateral donor agencies have participated actively in SCN activities as do nongovernmental organizations. The Secretariat is hosted by WHO in Geneva. The mandate of the ACC/SCN is to serve as the UN focal point for promoting harmonized nutrition policies and strategies throughout the UN system, and to strengthen collaboration with other partners for accelerated and more effective action against malnutrition. The aim of the SCN is to raise awareness of and concern for nutrition problems at global, regional and national levels; to refine the direction, increase the scale and strengthen the coherence and impact of actions against malnutrition worldwide; and to promote cooperation among UN agencies and partner organizations. The SCN’s annual meetings have representation from UN Agencies, donor agencies and NGOs; these meetings begin with symposia on subjects of current importance for policy. The SCN brings such matters to the attention of the ACC and convenes working groups on specialized areas of nutrition. Initiatives are taken to promote coordinated activities — interagency programmes, meetings, publications — aimed at reducing malnutrition, reflecting the shared views of the agencies concerned. Regular reports on the world nutrition situation are issued. Nutrition Policy Papers are produced to summarize current knowledge on selected topics. SCN News is published twice a year, and the RNIS is published quarterly. As decided by the Sub-Committee, initiatives are taken to promote coordinated activities -- inter-agency programmes, meetings, publications -- aimed at reducing malnutrition, primarily in developing countries. SCN NEWS Guest Editor: Claudio Schuftan, M.D. Cover illustration by Lindsay Barrett-Gillespie Special thanks go to Ricardo Uauy and Peter Greaves who kindly reviewed the feature articles SCN NEWS is issued in July and December each year by the Secretariat of the UN ACC Sub-Committee on Nutrition. Your contributions to future issues are most welcome. SCN NEWS shares experience in nutrition. If you wish to receive additional copies of SCN NEWS, or would like to suggest other names to be added to our distribution list, please write to us or visit our website at: http://acc.unsystem.org/scn/ Chairman: A. Namanga Ngongi Technical Secretary: Sonya Rabeneck Deputy Executive Director, World Food Programme ACC/SCN c/o World Health Organization Via Cesare Guilio Viola 68 20, Avenue Appia Parco de Medici, I 100148 Rome, Italy CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland Telephone: 39-06 5613 2001, Fax: 39-06 5613 2834 Telephone: 41-22 791 04 56, Fax: 41-22 798 88 91 EMail: [email protected] EMail: [email protected] SCN NEWS provides information on issues of importance in the field of international nutrition. All manuscripts submitted for consideration are peer reviewed, although publication is not guaranteed. Editorial control is retained by the SCN Secretariat. Every effort is made to ascertain the validity of the information contained in SCN publications. Contributing authors are responsible for the accuracy of references. Guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts are available. Items published by the SCN Secretariat do not imply endorsement of views given, nor necessarily the official positions taken by the SCN and its member agencies. The status of quotes and other material is generally indicated in the text and/or sources. Readers are encouraged to review, abstract, reproduce or translate this document in part or in whole — butbut pleaseplease attributeattribute toto thethe ACC/SCNACC/SCN We gratefully acknowledge funding assistance from the Government of Denmark, the Government of the Netherlands and USAID This work was supported by a grant from USAID’s MGL Research Program through the Human Nutrition Institute of the International Life Sciences Institute Research Foundation (“ILSI RF”). The opinions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of ILSI RF or USAID ChairmanÕs round-up This issue of SCN News is devoted to nutrition goals never before addressed a nutrition audience in his and targets. This topic is both timely and important 20 years of professional involvement in HIV/AIDS. because two major upcoming international meet- The symposium provided a forum to discuss how ings will review achievements towards nutrition nutrition programmes and networks can respond to goals set in the 90s. These are the United Nations the HIV/AIDS crisis and help to mitigate its worst General Assembly Special Session on Children in effects. The SCN, as a collective body, prepared a September which marks the tenth anniversary of the statement on nutrition and HIV/AIDS for presenta- Children’s Summit, and the World Food Summit: 5 tion at several of the round table discussions of the Years Later meeting in Rome in November which General Assembly. The Statement is reproduced on will consider a mid-decade review of progress since the back cover page. The full report of the sympo- the World Food Summit in 1996. I attended the sium will be published by the Secretariat later this Preparatory Committee meeting for the Special Ses- year as a Nutrition Policy Paper. sion on Children in New York in June, and worked Also included in this issue of SCN News is a sum- with nutrition colleagues to strengthen the nutri- mary report from each of the eight Working Groups tion content of the draft outcome document. This that met during the SCN’s 28th annual session. document now incorporates a strong nutrition mes- Working Groups are the driving force of the SCN. sage, with specific wording on micronutrient malnu- Participating agencies and individuals take an active trition as well as an emphasis on the prenatal period role in the work programme of the SCN through and prevention of low birthweight. Working Groups. Recommendations for SCN ac- Both of these events will take stock of where we tion this year cover key issues including the assess- really are compared to where we had hoped to be. ment of adult malnutrition during emergencies, Progress reports covering key nutrition indicators strengthening programmes to support exclusive will be published by many of the agencies and NGOs breastfeeding, implementation of sub-regional ac- involved in the preparatory processes for these tion plans for capacity building and work on bench- meetings. Progress is mixed. SCN News 22 presents marks and indicators for monitoring the realization the results of an informal email survey of opinions of the rights to food, health and care. on the value of goals and targets themselves. I hope Meetings of the SCN’s Working Groups as well as our readers find the collection of feature articles and the annual symposia are open to the public and now interviews provocative. For the first time SCN News draw a large audience. Indeed, participation in Nai- engaged a guest editor, Dr. Claudio Schuftan, who robi was the highest in the 24-year history of the worked with the Secretariat in Geneva for one SCN. The SCN’s steering committee is trying to month. I want to thank him here for his efforts. capture this spirit of open debate in a new name for As SCN News 22 goes to press the United Nations the SCN. This change has been requested by the General Assembly is preparing for a special session ACC, the parent body of the SCN, which has itself on June 25 to address the HIV/AIDS global pan- been restructured over the past six months. Stay demic. This is the first gathering of the General As- tuned. sembly devoted to a public health crisis. While ac- The SCN’s 29th annual session will take place in Ber- cess to anti-retroviral drugs continues to receive a lin, March 11 to 15, 2002, hosted by the Govern- great deal of worldwide attention, as well as press ment of Germany in collaboration with the German coverage, the role of nutrition for families and com- Foundation for International Development and munities living with HIV and AIDS tends to be over- GTZ. The session will include a symposium on nu- shadowed. trition in the context of crisis and conflict. Our The SCN, at its annual session held in April in Nai- website will provide detailed information on the robi, provided a forum for discussion of the role of content of the programmes as it develops. Please nutrition in the HIV/AIDS care package. This sym- plan to attend—I look forward to seeing you in Ber- posium brought together the nutrition and the lin. HIV/AIDS communities. Indeed Dr. Peter Piot, during his keynote address, remarked that he had Namanga Ngongi 1 Advocacy in practice ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY: THE FINAL MILESTONE From the Roman Philosopher Seneca, who said, "a hun- ing multiple livelihood opportunities accessible; (this gry person listens neither to religion nor reason", to is a function of distribution). Mahatma Gandhi, who pointed out that to a hungry à Making clean drinking water, environmental sanita- person, "God is a piece of bread", the need to achieve a tion, primary health care and primary education avail- hunger-free world has been stressed repeatedly by great able to assure an optimal assimilation of food by the thinkers and humanists.