Organizers
African Union Commission, UNICEF and World Health Organization
Date
9 November 2022
Time
12:00 pm Brazzaville ║14:00 pm Nairobi║13:00 pm Johannesburg║12:00 pm Geneva & Rome ║11:00 am Accra & Dakar
Languages
English, French and Portuguese
Background
Despite of the huge benefits of breastfeeding, according to the recent estimates from the Global Breastfeeding Scorecard 2021, 27 African countries have exclusive breastfeeding rates below the 50% WHA target for 2025. Changes in lifestyle and weak regulatory measures for breastfeeding protection pose a risk to the attainment and maintenance of the targeted minimum rate (50%). In sum, a lot remains to be done to achieve the WHA global targets for 2025. To reach the target, strengthening of regulatory controls and programs that support and protect breastfeeding is urgently needed.
The African Union’s (AU) Year of Nutrition (2022) provides a golden opportunity to scale up breastfeeding on the continent through multisectoral approaches, investment and systemic changes. The platform provided by AU can provide the required policy commitments and drive to improve breastfeeding, child, and mother health across the continent.
Key topics such as maternity leave, marketing of breastmilk substitutes, and increase breastfeeding skill support needs to be addressed to increase exclusive breastfeeding and reach the WHA global nutrition target. In this webinar, African countries will share how they have worked to improve breastfeeding rates through these topics and how they have solved them in their country contexts.
Objective of the webinar
- Share country progress, experiences and implementation of maternity leave, the international code of marketing of breastmilk substitutes, and breastfeeding skill support.
- Encouraging AU member to implement and monitor the Code of marketing breastmilk substitutes, move forward with initiatives supporting breastfeeding and extend maternity leave to 14-18 weeks to improve exclusive breastfeeding rates in the region. As stated by the International Labour Organization (ILO) Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 (No. 183)
- Build a platform to share knowledge, learning points and build network around breastfeeding.
This webinar is part of the African Union Year of Nutrition: Strengthening Resilience in Nutrition and Food Security on the African Continent: Strengthening Agro-Food Systems, Health and Social Protection Systems for the Acceleration of Human, Social and Economic Capital Development.
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