National Food and Nutrition Policy.

The National Food and Nutrition Policy is a national sectoral policy of Zambia. Its main objective is to achieve sustainable food and nutrition security and to eliminate all forms of malnutrition in order to have a well-nourished and healthy population that can effectively contribute to national economic development.
For elimination of malnutrition, the document provides more specific objectives. Namely, the Policy notes that the government will create enabling environment for women to breastfeed optimally; support appropriate infant and young child feeding practices; support and promote micronutrient supplementation and fortification programmes; support growth monitoring and promotion strategy as a tool for early detection of growth faltering in children; facilitate capacity building in detection and management of malnutrition; support appropriate feeding practices for school children and adolescents; and create awareness in changing behaviours for food and nutrition improvements. In addition, in order to ensure that households and individuals have access to a sufficient quality and quantity of foods, the government will promote increased food diversification, production, processing, storage and consumption; promote utilization of all available food resources for improvement of nutrition status; support and promote micronutrient supplementation and food fortification programmes; set minimum living wage package for all persons in employment to enable them afford nutritionally adequate food basket; and formulate and support clear policies to guide and control the informally traded food sector. Further, in order to ensure that the nutritionally vulnerable sectors of the population are adequately catered for, the government will facilitate access to adequate food through enhancing the marketing and distribution networks; support programmes aimed at reducing the work burden for women; support community based programmes to reduce the economic burden on families arising from economic hardships (safety net); support programmes that enhance the capacity of disabled persons to improve their livelihood without increasing their dependence on assistance. Also, in order to reduce the severity of the disadvantages and discrimination experienced by women, the government will support use of behaviour change communication in advancing the nutrition cause for positive behaviour change; create enabling environment for women to acquire productive assets such as land, loans, etc and provide facilities for women to access information on food and nutrition.
The Policy also provides for emergency preparedness and mitigation. Namely, it notes that to cope with nutrition emergencies, the government will strengthen existing or establish new institutions to deal with food and nutrition emergencies and to facilitate establishment of food and nutrition guidelines for use in emergency situations.
The implementation of the national food and nutrition policy will be operationalised through the national food and nutrition strategic plan that will be reviewed and updated in line with the national strategic plans.