Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) are jointly organizing a webinar on Nutrition in Emergencies (NIE): Challenges, Gaps and Good Practices with the theme “Saving Lives and Building Better Resilient Communities through Effective Initiatives in Nutrition in Emergencies during COVID-19”, with support from Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), on Friday, 5 November 2021 from 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm (BKK Time).

The webinar aims to encourage and advocate communities and leaders to support NIE preparedness and response initiatives in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous situations.

The webinar will showcase good practices on NIE employed by different organizations/governments in coping with disasters, disease outbreaks, and beyond.

As malnutrition and stunting aggravate susceptibility to childhood illnesses and have a significant impact on brain development. Obesity, another form of malnutrition, also increasingly affects young children due to unhealthy diet and feeding practices.

An inability to respond to these issues early on could bring about lifelong growth, functions, and well-being to a limited neural substrate.

The webinar will help identify further pressing nutrition issues that will springboard to building back better NIE initiatives in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment.

The COVID-19 pandemic – a public health mobility and development crisis has put all populations at higher risk exacerbating more inequalities and vulnerabilities, and governments and stakeholders globally were unprepared.

Innovative approaches to nutrition education, mental health, and psychosocial support, risk communications and community engagement, understanding gender roles in nutrition programming, access to safety nets, digitalization of information dissemination, and knowledge sharing of innovative ideas, good practices are most important during the pandemic.

The webinar discussion will focus on learning about the actual challenges, gaps, and good practices on Nutrition in Emergencies (NIE) initiatives. Our distinguished speakers from the field will share, bringing into light the challenges and solutions and how governments and partners respond innovatively to vulnerable groups during COVID-19.

View and download the high resolution webinar poster here.

Mr. Hans Guttman, ADPC’s Executive Director, Ms. Anusara Singhkumarwong, United Nations World Food Programme, will deliver the welcome remarks. Mr. Aslam Perwaiz, ADPC’s Deputy Executive Director, will deliver the closing remarks, and Dr. Yvonette Serrano Duque, Senior Public Health Specialist at ADPC, will moderate the webinar.

Webinar Speakers who will share their expertise and experiences include:

• Katiuscia Fara, Senior Climate and Disaster Risk Reduction Advisor, United Nation’s World Food Programme
• Getinet Babu Amenu, Global Senior Humanitarian Nutrition Advisor, World Vision International (WVI)
• Prof. Emeritus Corazon Barba, Ph.D., Institute of Human Nutrition and Food, University of the Philippines (UP)
• Mr. Sanjay Kumar Das, UNICEF Myanmar
• Mr. Bijoy Sarker, SMART Regional Advisor – Asia, Action Against Hunger/Action contre la faim (ACF)
• Dr. Martin Parreno, Programme Policy Officer, UNWFP Philippines
• Mr. Janevit Wisojsongkram, Deputy Director, Foundation for Older Persons’ Development (FOPDEV) Thailand

Register via Zoom here.

The webinar will provide valuable insights for health/nutrition/food security officers, program managers, advocates, and ADPC alumni working on NIE initiatives, and others on how to manage nutrition interventions during COVID-19 including volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous situations thereby saving lives and building better resilient communities.

This webinar is one of the knowledge dissemination initiatives targeting urban resilience under the "Urban Resilience to Climate Extremes (URCE) in Southeast Asia" program implemented by ADPC under the aegis of Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).

Click here to see the agenda for the webinar.