Malnutrition has continued to a big challenge across the country, but one that can be addressed within the next five years. Uganda has already invested some resources in the fight against malnutrition over the past years. More than before, the country has recruited qualified nutrition specialists in 10 (out of 13) regional referral hospitals and in 14 (out of 39) district general hospitals. Despite all these achievements, there are still over 16,000 children born underweight (less than 2.5kg). Nearly half of our women have anaemia and the nutrition experts have projected 15,000 mothers will die of anaemia related causes by 2015. Malnutrition contributes to a loss of about 4.1 percent of our Gross Domestic Product annually.
This is too costly for us to ignore. Uganda Health Communication Alliance (UHCA) therefore in collaboration with FANTA 2 project a USAID funded programme in Uganda held a media capacity building on nutrition reporting.
The workshop was attended by media house representatives from different parts of the country and Kampala based and the topics below were discussed.
- Basic Nutrition
- Priority nutrition issues in Uganda
- Undernutrition: underweight (children and women), wasting (children, HIV infected persons) and stunting (children)
- Micronutrient deficiencies: Vitamin A Deficiency, Iodine deficiency disorders, iron deficiency,other antioxidants
- Overnutrition: overweight and obesity, Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), HIV and AIDS
- Institutional, Policy and Legal Frameworks for nutrition
- Strengthening partnerships between the media and nutrition professionals
- What makes nutrition news worthy?
- Reporting skills (developing nutrition stories
including negotiating with the editors, targeting sources of
information, etc)
- Handling feedback from various stakeholders.
o Health workers
o Project staff
o Government Leaders
o Media Managers
o Listeners/ Readers and Viewers.
- Sources and contacts of reliable nutrition information in Uganda
- Challenges faced in nutrition reporting and means of overcoming them-way forward
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