Philippines

Coordination mechanism: 
The Philippines formally adopted the Cluster Approach in 2007 as a mechanism to help address identified response gaps and ensure quality and coverage of humanitarian action. The National Nutrition Council was formally designated by (DOH) The Department of Health in 2013 as the new chair of the National Nutrition Cluster, composed of partner agencies from government, the United Nations, professional societies, academe, and non-government organizations. Even during the non-disaster phase, the National Nutrition Cluster remains active and oversees the organization of regional and sub-national Nutrition Clusters. A Strategic Core Group (SCG) and four technical working groups (TWG), namely: Philippine Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition (PIMAM WG), Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF WG), Assessment and Monitoring (AM WG), and the Advocacy and Communications (AdComm WG) were organized to support planning, service delivery, and monitoring. The SCG is responsible for decision-making on behalf of the larger group through representation of stakeholder groups. Members of the SCG are the chairpersons of the different TWGs, and UNICEF as cluster co-lead

Year of activation: The National Nutrition Cluster has been active since October 2013. The National Nutrition Cluster remains operational throughout the year and is never formally activated or deactivated.

Coordination arrangement: The National Nutrition Cluster is under the leadership of the (NNC) National Nutrition Council (Government) with UNICEF as the (HCT) Humanitarian Country Team Co-Lead agency. Seventeen (17) Regional Nutrition Clusters have also been organized by the Regional Offices of the National Nutrition Council who also provides technical and operational support to Local Nutrition Councils or Local Nutrition Committees who also serve as the Local Nutrition Clusters during emergencies.

Updating 2023 in Progress

Philippines: Super Typhoon Rai (Odette) Humanitarian Needs and Priorities Revision (Dec 2021 - Jun 2022) (2 Feb 2022) - Philippines | Relief Web

For updating 2023

• Limited human and institutional resource for nutrition at the national and local level.  
• Standing bottlenecks in health and nutrition supply chain
• Health and nutrition Information management limitations.
• Increased demand for system strengthening due to varying and overlapping emergencies (Volcano alerts prolonged volcanic alerts, barrage of Typhoons with flooding, increased rainfall, armed conflict, earthquake and increasing climate and environmental risk)