Turkmenistan adopts the national nutrition programme for 2020-2025

UNICEF welcomes Turkmenistan’s adoption of the National Programme on Healthy Nutrition of the Population for 2020-2025 and its Action Plan that will contribute to the socio-economic wellbeing of the country and to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Developed with technical support of UNICEF and WHO, the National Programme on Nutrition aims at strengthening health and preventing nutrition-related non-communicable diseases.

The National Programme will support Turkmenistan’s efforts in reorienting the health system to prevention, social mobilization, and close inter-sectoral interaction to address the issue of healthy nutrition of the population. The coherence of policies and strategies in health care, education, social support, agriculture, food industry, food security and all other relevant sectors are key points of the programme.

The Nutrition Programme analyzes the nutrition status of children and adults by highlighting key nutrition and health-related indicators, such as rates of breastfeeding, anaemia and micronutrient deficiency prevalence, obesity, stunting and wasting figures, also used for monitoring of SDGs targets. It sets a number of priorities for the Government and stakeholders to improve the nutrition status of citizens. Among these priorities are advocacy and awareness-raising on healthy diets, healthcare system strengthening to prevent alimentary-dependent diseases, ensuring adequate nutrition for pregnant women and children, prevention of obesity and nutrition-dependent non-communicable diseases, and sustainable supply of safe and healthy food products.

The new National Programme on Nutrition stems from the 2013-2017 programme and its evaluation. The evaluation findings suggested that the country should strengthen cooperation in the Programme implementation at all levels; increase access and affordability of food and nutrition services, including nutrition for children and mothers; ensure strict control of food quality and safety; support food production as per standards; continue research on healthy nutrition in the context of the country, and train specialists.