National Nutrition Policy (2021-2025).

This comprehensive National Nutrition Policy 2021-2025 assures significant improvements in the nutritional status of The Gambia’s population and contributes to the country’s realisation of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and the National Development Plan (NDP, 2018-2021), moving from The Government of The Gambia’s recognition and acknowledgement of the crucial and central role nutrition plays in a nation’s socio-economic growth and development and poverty reduction. This mission can be realised by working with all stakeholders, including communities and community based organisations involved in nutrition and nutrition related areas. The Policy focuses on the following priority areas: improving maternal nutrition; promoting optimal infant and young child feeding; improving food and nutrition security at the national, community and household levels; preventing and managing micronutrient deficiencies; improving food standard, quality and safety; nutrition and infectious diseases, including HIV; preventing and managing diet-related Non-Communicable Diseases; caring for the socio-economically deprived and nutritionally vulnerable; nutrition in emergencies; nutrition surveillance. These priority areas will be implemented through: community nutrition programming; social and behaviour change communication; resource mobilisation; mainstreaming nutrition into development policies, legislations, strategies and programmes; a structured Policy Implementation Framework; effective monitoring and evaluation; nutrition research.
Objectives and strategies of this Policy include: reducing the prevalence of malnutrition among women of child bearing ages; promotion of dietary diversification; strengthening of the public private partnership in food safety, quality and standards; integrated management of acute malnutrition protocol; automatic inclusion of Early Childhood Development Centres in public schools with school feeding programme; support and promote the implementation of sustainable agricultural practices including aquaculture, with the adoption of agricultural value chain development approach; provision of adequate infrastructure for production, processing, storage, marketing and distribution of food commodities; support the development of standards and technical regulations on foods; promote regional and international cooperation in the area of food standard and safety; support the integration of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) approaches in infant and young child feeding programmes; promote quality water, hygiene and sanitation at all levels including in schools; mainstreaming of the social protection Policy in multi-stakeholder programmes; develop food and nutrition related disaster preparedness tools and early warning systems.