Abbreviated Report of the WHO Western Pacific Region Workshop on National Plans of Action for Nutrition: Key Elements for Success, Constraints and Future Plans

A workshop on National Plans of Action for Nutrition: Constraints, Key Elements for Success, and Future Plans was convened and organized by the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific in collaboration with the Institute for Medical Research Malaysia and co sponsored with FAO and UNICEF from 25—29 October 1999. It was attended by representatives of 25 countries in the region and resource persons, representatives from WHO and other international agencies. The objectives of the workshop were to review the progress of countries in developing, implementing and monitoring national plans of action for nutrition (NPANs) in the Western Pacific Region and to identify constraints and key elements of success in these efforts. Most of the countries have NPANs, either approved and implemented or awaiting official endorsement. The Plan formulation is usually multisectoral, involving several government ministries, non governmental organizations, and international agencies. Often official adoption or endorsement of the Plan comes from the head of state and cabinet or the minister of health, one to six years from the start of its formulation. The NPAN has stimulated support for the development and implementation of nutrition projects and activities, with comparatively greater involvement of and more support from government ministries, UN agencies and non-governmental agencies compared to local communities, bilateral and private sectors and research and academic institutions. Monitoring and evaluation are important components of NPANs. They are, however, not given high priority and often not built into the plan. The role of an intersectoral coordinating body is considered crucial to a country's nutrition program. Most countries have an intersectoral structure or coordinating body to ensure the proper implementation, monitoring and evaluation of their NPANs. The workshop identified the constraints and key elements of success in each of the four stages of the NPAN process: development, operationalization, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. Constraints to the NPAN process relate to the political and socioeconomic environment, resource scarcity, control and management processes, and factors related to sustainability. The group's review of NPAN identified successful NPANs as those based on recent, adequate and good quality information on the nutritional situation of the country, and on the selection of strategies, priorities and interventions that are relevant to the country and backed up by adequate resources. Continued high level political commitment, a multisectoral approach, and adequate participation of local communities are other key elements for success. The participants agreed on future actions and support needed from various sources for the further development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of their NPANs. The recommendations for future actions were categorized into actions pertaining to countries with working NPAN, actions for countries without working NPAN and actions relevant to all countries. There was also a set of suggested actions at the regional level, such as holding of regular regional NPAN evaluation meetings, inclusion of NPAN on the agenda of regional fora by the regional organizations, and strengthening of regional nutrition networks.

Results and Future Plan of JT-60U towards Steady-State Tokamak Reactor

Recent results of JT-60U towards establishment of physics basis for ITER andadvanced tokamak operation are presented. Progress in high integrated performance is achieved withimprovement of N-NB and ECRF heating systems. In the next experimental campaign 2003～2004,discharge duration with 17 MW heating will be extended up to 30s for sustaining high-beta plasmalonger than the current diffusion time. Superconducting modification of JT-60 is planned todemonstrate high-beta plasma sustainment exceeding ideal MHD instability limit without wallstabilization.

TEDA(Tianjin Economic-technological Development Area)——A General Survey, Experience and the Plan for Future Development.

Since its establishment about ten years ago, TEDA has taken advantage of eachopportune time created by China’s policy of opening wider and wider to the outsideworld and the rapid economic growth to deepen its reform and extend its exploitation,and thus has maintained a favorable momentum and an extraordinary high speed foreconomic development. With the total economic output of the whole area raised to

Standardized Management Outlined in Future Response to Emergency Plan

The General Office of the State Council released the 13th Five-Year Plan for China's National Emergency System Construction(Plan for short).According to the Plan,China's emergency management laws and regulations and standards system need to be further improved and the basic capabilities of emergency management should continue to be enhanced.

Towards truly integrated modeling and observing of marine ice sheets

Understanding the current and future stability of Antarctica’s ice shelves is critical for assessing the potential for rapid sea level rise emanating from Antarctica’s marine ice sheets.The acceleration in ocean-driven mass loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet(Shepherd et al.,2018)is one such focus for intense research interest.The scale and urgency in understanding ocean-driven Antarctic mass loss motivates better integration and cooperation between modelers and observational