11 Sep 2013

Africa has persistently high prevalence of undernourishment, says Dr Sam Kanyarukiga, a senior agriculture advisor for the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.

Speaking at a five-day nutrition capacity development workshop in Gaborone on Monday, Dr Kanyarukiga said a marginal decline to only 22.9 per cent in the 2010-2012 period was recorded, which showed a momentous task ahead. Dr Kanyarukiga, who is also coordinator of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), said the FAO Crop Prospects and Food Situation Report of July 2013 indicated that cereal production in Africa as a whole would only record a yearly change of 1.7 per cent by the end of 2013.

He said the 2012 Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) statistics indicated that the prevalence of undernourishment across the African continent was at 27.3 per cent in the 1990-92 period. However, Dr Kanyarukiga said when specific sub-regions were considered, the report showed that it was only North Africa and central Africa that had positive changes of 10.7 per cent and 3.4 per cent while the eastern and southern Africa, as well as West Africa were expected to have negative changes.

“It is clear that reversing these daunting statistics calls for concerted efforts,” he said. “Indeed each one of us has a role to play and make a positive contribution.” Dr Kanyarukiga encouraged participants to take the deliberations of the workshop seriously as they would inform the basis of how they properly mainstream nutrition in their national food and nutrition security and agricultural plans at large.

Through the contributions of various participants, he said, the nutrition interventions would be better planned, better budgeted for, and better implemented.

The workshop was meant to advance the understanding of participants on a number of issues including; good practices and solutions for better nutrition mainstreaming; the tools of analysis and how to align nutrition issues with their overall national development policies. Issues that were addressed included the nutrition situation at global and regional levels, changing consumer behavour to influence the food system, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and nutrition education. 

There were also country presentations and practical sessions to draw roadmaps in mainstreaming nutrition in the national agriculture and food security investment plans under the CAADP framework. ENDS