Nepal’s Nutrition and Food Safety Policy: Key Pathways to Promote Women’s and Children’s Health

Background and Purposes

Through the project, we hope to bring togather Chinese and Nepalese experts, scholars, as well as students specializing in nutrition and food safety, public health management, and health policies, to work hand in hand to explore key pathways in promoting Nepalese women’s and children’s health well-being.  From the perspective of public health management and health policies, the project team will focus on how to improve nutrition and food safety by identifying the weaknesses in current policies based on the findings of the research on local people’s health.

In the meantime, the project is supported by the Medical Center for Active Health and Evidence-based Decisions in Healthcare under SJTU School of Public Health (SoPH) and the international exchange platform of SJTU. . By initiating multifaceted cooperation and various projectsin public health and health policies with Nepal, the SoPH seeks to nurture excellent Chinese and Nepalese doctoral candidates and international students specializing in nutrition and food safety and health policies, help them develop global vision for a community with a shared future for mankind and encourage them to get involved in cultural exchanges under the strategic “Belt and Road Initiative”.

General outline

Theproject team will make use of what has been achieved in previous cooperation with with the Nepalese authorities and Kathmandu University in 2019 to conduct further research with big data on evidence-based decision-making in nutrition and food safety policies for women’s and children’s health . Chinese and Nepalese teams will identify what problems in relevant policies in Nepal hamper the efforts to improve women’s and children’s health based on the findings of field research and on-site interviews; then they will help improve local nutrition and food safety policies by addressing such problems.

Management Guidelines

1. Establishing a special team to watch project progress. A project team of up to 10 people will be established, members including Chinese and Nepalese coordinators, core experts, researchers, and students.  Every member has his or her own role to play and should work jointly whenever necessary. A team of Chinese and Nepalese students will also be formed, comprised of a Nepalese doctoral candidate specializing in nutrition and food safety and a Chinese doctoral candidate and two Chinese graduate students specializing in social medicine and health management. The Nepalese student will participate in the topic development and implementation, manage field research and interviews in Nepal, and contribute to data analysis and policy research.

2. Establishing a project management mechanism. Making a plan for phased discussions on project progress; creating a regular project reporting mechanism for project progress, personnel deployment, supplies preparation, and evidence-based project progression and provide any support needed in each phase of the project.