General
Source: The Daily Observer
Amie Joof-Njie, the deputy permanent secretary (DPS) at the Office of the Vice President, has said that the development of the National Nutrition Policy 2010-2020 and the enactment of the Women's Act 2010
are manifestations of government's commitment to creating the enabling environment for the promotion and support to women and children's health and nutritional status.
She made this remark on behalf of the permanent secretary at the Office of the Vice President during the official launching of the World Breastfeeding Trend Initiative (WBTi), a ceremony held at the National Nutrition Agency (NaNA) Conference Hall in Kanifing. DPS Joof -Njie further said that the launching of the 'State of breastfeeding in 33 countries Report', is an assessment in the countries, as part of WBTi's Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) policies and programmes.
She added that it is aimed at enabling women to successfully breastfeed their babies, as well as provide adequate complementary feeding with continued breastfeeding after the age of 6 months. This report she went on, has been generated through the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) involving governments, civil society and Non-Governmental Organisations.
According to her, the WBTi is an assessment and analysis of the 10 areas of action of the global strategy for IYCF, conducted nationally within a participatory framework by several stakeholders that include governments, professional groups, civil society and non-governmental organisations. This, she asserted, will allow countries to identify gaps and build consensus on actions to bridge the identified gaps, as well as document 5 optimal IYCF practices that are recommended by World Health Organization (WHO).
She explained that the WBTi was initiated by IBFAN India, that supports the assessment in 2008 and that it was adopted and officially launched by IBFAN and the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) in 2009. Since then, she disclosed, it has been introduced in 73 countries and is the driving strategy for the Global Breastfeeding Initiative for Child Survival (GBICS) , a worldwide civil society-led initiative aimed at accelerating progress in the attainment of the health related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially Goal No. 4: Reduction of child mortality, by scaling up early, exclusive and continued breastfeeding.
Speaking earlier, Pa Modou Phall, the executive director of NaNA, spoke among other things, about the importance of stakeholders meeting and discussing issues that concern public health. He said that a country's process can be measured by the way it treats its children; that if a country treats its children well is an indication that its people (general public) are also well treated.
Phall went on to state that the coming together of the stakeholders has a common agenda and that agenda he said, is a healthy Gambian population. He talked about some of the new activities they have already embarked upon, including trainings and new innovations that have immensely supported their work.