PALO, LEYTE — With the aim of disseminating actual examples of effective local policies on nutrition, the Regional Nutrition Committee (RNC) passed the RNC Resolution No. 5, Series of 2020, entitled, “Enjoining All Local Government Units (LGUs) in Eastern Visayas to Support the Compendium of Local Ordinances and Issuances on Nutrition and Continuously Submit Additional Local Ordinances and Issuances” during its First RNC Meeting on 6 October 2020 at the Seafood & Ribs Warehouse, Palo, Leyte.

The Compendium of Local Ordinances on Nutrition, which was virtually launched nationwide on 1 October 2020, is part of the overall effort of the NNC on LGU mobilization for the Philippine Plan of Action on Nutrition (PPAN) which shall serve as a knowledge-sharing platform for LGUs to learn from the initiatives of other LGUs who harnessed the capacity of policy development to scale up nutrition programs.

The local ordinances and issuances collected are tagged according to thematic clusters – ranging from ordinances on the First 1000 Days Program, ordinances on food security, Barangay Nutrition Scholars, nutrition supportive, nutrition education and promotion, codes, regulation, financing, and many others.

In Eastern Visayas, the region was able to retrieve around 200 resolutions, ordinances, and Executive Orders and was able to identify important policies to be uploaded on the website. Among the selected ordinances, twenty (20) local ordinances shall be selected all over the country to be part of the Compendium of Local Ordinances on Nutrition publication, said by Dr. Catalino P. Dotollo, Jr., the Regional Nutrition Program Coordinator of NNC 8.

Meanwhile, Director Minerva P. Molon, the Chairperson of the Committee, agreed to make the resolution open for continuous submission which will encourage more LGUs to work more for nutrition program implementation and improvement.

In the online portal of the Compendium, NNC shared that The Compendium of Local Ordinances and Issuances on Nutrition is a dynamic and living project. Both the online compendium portal and the printed publication shall be updated progressively through the years to cover more and new local ordinances and issuances on nutrition from local governments who wish to contribute to the platform and share their effective local policy development initiatives to scale up nutrition.

The Compendium is a project of the National Nutrition Council in partnership with the Nutrition Officers Association of the Philippines (NAOPA), with support from Nutrition International and UNICEF Philippines. # NASLabordo