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Table 1 Summary of policy strengths and opportunities to strengthen policy support across the region

From: Opportunities for strengthening infant and young child feeding policies in South Asia: Insights from the SAIFRN policy analysis project

Themes and subthemes

Bangladesh

India

Nepal

Pakistan

Sri Lanka

Opportunities to strengthen policy support

R – Robust policy support; E – Emerging policy support; O – Opportunity to strengthen policy supporta

 General support for infant and young child feeding

- Clear strategic mandates for cross-sectoral action and collaboration on IYCF

- Role definition in areas of shared IYCF responsibilities

- Improved policy support for monitoring and evaluation

- Specific support for complementary feeding

- IYCF as development priority (e.g. in National Development Plans)

R

R

R

R

R

- Provisions for multisectoral coordination, at whole-of-government level

R

E

R

E

R

- Strategic policy support for monitoring and evaluation

O

O

O

O

R

- High level (i.e. whole-of-government level) support for breastfeeding

R

R

R

E

R

- High level (i.e. whole-of-government level) support for complementary feeding

E

O

E

E

E

 Provision of correct information to mothers/caregivers

- Consistent references to agreed messages regarding IYCF, especially complementary feeding, within policy documents

- Consistent and comprehensive IYCF messaging

R

R

R

R

R

- Policy support for counselling

R

R

R

R

R

- Restrictions on information provision by actors with vested interests

R

R

R

E

R

 Training of frontline workersb in IYCF

- More integration of complementary feeding modules into training

- Coordination and standard for training

- Monitoring and evaluation of training

- Comprehensive cross-sectoral support for training

E

R

E

E

R

- Detail on implementation of coordinated training

E

O

E

O

R

 Enabling mothers/caregivers to engage with best practice interventions

- Maternity leave for non-government workforce

- Ongoing enhancement of rural and urban access to health systems that are equipped to deliver IYCF intervention

- Provisions for maternity leave

E

E

E

E

R

- Other forms of support for working mothers (e.g. creches)

E

O

E

O

E

- Community-based support for caregivers to engage with best-practice interventions

E

R

R

E

O

 Other

- Potential to continue to adapt global recommendations to address specific national and sub-national challenges (e.g. particular vulnerable groups), and to engage with relevant policies from other sectors

- Food security and dietary diversity

R

R

R

E

R

- Policy support for equity

E

E

R

E

R

  1. Sources: [28,29,30,31,32]
  2. aThe level of policy support was then summarized as Robust, Emerging or an Opportunity to strengthen policy support, based on the level of content in policy documents and level of translation into operational/implementation level documents
  3. bWe have used the term ‘Frontline workers’ to refer to those engaging with mothers and caregivers