United Nations System
Standing Committee on Nutrition

 

Report of the Sub-Committee on Nutrition at its Twenty-Fifth Session

II.  Work in Progress:  Summary of Discussion and Conclusions

H. UN Agency Reports

79. FAO's programme on food security operates in about 30 countries.  FAO's web site is a source of information on the range of FAO's activities.  Future meetings include a joint FAO/WHO expert consultation to revise nutrient requirements (September 21-31 1998, Bangkok), and an interagency meeting on FIVIMS to be hosted by IFAD in April 1998, Rome. Two new publications; "Human Nutrition in the Developing World" by Michael Latham, and "Agriculture, food and nutrition for Africa" were mentioned.  A statement to the 25th Session by FAO, including the position of FAO on the Commission, is available from the SCN Secretariat.

80. IAEA reported positive outcomes of two external reviews of their nutrition programmes, assuring the sustainability of nutrition activities at IAEA.  A significant expansion in nutrition activities is expected in 1998.  IAEA has active collaborations with WHO, UNICEF and USAID and is discussing possibilities for future collaboration with WFP, UNHCR and UNU.  A written report is available from the SCN Secretariat.

81. UNDP highlighted the forthcoming conference on the 20/20 Initiative (October 1998, Hanoi).  Attention was also drawn to this year's Human Development Report on consumption. 

82. UNFPA pointed out that 1999 is the 5th anniversary of the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development.  During 1998, a number of preparatory activities will be carried out, including an international forum with representation from over 130 member states. The series of technical meetings will cover reproductive health and rights, adolescent reproductive health, and reproductive health in crisis situations.  The presenter commented that UNFPA does not receive requests for nutrition components of reproductive health country programmes, indicating an enormous need for awareness raising in this area.

83. UNHCHR indicated that no specific programmes and activities are carried out with respect to nutrition, but encouraged SCN members to provide inputs to the High Commissioner in undertaking the mandate received through objective 7.4 of the WFS, i.e., to define the core content of the right to adequate food under article M of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.  In particular, SCN members were encouraged to provide inputs to the work of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which has taken the decision to draft a General Comment to define the core content of the right to adequate food.

84. UNICEF referred to the 1998 State of the World's Children Report on nutrition, and highlighted the availability of a companion video and press packet.  In partnership with UNAIDS, UNICEF has carried out rapid country assessments of the current status of breastfeeding promotion  programmes within the context of vertical transmission of HIV/AIDS.  This was identified as a high priority area. UNICEF is discussing with WFP the possibility of aquiring large amounts of breastmilk substitutes for those countries making such requests.  Other areas of activity include rights-based programming and programming to increase caring capacity.  With regard to emergency issues, there is a new MOU with WFP. Among the activities to support community-based nutrition programmes, the WHO/UNICEF Integrated Management of the Child with Illness (IMCI) was highlighted as being an important new programming tool.  In the area of micronutrients, UNICEF is currently studying the effect of a multiple vitamin and mineral supplement in collaboration with Emory University at the request of the governmen of Mexico. Work on bioavailability of carotenoids also continues.

85. UNU informed that Abraham Besrat is the new Senior Vice Rector of UNU, and that Cutberto Garza is the new Director of the Food and Nutrition programme at UNU, with Nevin Scrimshaw as Senior Advisor.  Collaborations with WHO on child growth and with IUNS on training initiatives were highlighted. The new IDECG publication "Causes and Consequences of Intrauterine Growth Retardation" was mentioned and it was stated that INFOODS (in partnership with FAO) now has five new regional food composition databases available on the Internet.

86. Representatives from the WHO Nutrition Programme and the WHO Programme of Food Safety and Food Aid gave reports on their activities.

  • The WHO Nutrition Programme continues to provide technical and financial support to countries, largely with respect to the ICN follow-up, and to produce authoritative scientific guidelines and criteria. An ongoing multi-centre study on caring and household food security practices being carried out in six countries.  Forthcoming activities include a meeting on HIV and infant feeding practices (April 1998), and a meeting to review nutrition guidelines in the elderly (May 1998) at Tufts University.  A global report on IDD will go to the WHA in 1999. 
  • WHO's  Programme on Food Safety and Food Aid addresses food safety issues through both legislation and education.  The main involvement in the legislative context is the partnership with FAO on the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Lack of food safety plays an important role in infant diarrhea, which accounts for 3.2 million deaths/yr as well as high morbidity contributing to undernutrition.  Education aimed at the domestic setting is essential to address this problem.  Other activities in this area include collection of data on prevalence of food borne diseases, and safety assessments of foods produced by modern technologies. The presenter appealed to the SCN to give more attention to the food safety dimension: for example, breastfeeding counseling should incorporate food safety messages.

87.  The World Bank gave a presentation of the Africa Nutrition Database Initiative (ANDI), an interagency effort originating at the World Bank, with a demonstration of the software.  The objective of the ANDI is to provide a low-cost system using a query engine via the Internet to enable rapid access to good quality nutrition data sets housed in UN agencies.  For the time being the project focuses on Africa.  The system will help to reduce duplication and standardize the use of indicators across agencies.  The intention is not to use all data sets available, rather those data that meet quality control criteria.  The relevance of this Initiative was appreciated by many; if successful, this could be expanded to include other regions. The role of the Economic Commission for Africa in providing statistical data to many African countries was highlighted.  Cost containment issues were also discussed.  The next step is to obtain agreement to share datasets and to modify these datasets so as to enable access and linkag through the engine. 

88. It was suggested that agency reports at the next SCN Session provide examples of how agencies are working together at the national level, accompanied by a short written report.