Africa Agricultural Journalists NetworkBy Grace Musimami:
The African Union development Agency AUDA-NEPAD) has called on African countries to increase on nutrition financing as they hustle with the COVID 19 Pandemic, During a COVID-Scaling up nutrition e-conference , Dr Bibi Giyose a Nutrition expert with AUDA-NEPAD urged African Countries and CSOs to advocate for increased nutrition focus as a means of ensuring strong bodies fight the corona pandemic.
“The few cases of COVID deaths in Africa continue to be attributed to good health systems, however, COVID is creating multiple shocks that are undermining nutrition. It is therefore important that all African governments focus on financing nutrition in order to ensure we safeguard from the economic consequences of the pandemic on nutrition are mitigated.” Said Bibi.
The e-Conference is part of the multiple webinars AUDA-NEPAD convened with the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to discuss issues of scaling up nutrition and food systems during the pandemic,
Dr Bibi Further called for coordinated advocacy and communication approaches by both governments and civil society organizations that prioritize nutrition as essential for COVID 19 response and recovery and further safeguard the progress made in food and nutrition security during and beyond the current crisis.
According to AUDA-NEPAD reports, responding effectively to the COVID-19 pandemic has proven a challenge due to resource constraints and limited data since there is so much that is still unknown. But countries must still act to mitigate both against infection and to minimize related economic, food security and nutrition challenges.
Adel Monaiki, from IGAD acknowledged that RECs have already reported and shared similar issues on the challenges and opportunities for nutrition, the least of which being that most countries are starting on an already shaky ground as malnutrition rates and food insecurity were already high.
“ We as IGAD, have observed that some of the challenges include nonuniformity of guidelines, especially for trade, trade flow restrictions, outbreak of drought locusts, limited data, poor capacities, limited resources and prioritization of nutrition concretely. We have therefore written all financial institutions to relax debt on member states to enable resources available be channeled for Food and nutrition “ said Adel.
He said IGAD had also established various mechanisms towards ensuring food security, these included the IGAD regional food support on food security.
Responding to questions raised on the use of indigenous food as a means to boost accessible nutrition foods, Mphumozi Sukali from FAO, called for multi focused approaches towards scaling up nutrition and food systems, she said, despite that fact that there was no clear focus on indigenous traditional foods as a nutritional basket, it was important to have clear definition and quickly package the indigenous foods for better markets and as an affordable delicacy.
“We can no longer ignore the fact that there is a lot of appetite by communities to go back to indigenous foods, this needs attention now.” Adds Sukali
Dr Marie Durling, from SUN Movement , an organization focused on scaling up nutrition, said addressing Covid required ensuring right to food and good nutrition, she said there was need to ensure good nutrition. She revealed that the current pandemic was to have lasting effects on people and their nutrition, healthcare, economies and food systems in all corners of the world.
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) shutdowns have disrupted the food systems and exacerbated the situation of available resources, for poor households and communities. The need for nutritious food for vulnerable households, in both rural and urban Africa, during the lockdowns, needs to be addressed comprehensively with multisectoral approaches. And with a sense of immediacy.
Nutrition underpins 12 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and reflected in AU Agenda 2063 – Goal number 3 which is: Healthy and Well Nourished Citizens. Thanks to recent numerous global events, nutrition continues to remain high on the development agenda with government leaderships paying more attention, although more should be done. AUDA-NEPAD fully aligns with the fact that nutrition is a priority, especially in times of COVID1-19.
This second series of webinar was attended by over 60 participants from the RECs, AUC, IFPRI, FAO, WFP, partners including academia, private sector, NGOs, journalists and other nutrition experts, the Webinar sought to share information on how COVID-19 was being addressed by the RECS and the African Union to support what member states are doing.
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