UNICEF in action
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© UNICEF_Sri Lanka/2006 |
UNICEF works closely with the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Child Development & Women’s Affairs and professional bodies at national level, as well as local authorities such as Regional Directors of Health Services (RDHS) and civil society organizations.
Main activities include:
Support to strengthen the Integrated Nutrition Package (INP) initiative to provide comprehensive interventions to overcome the problems of under nutrition and anaemia among children and women through:
• Improving the capacity of health professionals to provide preventive and curative nutritional services.
• Social mobilization and community empowerment to support appropriate nutrition practices.
• Strengthening the national and sub-national capacity in evidence based planning and monitoring.
Improve the quality of Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health through:
• Improving the capacity of health professionals in essential new born care, new born life support and emergency obstetric care.
• Strengthening the expanded programme of immunisation.
• Social mobilization and community empowerment.
• Integrating Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission (PMTCT) services in the an antenatal care package and organising life-skills trainings for adolescents.
Provide an integrated spectrum of health services to returnee and host communities through:
• Building additional health infrastructures and renovating health care institutions.
• Strengthening national and sub-national capacity available to provide quality basic maternal and child health and nutrition services in resettlement areas.
• Strengthening national and sub-national capacity available to provide timely responds to the needs of women and children in a possible emergency situation.
Key Achievements 2009-2010
Fighting malnutrition
• Contributed to decreasing the level of acute malnutrition by 62% between May and December 2009 among IDP children under five.
• Contributed to the reduction of the number of underweight children in Badulla district (estate sector) from 32.8% in 2007 to 22.8% in 2009.
Infrastructure and equipment
• Re/construction of 10 rural primary health care facilities (GHC), 3 paediatric wards, 1 mother and 1 new born care unit, 1 lactation management centre, 4 maternity wards and 2 labour rooms in conflict affected areas.
• Provision of mopeds, motor cycles and vehicles for 100 health staff to expand Maternal and Child Health (MCH) services in the East.
Training and community mobilisation
• Formation of 200 mothers’ groups through active mobilisation of village peer leaders.
• 36,000 mothers gained and improved their knowledge of Infant and Young Child Feeding practices.
• Over 80 training of trainers programmes and 1,870 community facilitators trainded in Early Childhood Development.
• Trained 90 Master Trainers and more than 200 staff in Emergency Obstetric Care and labour room management.
• Trained 60 trainers and nearly 1500 staff on the Integrated Nutrition Programme.
Malnutrition
UNICEF's assessment of malnutrition in Sri Lanka
