National Nutrition Policy and Strategy.

This National Nutrition Policy and Strategy (NNPS) is a cross-sectoral document formulated by the Ministry of Health and Population of Nepal. The overall goal of the NNPS is: Achieving nutritional well being of all people in Nepal so that they can maintain a healthy life and contribute to the socio-economic development of the country, through improved nutrition-program implementation in collaboration with relevant sectors.
The NNPS seeks to help eliminate malnutrition and food insecurity. Based on the causes and the consequences of various types of malnutrition commonly seen in Nepal, the current nutritional situation in Nepal and the current government actions in the nutrition sector, the NNPS introduces 13 strategic nutrition approaches. Except for the strategy for monitoring, 12 other strategic approaches are categorized into the types of short and long term objectives. The programs that are categorized as ones with short term objectives are Protein-energy Malnutrition (PEM), Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA), Iodine Deficiency Disorder (IDD), Vitamin A Deficiency (VAD), Intestinal Worm infestation, Low Birth Weight (LBW), Infectious Diseases and Nutrition in Exceptionally Difficult Circumstance. For instance, the Objective of Program Protein-energy Malnutrition (PEM) is to reduce protein-energy malnutrition in children under 5 years of age and reproductive aged women and the target is to reduce the prevalence of low BMI in women to half of the 2000 level by the year 2017. It is considered urgently necessary to address or promote the measures regarding nutrition in exceptionally difficult circumstances such as breastfeeding of HIV positive mothers and food shortages in crisis situation due to the political conflict and natural disasters. Therefore the Program Nutrition in Exceptionally Difficult Circumstance and the indicators and targets are set up. The programs categorized as those with long term objectives are Household Food Security, Dietary Habit, Life-style Related Diseases and School Health. In particular, the objective of Program Household Food Security is to improve household food security to ensure that all people can have adequate access, availability and utilization of food needed for healthy life, and the target is set to reduce the percentage of people with inadequate energy intake to 25% by the year 2017. Specific objectives of Program Household Food Security include: To improve nutritious food production at household level; To improve food storage and preservation skills; etc.