ReliefWeb

The Philippines has an estimated 95.8 million population spread across the 17 regions. The archipelagic nature of the country makes it susceptible to various natural disasters. However, there is now a strong recognition and awareness that climate change and the destruction of natural resources bring to the fore an even grave problem that needs immediate and integrated action from the Government and multilateral agencies.

Economic growth in the country in 2011 was slow and erratic. The most recent estimates of poverty would show that little, if any, improvements in certain regions of the country happened over the past 7 years. Poor and very poor access to food remains far higher in rural households.

Nutritional problems in the country are marked by undernutrition and overnutrition existing alongside one another. However, national surveys on selected nutrition and health indicators show that undernutrition is a more serious concern. Both adults and children suffer the consequences of energy deficits and nutrient deficiency disorders. Much still needs to be done to provide access to health services and to effect behavior change and instill health seeking behavior among various age groups.

The Philippine Food and Nutrition Security Atlas (PFNSA) provides a political and physical map of an initial analysis of trends and the most recent available data of selected determinants of food security and malnutrition, including food production and imports, economic access to food, food consumption and utilization and relevant social parameters. The PFNSA indicators provided a picture of the national, regional and provincial situation. PFNSA is built around the indicators used by the National Government. It is deemed that this would contribute in building the geographical database targeted to help policy makers, national government agencies, local government units, non-government organizations, researchers, and interest groups in planning, deciding on the most appropriate intervention and allocating the finite resources to where the most vulnerable are.

Note: the atlas has 57 pages.