Reduce stunting in children under 5 years of age

Statement of the LAO PDR

The Government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic and the Partners in Development including Donors, UN agencies, Civil Society, Businesses and Academia will enhance efforts in implementing the National Nutrition Strategy 2025 and Plan of Action 2021-2025 and as specified in the 10th Five-Year National Socio Economic Development Plan (NSEDP) for Lao PDR to become ''A prosperous country, with a healthy population, free from food insecurity, malnutrition and poverty''

At this the Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit (N4G), we all acknowledge:

1. While we have made significant progress, malnutrition continues to be an important social and economic development issue. Investing in nutrition will play a key role in achieving targets of the 10th National Socio-Economic Development Plan and is recommended to graduate in 2026 from the Least Developed Country Category.

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

3. The urgent need to get the most needed nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive priority interventions on the government budget to ensure the continued delivery of basic nutrition services even within the limited fiscal space available;

4. Our actions must be informed by evidence; of what works, of what has the greatest potential for impact within the context of Lao PDR and to assist in identifying target geographic areas and target groups;

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

In parallel we encourage the continued scaling-up of front-line quality services and delivery capacities across the whole spectrum of the sub-national public sector, including the key sectors of health, education, agriculture, planning and investment and the women's union. It is the Development Partners strong view that empowering local authorities to put their comparative advantages to understanding local needs, identifying priorities and mobilizing local resources would contribute significantly to the achievement of Laos nutrition targets in order to 'leave no one behind' in the Lao PDR.