increase the rate of exclusive breastfeeding to at least 75% by 2025

Priority actions:

Health system

Scale-up the implementation of baby friendly hospital and community initiatives and include kangaroo mother care for small and sick neonates (BFCI).

Advocacy and creating awareness through global/national events that promote MIYCN e.g. world breastfeeding week, world food day, nutrition week, world premature day, malezi bora.

Promote optimal complementary feeding (6 -23 months) and integrate IYCN initiatives in early childhood development and multisectoral platforms between MOH and line

ministries (all).

Promote work place support initiatives for women to combine work and breastfeeding both in formal and informal sector.

Integrate MIYCN interventions into ECD initiatives.

Develop/review policies, standards and guidelines in line with the international standards, conventions and global commitments on MIYCN (MIYCN policy, strategy and training packages, feeding preterm and lowbirth weight guidelines, MIYCN-E operational guidance, BMS Act regulations and training curiculum) and disseminate to frontline health workers, monitor implementation and evaluate policy performance and impact.

Strengthen mechanisms for implementation and monitoring and enforcement of the international Code and enforcement of the Breastmilk Substitute Act and regulations on unhealthy foods to minimize harmful effects to children due to inappropriate marketing.

Strengthen capacity of frontline health workers on MIYCN interventions.

Strengthen MIYCN information systems for decision making and growth monitoring and promotion for children under 2 years.

Food System

Promote technologies and strengthen food value chains that aim to improve the availability, affordability and consumption of health and nutritious diets including dark green leafy vegetables, biofortified staples and tubers, underutilized indigenous and climate resilient crops and livestock.

Promote biofortification of potential food crops using conventional breeding techniques as part of food security and resilience agricultural strategies to improve diets of vulnerable rural communities that rely heavily on few staples.

Improve storage capacity, post-harvest loss management, distribution, transport infrastructure and value addition and minimal processing to improve household food access to healthy and nutritious diets at all times. Activity to be integrated with of nutrition education.

Improve production and market access for diverse nutritious foods, including improving post-harvest loss management, storage, distribution and transport infrastructure.

Improve agriculture income to enhance dietary diversity including value addition of crop and livestock products; and integration of nutrition education in agribusiness programmes.

Promote livelihoods diversification to improve climate resilience of livestock and crop dependent communities and households.

Improve analysis, decision-making and response as well as the design of nutrition sensitive interventions; including evidence generation for nutrition sensitive programming.

Social Protection

Integrate nutrition interventions in cash and in-kind transfers