Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

The question “What are the main issues for policy-makers to consider when linking climate change on the one hand and food security and nutrition (CC FS&N) on the other, in particular when designing, formulating and implementing policies and programmes” presupposes that the appropriate policy making and strategy formulating capacities and evidence based decision making mechanisms/systems exist in countries; and that decision makers (backed by political will) are able to take into consideration the comprehensive holistic vision of the inter-dependent relationships between CC, FS and nutrition problems. Furthermore, they have the ability and tools to translate it into policies and strategies for sustainable interventions that respect the guiding principles of the RIO+20 Declaration and the dominating leitmotif of the post 2015 development era, namely, “sustainability”.  

Are all developing countries positioned to undertake such a task?

In a recent publication, entitled “Africa Climate Change Policy” [1] the author to describes the situation in the African continent as being, “...  Scattered and incoherent climate related policies exist but are not sufficient to give the continent a survival chance under adverse climate change impacts.” He goes on to comment on  - inter alia - the lack of appropriate policies, the sluggish political systems; weak institutional capacity and framework; poor coordination and implementation of existing legislations, and more importantly the common absence of foresight in national development planning and climate resilience.  The global settings are described as unfavorable to enhance the countries’ capacity to develop climate change adaptation and mitigation.   The author draws attention to countries’ ability to generate climate data that may not always be availed internationally and hence, may not be incorporated into national/regional development planning or in disaster reduction strategies.  More importantly, the human resource technical limitations to produce, analyze and interpret and disseminate climate data as a result of poor investment into scientific research on climate change impacts are further undermined by weak governance and surveillance of natural resources. The tendency for sectoral-based implementation of environmental policies further undermines their impact. 

In short, several developing countries may be at a disadvantage and not in a posture to embark on “linking” the CC FS&N policies.  Attention therefore needs to be directed towards (a) strengthening the policy formulation process that is supported by data analysis and scientific evidence.; and (b) to institutional reform and support. The latter is a prerequisite for successful implementation of the trans-sectoral strategies of comprehensive approaches to sustainable development (RIO+20 Declaration refers).

The real challenge is to develop the governance and managerial model and to undertake the appropriate institutional reform that makes it possible for true broad-based strategic approaches that cut across sectors and generate synergy that maximizes mutual benefits. Original and innovative examples of success stories in this respect accompanied the implementation of the Scaling UP Nutrition (SUN) movement[2] and involved intersectoral coordination at the policy formulation, planning and implementation levels. The experience gained from successful alignment of the SUN policy and plan with the national FS policy and strategy (a precondition for approval of the SUN country plan) is expected to facilitate the incorporation of the appropriate CC dimension.  In most of the SUN countries, components of the latter  (CC) are already present in the national food security strategies that promote sustainable food production systems.