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Food and Nutrition
Nutrition and Food Security
Ensuring that people have access to adequate food and safe water is essential for protecting the safety, health and well-being of refugees and other populations of concern. For this reason, UNHCR strives to improve the nutritional status of all the people it serves - mostly women and children.
The right to freedom from hunger and malnutrition is also backed by international conventions, as is the right to the highest standards of health and health care. Moreover, the goals of ensuring that forcibly displaced people have access to adequate health services, food security, water and improved nutrition are included in UNHCR's Global Strategic Objectives for 2008-2012.
The UN refugee agency works to achieve these targets, as well as the goal of ensuring international nutrition standards for all people of concern, through strategic funding and by working in partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) and other governmental and non-governmental partners.
UNHCR, which is the lead agency in coordinating refugee nutrition, has also identified essential packages to improve services for populations in need in the areas of nutrition and micronutrients as well as related areas such as reproductive health, malaria and child survival.
In addition, greater emphasis and resources are being put into building the capacity of UNHCR and its partners through training, standard guidelines, strategic plans and additional staffing, coordination and appropriate programme practices.
There is a clear link between nutrition and public health. Communicable diseases brought on in part by malnutrition are responsible for millions of preventable deaths each year. Mass population movements can result in high rates of malnutrition, sickness and death. Shortage of food also makes people more vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation. For those UNHCR serves who are living with chronic illnesses, in particular HIV/AIDS, adequate nutrition is vital in maintaining an individual's immune system.
UNHCR monitors the nutrition of people of concern through the Health Information System, regular surveys and nutrition-related databases.
Acute Malnutrition
- Community-based management of severe acute malnutrition: A joint statement by the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition and the United Nations Children's Fund
- Nutrition Niger: Taking action against acute malnutrition
- Acute Malnutrition in Protracted Refugee Situations: A Global Strategy UNHCR/WFP
- SCN Nutrition Policy Paper No. 21: WHO, UNICEF, and SCN Informal Consultation on Community-Based Management of Severe Malnutrition Management of Severe Malnutrition in Children
- Communicable diseases and severe food shortage situations
Food Security and Nutrition Assessments
- UNHCR/WFP Joint Assessment Mission (JAM) Guidelines, 2nd edition
- Malnutrition and Micronutrient Deficiencies Among Bhutanese Refugee Children, Nepal, 2007
- UNHCR/WFP Workplan 2007
- Report of UNHCR/WFP Joint Assessment Mission: Assistance to Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal (29 May-9 June 2006)
- Reproductive Health Services for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons
Nutrition in Emergencies
- UNHCR/WFP Joint Assessment Mission (JAM) Guidelines, 2nd edition
- Nutrition Survey
- Malnutrition and Micronutrient Deficiencies Among Bhutanese Refugee Children, Nepal, 2007
- Guidance on Infant feeding and HIV in the context of refugees and displaced populations April 2008
- Corrigendum to Reproductive Health in Refugee Situations: An Inter Agency Field Manual (UNHCR/WHO/UNFPA) (Corrections to the Inter-agency Field Manual)
Nutrition and HIV
- Guidance on Infant feeding and HIV in the context of refugees and displaced populations April 2008
- Nutrition and HIV/AIDS: Report by the WHO Secretariat
- Integration of HIV/AIDS activities with food and nutrition support in refugee settings: specific programme strategies
- Nutrient requirements for people living with HIV/AIDS: Report of a technical consultation