The Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition welcomes this Work Programme for the UN Decade for Action on Nutrition. This unique opportunity will allow the global food systems community to come together to combat the ever-growing problem of poor diet quality and malnutrition in all its forms. Every country in the world has a moral and economic imperative to establish well-nourished societies.
Much of the Work Programme is common with the Global Panel’s on-going work. Specific comments, as well as areas where the Global Panel can provide knowledge and evidence to help deliver this Work Programme, are presented below. It is hoped these comments prove helpful and should not detract from what is a well-considered and constructive document.
The Global Panel Secretariat stand ready to work with partners across the food system to deliver this timely and important initiative.
General comments
The Panel strongly endorses the need to promote coherence of national, regional and international policies across multiple sectors, including through improved monitoring and reporting of relevant policy impact at national, regional and global levels. This has been highlighted in the Panel’s policy and technical briefs, as well as the Foresight Report Food systems and diets: Facing the challenges of the 21st century. These documents, as well as other forthcoming evidence-based briefs will help support many of the proposed action networks (Table 1 of the Work Programme). The Panel will also continue to engage influential policy makers in low and middle-income countries, through high-level round table meetings, advocacy, and tools to help decision makers implement the policy changes required to make this Decade of Action a success.
It is largely accepted that the world faces a triple burden of underweight, overweight and micronutrient deficiencies. This is particularly important in low and middle-income countries where issues of obesity and the associated non-communicable disease are becoming increasingly problematic. As the Panel’s Foresight report shows, by 2030 Sub Saharan Africa’s obesity rate is expected to reach 17.5%, which is double that of 2005. In Ethiopia, the number of adults with diabetes could double by 2030 from 1.4 million to 2.7 million. The current Work Programme gives little reference to overweight and obesity. For example, the word “obesity’ only occurs three times and in section 9 (Aims and Added Value) it only occurs in a footnote. Likewise, there is little mention of childhood obesity. It is felt that actions to prevent the rising tide of overweight and obese adults and children, through low quality diets, particularly in low and middle-income countries, should be more apparent in the Work Programme.
Whilst the concept of food systems is refereed to in Action area 1, the concept of the food system, in bringing together food, agriculture, nutrition and health with other areas of policy, for example infrastructure, trade, social development and welfare could be better emphasised and defined. The food system is an overarching framework through which higher quality diets will be achieved.
Action area 1: Sustainable, resilient food systems for healthy diets:
This section appears to focus on agriculture and food safety, with not enough emphasis on the food system as a whole. Perhaps this section could be structured to set out the various parts of the food system that need to be considered, highlighting the need for integrated approaches which work throughout food systems.
Para 19: It may help to define the terms “social, economic and environmental sustainability”. For example, does environmental sustainability include water, carbon, soil health, or biodiversity?
Action area 2: Health systems:
This section, although very important, is quite general. Is it possible to provide specific priorities relating to malnutrition in all its forms?
Action area 3: Social protection and nutrition education:
It may be advantageous to highlight the need for all countries to develop better food-based dietary guidelines (para 32) and, more specifically, how these should be used to inform policy.
Action area 4: Trade and investment:
It may be worth adding that food production is also used for important non-food purposes, for example generating exports and overseas currency, biofuels, packaging materials, and alcohol.
Action area 5: Safe and supportive environments for nutrition at all ages:
With urbanisation mentioned as a proposed action network (Table 1 of the Work Programme), it may be worth highlighting the specific nutrition challenges of urban environments in this section.
Likewise, it may be worth giving reference to the concept of a ‘food environment’ in this section (following the work of Herforth, Ahmed, Swinburn, Hawkes, et al.)
Action area 6: Governance and accountability
Giving priority to collecting better data on what people are actually eating would strengthen this section. The lack of good data is currently a serious limitation for effective evidence-based policymaking.
With reference to King Letsie III of Lesotho and other high profile advocates, for example the African Leaders for Nutrition initiative, highlighting the need for real high-level global leadership and commitment may be worth mentioning in this section.
The section on “Accountability and Shared Learning” could emphasise the need to analyse why specific actions work well or less well in specific circumstances, and to share those lessons with a view to modifying priorities and actions.
Prof Sandy Thomas
Director, Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition
Prof. Sandy Thomas