Sierra Leone: FAO Launches Regional Food and Nutrition Report
By Stephen V. Lansana
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Thursday, February 23, 2017 launched the Regional Overview of Food and Nutrition Report 2016 at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Freetown.
The report advocates for continued policy reforms to sharpen their focus, and the creation of an enabling environment for investment and participation by all relevant stakeholders. It indicates that these are critical to ending hunger and achieving food security and improved nutrition.
It specifically calls for the development of innovative resource mobilization from a broad set of stakeholders from the public and private sector and financial instruments that would enable the implementation of actions in a sustained and widespread manner to scale up food security and nutrition programmes in sub-Saharan Africa.
The report indicates that several documented policy commitments and strategies are yet to generate the expected results, but it says that many countries’ experiences illustrate the feasibility of eliminating hunger and malnutrition through the right combination of cross-sectoral policies and programmes.
The report also calls on countries to review and exert efforts in order to improve the translation of political commitments and declarations into effective programmes on the ground, particularly in the context of the ambitious targets set in the Malabo Declaration for 2025 and the Sustainable Development Agenda for 2030.
In his presentation of the report, Bukar Tijani, FAO Assistant Director General and Regional Representative for Africa, said, “Owing to the importance the FAO and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) attach to resilience-building, the theme of the 2016 report is: ‘‘The challenge of building resilience to shocks and stresses.”
He said their strategic objectives are to help eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition; to make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable; to reduce rural poverty, and to enable inclusive and efficient agricultural and food system.
He disclosed that 220 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are undernourished, and 153 million people suffered from several food insecurities. He added that child malnutrition remains high, adding that in every three under-five children in the sub-regions, there is one child with stunted growth.
In giving the percentage of stunted growth in the sub-regions, he said East Africa has 44 percent of stunted growth, Middle Africa has 17 percent, and West Africa has 39 percent.
“Many countries suffer from multiple burdens of malnutrition,” he said. He also said African Union Agenda 2063 and the Malabo Declaration represent the framework for improving food security and nutrition.
Vice President of Pan-Africa Parliament, Hon. Bernadette Lahai, said that food security is pivotal in the achievement of the goals of the Pan-African Parliament. “Now we are looking at food as a right-based approach. That is, food is one of the human rights that everybody should enjoy.”
She added that the Regional Overview of Food and Nutrition Report 2016 will be a reference point for the Pan-African Parliament.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security 1, Hon. Marie Jalloh disclosed that in 2014–2015, about 49 percent of households in Sierra Leone were food insecure. She said that low infrastructure, lack of education, climate change, the Ebola virus disease, and poor agricultural practices were among the drivers for food insecurity in the country.
In his keynote address, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security, Prof. Patrick Monty Jones said that this report targets and provides updates on other food security and nutrition indicators, policy developments and interventions for food security in the regions. He added that the report discusses a special theme, which is of particular interest and importance to Sierra Leone, a country still dealing with the post-Ebola recovery programme, food security and nutrition challenges.