Operational Plan of Action for Nutrition 2008 – 2010.

This Operational Plan of Action for Nutrition is a nationwide sectoral document and represents the first Nutrition Policy for Palestine aiming at providing a framework for understanding nutrition within Palestine to contribute to providing (1) consistency and coherence in response to nutritional needs; and (2) quality and effective response in nutrition programming. The Policy goal is to improve and maintain the nutritional status and well being of the Palestinian people, through (i) diet diversification, fortification and supplementation; (ii) meeting the special nutritional and care needs of vulnerable populations (infants and young children, pregnant and lactating women, school-age children, the elderly and groups who are socio-economically or politically vulnerable); (iii) advocating access and consumption of food that is adequate in quantity, quality and diversity; (iv) increasing coordination among key stakeholders and integration of nutrition-related activities across sectors; (v) enhancing capacity building; and (vi) providing appropriate needed resources. The document focuses on the following 8 priority areas (1) identification of nutritional trends and underlying causes; (2) prevention and treatment of micronutrient malnutrition; (3) prevention and treatment of obesity and dietary-related non-communicable diseases.; (4) protection, promotion, and support for exclusive breastfeeding (up to 6 months), appropriate complementary feeding of infants, and diet diversity for children; (5) growth monitoring and promotion among children under 5 years; (6) management of severe and moderate malnutrition; (7) promote and ensure appropriate nutrition among school children; (8) improvement and protection of food quality and safety.
The Policy indicates for the different priority areas some strategic objectives, the main of them are: (a) for general nutrition problems (i) develop a unified nutrition monitoring and surveillance system to rapidly identify nutrition problems and some key causes and mobilize adequate resources; (ii) improve the micronutrients status among the population to reduce deficiencies especially among vulnerable group (in particular through flour fortification process, increased consumption of iodized salt, and awareness raising campaigns on the importance of micronutrients supplementation among target groups such as pregnant women and children); (b) obesity (i) develop appropriate ‘lifestyle’ messages through carrying out nutrition education and promote behavior change in relation to fat and sugar intake, as well as strengthen available nutritional clinics and train adequate staff; (c) children nutrition (i) promotion and widespread adoption of appropriate infants and child feeding practices, such as appropriate complementary feeding to infants at appropriate age and education messages; (ii) reduce stunting, underweight, and low birth weight prevalence; (iii) reduce morbidity and mortality rates associated with severe and moderate malnutrition; (d) school feeding (i) develop and harmonize school health nutrition and identify school children who are at risk of malnutrition (poor growth, stunting, wasting, goiter, and anemia) according to standardized protocols and, consequently, provide appropriate micronutrients through fortified items to school children, for free of charge and improve the nutritional value of food provided in the school canteens; and (e) food security and quality (i) improve the linkage between the nutrition outcome and food security, quality and safety, also activating the quick response in case of sudden-onset food crises to ensure supply of nutritious foods (e.g., baby food, dairy products, meats, fruits, vegetables).
As for Governance, the main needs are to (i) strengthen and sustain existing coordination of nutrition capacities and develop new structures; (ii) strengthen governmental and non-governmental capacity to implement the Operational Plan of Action for Nutrition; (iii) develop, harmonize, and implement nutrition-related protocols, guidelines, legislation, and regulations; (iv) identify and support relevant applied research in nutrition-related areas; and (v) address sustainability concerns at all levels of implementation.