COMCEC
Malnutrition in the OIC Member
Countries: A Trap for Poverty
Social Protection is now undertaking an exercise to help them define, and cost, a package of
maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health and nutrition services (SUN 2016],
The Ministry of Health and Social Protection convenes a Multi-Sectoral Coordination Council
(MSCC) to bring together nutrition actors, However, the structure is not formally bound by
clear terms of references, The same is true for the technical working group that supports the
MSCC and include a wide number of ministries and the president's office. There remains scope
to improve the coordination mechanism by further merging existing bodies, and by formalising
the mechanism, Key stakeholder interviewed also felt the Ministry of Health and Social
Protection could do more to provide leadership for nutrition actions and take more initiative,
They felt that while the Ministry had the responsibility for coordinating nutrition actions, it did
not generate key new initiatives and was not perceived by the public as being a leader in
nutrition (Interviews], As in other countries, a key challenge that the Ministry of Health and
Social Protection faces is being ill-placed to play a convening role for other ministries, While
stakeholders mentioned that there are occasional round tables and multi-sectoral working
group meetings, these are not frequent enough and often lack participation by key groups,
especially those working at the community level, However, exploring how to improve
coordination of all stakeholders, including international stakeholders, was highlighted as a key
area which could improve the nutrition situation in the country moving forward, Identifying an
appropriate, high level coordinating body for nutrition, and ensuring adequate buy-in from all
sectors moving forward, will be essential (Interview, Local Expert on Health and Social Issues],
Opinions of key stakeholders about existing policies were divided, Some thought that while the
country has policy documents which contain broad nutrition targets, these are not specific
enough nor are the interventions being implemented in a systematic way to achieve these
goals (Interview, local public health expert], Others felt that both the government and UN
agencies such as the World Food Programme are actively involved in developing policies and
programmes with specific short and long term nutrition goals (Interviews, Republican
Nutrition Centre and UN representative], Like in other contexts, nutrition programming in
Tajikistan, at least until recently, seemed to be dominated by donor organisations including the
Asian Development Bank, The World Bank, and the Japanese government, among others
(Interviews, UNagencies and local health expert],
While there is increasing buy-in from some ministries and government departments, some
stakeholders feel that nutrition is still not well understood by some officials, and that greater
advocacy on the part of the SUNmovement, is still necessary (Interview, UNRepresentatives],
One stakeholder suggested adding nutrition to the curriculum for those studying to become
bureaucrats at the post-graduate level (UN Representative], Another stakeholder felt that
while results of nutrition surveys and reports are shared with the government, nutrition is not
a priority (Interview, USAID], While nutrition can be found in the official policies of many
sectors, including water and sanitation, overall it is still felt that nutrition policies and
programmes were the responsibility of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection
(Interviews, local public health experts],
Several stakeholders also highlighted that that there is limited demand from citizens for
improved nutrition at the community level due to a lack of educational programming about the
importance of nutrition carried out in communities, This is attributed to both low levels of
education and a lack of funding to carry out large scale nutrition awareness campaigns at the
community level (Interviews, Local Public Health Expert, UN Representatives, Republican
Nutrition Centre],
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