National Plan of Action for Nutrition (NPOAN).

This National Plan of Action for Nutrition is a nationwide sectoral document prepared in response to one of the recommendations of the International Conference on Nutrition (ICN) which identified 9 themes that need to be tackled. The nine themes are (1) incorporating nutritional objectives, considerations, and components into development policies and programs; (2) improving household food security; (3) protecting consumers through improved food quality and safety; (4) preventing and managing infectious diseases; (5) promoting breastfeeding; (6) caring for the socio-economically deprived and nutritionally vulnerable; (7) preventing and controlling specific micronutrient deficiencies; (8) promoting appropriate diets and healthy lifestyles; (9) assessing and monitoring nutrition situations.
To improve household food security, the Government strategies are directed to (i) promote economic growth with a particular focus on the alleviation of poverty and improvement of food accessibility and entitlement; (ii) facilitate agricultural inputs and credit to small farmers to enable them to improve their productivity of food crops and animal production; (iii) improve income-generation activities and opportunities for employment of rural and urban poor families; (iv) rehabilitate the agricultural sector and provision of social services (health, education, social welfare, etc.); (v) rehabilitate the agricultural sector in the war-affected areas. The strategies aimed at protecting the most vulnerable groups are (i) ensuring that all infants and young children, particularly those in difficult circumstances have access to adequate well-balanced, and safe diets, health care, basic education, and social services; (ii) enhancing the legal and social status of women and decreasing their workload to spare more time for the child and family care; (iii) providing nutrition, health and education support services to adolescent boys and girls; (iv) strengthening efforts to promote caring facilities for disabled individuals; (v) strengthening efforts to enhance food and nutrition programs directed to urban poor and street children; (vi) strengthening efforts to target assistance of the displaced and refugees.