The Government of Timor-Leste, through the Task Force to Combat Stunting (UNMICS), in collaboration with UNICEF, launched the Multisectoral Nutrition Dashboard and Knowledge Management Repository of the National Multisectoral Action Plan to Combat Stunting 2024–2030 (PANKOS, in its Tetum acronym) in Dili on August 28th, 2026. The repository supports monitoring, planning, budgeting, and decision-making in nutrition.
The launch ceremony was attended by Flávio Brandão Mendes de Araújo, the Vice-Minister for Hospital Operations, who represented the Vice Prime Minister, Coordinating Minister for Social Affairs, and Minister of Rural Development and Community Housing, Mariano Assanami Sabino.
The PANKOS Dashboard was developed as a national tool to regularly monitor indicators for interventions by the various sectors responsible for nutrition. The platform will enable tracking of established targets, progress in implementing measures, budget allocations and execution, existing data gaps, and follow-up actions.
The system forms part of the implementation of the National Multisectoral Action Plan to Combat Stunting 2024–2030, approved by the Council of Ministers in November 2025. It aims to strengthen the use of data in planning, monitoring, and evaluating interventions to reduce stunting and other forms of malnutrition.
During the launch, UNMICS Executive Director Joel Maria Pereira emphasised the need for a coordinated response across sectors: “Today, global trends indicate that efforts to reduce malnutrition are most effective when implemented through integrated, multisectoral intervention mechanisms, rather than through fragmented approaches. Each sector must clearly define its priorities, allocate adequate budgetary resources, and monitor progress in implementing these priority investments to reduce malnutrition.”
UNMICS also intends to gradually roll out the PANKOS Multisectoral Nutrition Dashboard to the municipalities as part of the decentralisation process, to support municipal authorities in setting priorities, planning, allocating resources, and monitoring interventions to combat malnutrition.
The Vice-Minister of Health for Hospital Operations emphasised that the Dashboard serves as a tool to support the coordination and monitoring of actions carried out by ministries, institutions, organisations, and the private sector.
“The launch of the PANKOS Dashboard reaffirms the commitment of the Government, UNICEF, and partners to strengthen the monitoring and accountability system, with the aim of ensuring effective, data-driven nutrition interventions and contributing to a future in which all children can grow, develop, and fully reach their potential, free from stunting and malnutrition,” stated Flávio Brandão Mendes de Araújo.
The UNICEF Representative in Timor-Leste, Patrizia DiGiovanni, also highlighted the Dashboard’s role in multisectoral coordination, monitoring, and evaluation of nutrition policy outcomes. UNICEF supported the platform’s development, in collaboration with UNMICS, CONSSAN-TL, and relevant ministries and institutions, through technical assistance, harmonisation of indicators, data organisation, and capacity building.
Representatives of various ministries and public institutions, United Nations agencies, development partners, civil society organisations, and the private sector attended the launch.
Regular use and updating of the PANKOS Dashboard will enable monitoring of the 2024–2030 National Multisectoral Action Plan and help identify progress and gaps in interventions to combat stunting and other forms of malnutrition across Timor-Leste.