If every child was as strong as Everest, what could our Nepal be? With this theme to bring awareness on nutritious food to instigate behavioral changes in Nepal, Baliyo Nepal Nutrition Initiatives (BNNI) aim to reduce stunting from existing 36% to 15%. working closely with the National Planning Commission’s (NPC) Multi Sector Nutrition Plan (MSNP) -2 and support from several private sector partners. Popularly called, Baliyo Nepal, BNNI is building a national movement focused towards improving the nutrition of young children in the country.
Working to reduce stunting and other issues of malnutrition in children between 6 months to 23 months with an awareness campaign is what BNNI is currently focusing on, while ensuring the food with nutrition is consumed in order to reach their potential. The role of BNNI is to create a demand for nutritional foods via our awareness campaign that will be initiated from Province 5 and will be executed nationwide in collaboration with the wider private sectors of Nepal and engaging the entire nation.
BNNI is different
Baliyo Nepal is a game-changing project, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation via Chaudhary Foundation and executed by BNNI, to be an example of how to harness the best of responsible businesses in the global fight against malnutrition.
It is aimed at producing a long term, sustainable solution for Nepal through innovation and collaboration with private sector partners to develop a movement by mobilizing and uniting all the forces that can contribute to end malnutrition: government, private sector, multilateral organizations, civil society and the people of Nepal.
One of the most effective routes to acquire sustainable impact at scale is to develop win-win partnerships with the private sector and this is our primary focus. If the private sector benefits from participating in a project that contributes to reduce nutritional deficiencies, they will sustain their efforts in time, and scale them, hence making a bigger impact.
Baliyo Nepal focuses to expand the eggs and fortified porridge markets by making these products more accessible, available and affordable to lower income population thus increasing the market penetration of these products as well as consumption frequency.
Besides this, the organization plans to build a Baliyo basket of foods as the long term focus to which would comprise of various food products rich in nutritional values for the adult population further aiding our movement of fighting against malnutrition.
What Baliyo Nepal does?
As mentioned earlier in this article, Baliyo Nepal wants to create a movement for better nutrition with the aim of engaging the entire nation via both national and grass-root level programs, namely to
- Trigger behavioral change in the food consumption habits of the target population,
- Establish higher nutritional standards with the aim of creating a shift in the food industry, and
- Create a “Baliyo Nepal” brand with the aim of increasing consumer demand for better and improved
Baliyo Nepal: The movement
The movement, Baliyo Nepal, was officially launched by the Rt. Hon. President of Nepal on November 01, 2019 which envisages a collective approach that aims to tackle malnutrition. They are working with 12 companies (5 food and 7 non-food) to bring their movement alive and achieve common goal of tackling the adverse effect of malnutrition and promotion of nutritional foods.
The sole purpose of BNNI’s on ground activation is to increase awareness of masses on the benefits of right nutrition to the children and the family and the impact of increased intake of nutritional food to the development of children and them reaching their potential.
BNNI & the partnership
The Baliyo Nepal movement strategizes in the long term partnership to aid the national drive to mitigate the risk of malnutrition which would in turn create a generation of well-nourished children who will be able to reach their full potential.
In overall, there would be a more productive workforce as malnutrition does not only affect the individual, which is mostly irreversible after the age of 2, but also robs the nation and the organizations from having a better equipped human resource.
The movement of Baliyo Nepal, in line with the Multi Sector Nutrition Plan (MSNP) – II, a government initiative to tackle malnutrition, also allows the country to plug the hole on the loss of 2-3 % of GDP, approx. USD 250 to 375 million annually in Nepal on account of vitamin and mineral deficiencies alone, which is significant given the size and budget of a developing country such as Nepal.
Baliyo 11 campaign: Province 5 Activation Program
Lumbini Pradesh (Province 5) is one of Baliyo Nepal’s working area where the organization is going to run their Baliyo 11 campaign starting November 16th, 2020. BNNI has figured out that five key programs aimed at their goal of addressing nutritional issues in the country.
- FCHV Skill Development Program
Training FCHV on story telling skills to disseminate BNNI nutrition awareness messages to mothers group and community. Up to 600 FCHVs from 20 selected municipalities in Province 5 will be trained on message dissemination in the Mothers Group meeting and to the community and BNNI will provide flipbooks as a medium for FCHV to spread the message on nutrition and benefits of nutritious food. - School Activation Program
- Nutrition Awareness Program
Activities in schools about nutrition and importance of nutritious foods, ways of cooking nutritious foods, kits distribution and other miscellaneous activities. The program will be held in 40 schools of 20 selected municipalities on Province 5 that would highlight the importance of nutritious foods for physical and cognitive development of students to achieve their potential. - Young Talent Development Program
Selection of Baliyo 11 district team to participate in Province Level cricket tournament from Province 5 highlighting importance of nutrition in sports via media and use of influencers for promoting it.
- Nutrition Awareness Program
- Media Activation Program
Radio drama airing in local channels with interactive sessions at the end and radio competition for community engagement will be done. The radio drama will focus on aspiration of achieving their true potential by children who consume nutritious food. The radio drama will revolve around Nepali children who have consumed nutritious foods during their development phase and are participating in Cricket World Cup final 2039 with the aim of winning it. - Retailer Activation Program
Branding of Baliyo shops with BNNI collaterals highlighting the importance of nutrition and benefits of nutritious foods. Retailers play a critical role in influencing people to purchase nutritious foods and therefore play a vital role as dream keepers of the Baliyo dream that would allow BNNI to instigate behavior change of people in towards purchasing of nutritious foods. - Pasni Program
Pasni program at household or community level for Baliyo kids and is a symbolic recruitment of Baliyo bacha that would compete in World Cup Cricket 2039. Pasni kits will be distributed to 1,000 children under this program.
Going thru the key strategies and goals of the Baliyo Nepal Nutrition Initiatives, tackling the issue of malnutrition in early stage of growth and development of the young children means filling that gap in the GDP and addressing towards achieving a healthy and prosperous population.
We, at Health News Nepal (HNN), team would like to thank the Baliyo Nepal team for such a good initiative and looking forward to covering more outputs in the future.
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