Kampala, 18th February 2015- Uganda hosted the Regional Meeting on Accelerating Nutrition Improvements (ANI) in Africa  that reviewed implementation status of the project from the 11 participating countries. At the same time, delegates analyzed and documented successes, challenges and lessons learned in addition to mapping ways of accelerating delivery of all targets by December 2015 when the project ends.

Opening the meeting, Uganda’s Director General of Health Services Dr Jane Ruth Aceng underscored the centrality of nutrition in health care delivery noting that "nutrition is a social and economic determinant of health that must be always be prioritized". 

She gave the example of Uganda that has developed the Uganda Nutrition Action Plan 2011-2016 to guide interventions that address to under-nutrition as well as the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Initiative.

Echoing the same sentiments, Dr Francesco Branca, Director of Nutrition for Health and Development at WHO/HQ, appreciated the concerted efforts of the different countries to improve nutrition. He highlighted the burden of under-nutrition in counties and appreciated Africa for taking the initiative to address the problems. The ANI project that focuses on strengthening nutrition surveillance and scaling up of evidence-based nutrition interventions in three countries is one of these initiatives.

The WHO Country Representative, Dr. Wondimagegnehu Alemu commended Uganda for tackling nutrition at the highest level and for prioritizing nutrition. “Malnutrition is a public health concern in sub-Saharan Africa that calls for urgent actions and interventions such as ANI”, he said.

Overall, the delegates emphasised the need for capacity building in districts, province or regions to be able to assess, analyze and use information for decision-making, planning and implementation of nutrition programs. The delegates were nutrition experts from WHO and governments of Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Zambia, Senegal, Rwanda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Sierra Leone.

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1. Dr. Francesco Branca Director Nutrition Department WHO Geneva delivering his remarks

2. The delegates at the ANI Regional meeting

3. The WHO Country Rep. Dr. Alemu with Director General of Health Services Dr. Ruth Aceng at the opening of the ANI Regional Meeting.

4. WHO Uganda  Nutrition expert Dr. Pricilla Ravonimanantsoa and Ministry of Health’s Agnes Baku Chandia at the meeting