Multisectoral Adolescent Nutrition Strategy 2019 - 2023.

The Multisectoral Adolescent Nutrition Strategy is a national subsectoral framework designed to ensure that adolescents are well nourished and able to contribute meaningfully to the country’s economic growth and development. The Strategy promotes a coordinated, multisectoral, and multistakeholder approach to preventing and reducing all forms of malnutrition and nutrition-related disorders among adolescents. Its strategic objectives are to (i) prevent, treat, and manage undernutrition, including micronutrient deficiencies, among adolescents; (ii) prevent, treat, and manage overnutrition and nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases among adolescents; (iii) empower adolescent girls and boys to improve their nutrition and livelihoods; (iv) promote positive behaviour change to support improved adolescent nutrition; (v) prevent, treat, and manage communicable diseases among adolescents; (vi) create an enabling environment for the effective implementation of adolescent nutrition interventions; (vii) establish robust monitoring, evaluation, research, and surveillance systems to strengthen adolescent nutrition programming.
The Strategy has seven priority areas that consolidate the aspirations contained in its strategic objectives: (i) Prevention, Treatment and Management of Undernutrition: focuses on improving adolescent nutrition through routine assessments, school health and nutrition programmes, dietary diversity, nutrition education and counselling, micronutrient supplementation, fortified foods, and treatment and management of acute malnutrition through screening, referrals, counselling, and capacity building; (ii) Prevention, Treatment and Management of Overnutrition and Nutrition-Related NCDs: aims to address overweight, obesity, and nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases through healthy lifestyle promotion, routine screenings, counselling, awareness campaigns, dietary guidelines, and prevention of tobacco, alcohol, and substance use; (iii) Empowerment of Adolescents for Improved Nutrition and Livelihood: promotes education, life skills, and livelihood opportunities through school meals programmes, prevention of early marriages and pregnancies, school retention initiatives, vocational training, reproductive health services, bursaries, and support for adolescent-headed households through social protection and livelihood programmes; (iv) Enhanced Positive Behaviour Change for Improved Adolescent Nutrition: promotes healthy nutrition behaviours through nutrition education, IEC materials, community sensitization, cooking demonstrations, campaigns on healthy diets and micronutrient-rich foods, and peer-to-peer nutrition education; (v) Prevention, Treatment and Management of Communicable Diseases among Adolescents: focuses on reducing communicable diseases through deworming, improved hygiene and sanitation, malaria prevention, HIV sensitization, integration of nutrition and HIV services, and support for HIV-affected households; (vi) Creation of an Enabling Environment for Effective Implementation of Adolescent Nutrition Interventions: aims to strengthen systems and coordination through capacity building, integration of adolescent nutrition into policies and programmes, development of guidelines, resource mobilization, and strengthening implementation structures and advocacy; and (vii) Establish Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Surveillance Systems for Effective Adolescent Nutrition Programming: focuses on strengthening evidence-based programming through integration of adolescent nutrition indicators into monitoring systems, development of M&E tools, supportive supervision, data collection and analysis, nutrition surveillance, operational research, and dissemination of research findings.