However, addressing food and nutrition insecurity on the continent requires the full participation of those who are already producing, and promoting an agricultural system based on human rights and food sovereignty through local control over natural resources, seeds, land, water, forests, knowledge and technology.
This is crucial for small-scale women and men farmers, pastoralists, livestock farmers, fisher folks, as well as hunter and gatherer societies. However, African governments’ and international donors’ support to African agriculture increasingly focuses on the extension of corporate-led food and agricultural systems to the detriment of small-scale food producers.
During the 12th Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme Partnership Platform (CAADP PP) held last week with a focus on Innovative Financing and Renewed Partnerships to Accelerate the Implementation of CAADP countries have noted the need to improve access to food and nutrition security information across countries, sectors and actors for enhanced and informed decision making.
Head of Nutrition Department at the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Isatou Jallow said regional Platform is expected to foster evidence-based dialogue and a multi-sectorial approach in information and knowledge sharing among countries and regional stakeholders.
“NEPAD agency embarked on consultative processes with the six countries on the establishment of a food and nutrition security knowledge sharing and monitoring platform in Africa,” she said.
She added that the initiative was aimed at improving the strategic use of data and information on food and nutrition security by enhancing knowledge creation and sharing.
“A Food and Nutrition Security Knowledge-Sharing and Monitoring Platform is an important and unifying tool to promote the generation and use of quality data in planning, monitoring and decision making by different stakeholders and sectors working to ensure food and nutrition security in Africa,” said Jallow,.
According to the consultation, the establishment of the platform is a direct response to the Malabo Declaration on accelerated growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods.
The declaration is an African Union recommitment to the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme Partnership Platform (CAADP PP) and its results framework for Africa’s agricultural transformation and food security agenda in the 2015-2025 decade.
The Declaration and CAADP further emphasize the need for performing systematic mapping, monitoring and evaluation at national and regional levels to establish targets for enhancing food and nutrition security and agriculture and food insecurity management.
The countries consulted include Tanzania, Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Lesotho
According to media reports, Tanzania has one of the world’s highest rates of chronic malnutrition. Measured as stunting (when children are too short for their age), malnutrition affects 42 per cent of children under five.
This rate has fallen only two percentage points since 2005. Malnutrition takes a major toll on human health in the country while chronic malnutrition during the first two years of life leaves children permanently vulnerable to ill health throughout their lives, even if they have better access to food as adults.
Over the last four years, Tanzania has seen a growing recognition that addressing undernutrition needs to be a political priority.
One significant response has been a large-scale food fortification programme, which aims to reach 10 million Tanzanians by 2015.
However, the programme faces major challenges in the informal markets, as small businesses are unlikely to comply with the legislation where the majority of poor and undernourished people buy their food
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