Reduce stunting in children under 5 years of age

The government of Lao PDR and development partners, including donors, UN agencies, civil society, businesses and academia, will enhance efforts towards implementing the National Nutrition Strategy 2025 and Plan of Action 2021–2025, and to Lao PDR becoming “a prosperous country, with a healthy population, free from food insecurity, malnutrition and poverty,” as specified in the 10th Five-Year National Social Economic Development Plan (NSEDP).

At the Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit, Lao PDR acknowledged that while the country has made significant progress, malnutrition continues to be an important social and economic development issue. Investing in nutrition will play a key role in achieving the targets of the 10th Five-Year NSEDP and graduation in 2026 from the Least Developed Country category. Key areas to be addressed:

• The importance of creating an enabling environment in which communities of the multi-ethnic people of Lao PDR can access and appropriately use nutritious foods and access high-quality services and support for maintaining good health and nutrition.

• The urgent need to include in the government budget the pressing nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive priority interventions to ensure the continued delivery of basic nutrition services even within the limited fiscal space available.

• Actions informed by evidence of what works and what has the greatest potential for impact within the context of Lao PDR and to assist in identifying target geographic areas and target groups.

• The need to support social and behaviour change that protects, promotes and supports reduced workloads for women, breastfeeding, complementary feeding, improved dietary diversity, early childhood stimulation and health and hygiene practices, and hence, improvements in the nutritional status of vulnerable populations.

In parallel, we encourage the continued scale-up of high-quality frontline services and delivery capacities across the subnational public sector, including the key sectors of health, education, agriculture, planning and investment, as well as the women’s union. It is the view of our development partners that empowering local authorities to leverage their comparative advantages to understanding local needs, identifying priorities and mobilising local resources will contribute significantly to the achievement of Lao PDR’s nutrition targets in order to “leave no one behind.”