Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

IFOAM – Organics International thanks FAO for organizing this broad consultation on the Maximizing the Impact of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition. IFOAM – Organics International is the global umbrella organization for organic farming movements with more than 800 members in all continents. We are a recognized CSO representing farmers by various UN organizations including CFS, UNDESA, UNFCCC, UNEP and UNCCD.

We welcome the idea to have the coming decade dedicated to action on nutrition. We believe that it is a great opportunity to make a big step towards achieving commitments undertaken by countries in the framework of WHA, Nutrition for Growth, ICN2, as well as SDG 2 and contribute to other relevant targets of Agenda 2030. However, we also believe that, if global agriculture is to stay on the path it has been taking for the past decades will lead to the failure of DoA. As the UNCTAD report titled ‘Wake Up Before It Is Too Late’ points out, hunger and malnutrition are not supply-side productivity problems: "meeting food security challenges is primarily about empowerment of the poor.” A shift is needed "from a conventional, monoculture-based and high-external-input-dependent industrial production towards mosaics of sustainable, regenerative production systems that also considerably improve the productivity of small-scale farmers."

The common goal: dietary diversity

The benefits of a more diverse diet are now wide­ly recognized. Dietary diversity is a strong predictor of micronutrient adequacy and overall diet quality. Increasing availability and access to a nutritionally diverse range of foods within and across different food groups is key to ensure adequate intake of essential nutrients required for healthy, productive lives.

However, to date, the diversity of produce delivered by international trade has mainly benefited wealthy consumers in high-income countries, while poor people in low-income countries continue to be unable to afford the diversity available on these markets. We need to stop the erosion of traditional diets that has started in many places. No government policies should anymore have an explicit focus on monocropping of staple crops or favouring the spe­cialization in major cereal or cash crop production that helps to push out more diverse food cropping at the expense of nutritionally-important foodstuffs. What is needed instead is supportive policies at national level for dietary diversity, combined with locally developed solutions, including integrated homestead food production and greater integration of locally available nutrient dense foods into market systems that can reach urban consumers. Reviving the importance of locally available nutrient-dense foods such as fruits, vegetables, and beans and pulses within food systems and ensuring greater market access are key strategies to achieve a more diversified diet.

Besides being detrimental to nutrition and dietary as well as agricultural diversity, corporate industrialization of agriculture in many developing countries is resulting in massive land grabs, destruction of biodiversity and ecosystems, displacement of indigenous peoples, destruction of livelihoods and cultures and creates financial dependency for smallholders.

NSA as the real challenge

Some developing countries, which are just about to start putting nutrition on their national agendas, might be tempted and misguided to tick the task by turning to the simplest solutions sometimes driven by donors. Public-private partnerships need to be critically viewed in this respect, too. In our opinion, nutrition-specific actions will remain a much easier and more popular target for donors. Therefore, while it is imperative for DoA to keep both nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions in any portfolio designed to improve nutrition to address malnutrition both in the short and the longer term, the main challenge lies in the latter. If DoA is to make a real mark on the nutrition scene, it should stimulate and enable countries in the form of clear guidance as well as targeted resources to walk the hard way of designing nutrition-sensitive policies, schemes and investments.

Focus on Actions!

Last but not least, instead of an often followed events-based approach for a UN Decade, we believe DoA should be action-oriented. It should define a roadmap of actions for nutrition-sensitive agriculture, which should form part of an overall transformation towards truly sustainable agriculture and food systems based on the idea of ecological intensification. Awareness raising programmes and campaigns on the importance of dietary diversity and ‘good food’ adjusted to local conditions should be an essential part of such a roadmap.

IFOAM – Organics International will work in its full capacity to make DoA a true success and we offer collaboration to all organizations and entities wanting to join us on the pathway outlined above.

As an organisation with 80 years of experience working on the ground in developing countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, we urge for a strong focus on the needs and priorities of smallholder farmers who produce nearly 70% of the food consumed in the world.  In particular, we believe special attention should be paid to the resource systems they depend upon.  We believe that understanding of these systems can be improved through multi-stakeholder engagement and the development of a more comprehensive body of knowledge.  While the links between livestock and nutrition are complex and differ across the varied food systems, in a smallholder context, livestock keeping is a fundamental element of food security and nutrition.  Livestock’s important role goes beyond food production, and also includes, for example, the draught power used to produce, distribute and access food.  In the smallholder context, the production of animal-sourced foods and other agricultural products is often facilitated by the use of draught animals.  Therefore, nutrition interventions should take this issue into account within the broader and complex nutrition picture.

In the face of the seeming insurmountable challenges to sustainable food security in Nigeria, the following measures could suffice to ameliorate and save mankind from the pump of hunger in the next decade:
1) Improve smallholder productivity and market access. Investment should be sealed up to improve access to inputs such as seeds, fertilizer, financial and extension services as well as rural infrastructure including irrigation.
2) Promotion of productive social safety nets; This should be done to offset the impact of shocks, secure basic livelihoods and protect poor people from risk and vulnerability. Social safety nets have protective, preventives, promotional and transformational functions with different objectives.
3) Harmonization of food security and sustainablility policy.
4) Keep trade open: Government should eliminate existing harmful trade restrictions and refrain from newly imposed ones so as to reduce food price volatility and enhance the efficiency of agricultural markets.
In conclusion, strong economic performance is not in conflict with great environmental performance. Through innovation Nigerian can achieve agricultural sustainability and food security which in turn ameliorate the rate of poverty and malnutrition.

Dear Christine,

I would like to propose the issue of caring arrangement at household level and its relation to children nutritional status.

My concern is based the fact that most of the intervention of nutrition program are based in household level, yet many challenges is ahead due to prevailing gender norms and changing pattern of caring arrangement in the society lately.

Taking example from Indonesia context, herewith my thought:

Despite convincing macroeconomic performance over the last decades, various national nutrition indicators highlighting nutrition crisis in Indonesia. With more than one third of the children aged five suffered from stunting, Indonesia is among the countries in the world with highest stunting prevalence in the world (IFPRI, 2013). According to UNICEF, 80 percent of world’s stunted children are living in 14 countries, including Indonesia (UNICEF, 2013). Data of Basic Health Survey released by Ministry of Heallth released in 2013 also shown that as many as 19.6 percent of Indonesia children aged under five years suffered from underweight, 21.1 percent wasting, and 37.2 percent stunting (Riskesdas, 2013). If reffering to World Health Organization (WHO) standard, Indonesia faces very severe wasting and stunting problem, dan medium severe underweight problem. A worrisome nutrition figures can also been seen from micronutrient deficiency on children which prevalence considered high in Indonesia, with 28.1 percent among children aged under five years suffering from anemia, and 29 percent among children aged five to twelve years. While a better nutrition performance were shown by other countries in lower income group than Indonesia, including the surrounding nations in South East Asia such as Phillipine, Vietnam, and Myanmar.

The increasing national welfare has bring about social transformations that some how contribute to the way people eating in recent days, including children. With changing in caring arrangement due to rising numbers of working women and reduced time for care, the way children eating has been evolving in recent years (Nurbani, 2015). As shown by expenditure for consumption data released by National Statistics Agency, people are now spending largest share of their food expenditure on prepared food (BPS, 2013). As for children, there is a widespread concern about children’s snacking habits (IDS, 2015; SMERU, 2016 forthcoming). Parents are now seeking for a more convenient way to acquire dietary needs for children, as well as for the other household members (Crepinsek and Burstein, 2004). Prepared and instant food seems to be an alternatives for people to safe time from drudgery cooking activities and all the supporting activities toward cooking—such as shopping, preparing ingredients, washing dish, heating the meal, as well as to safe the money. The change in the way children eating can be a worrisome for Indonesia because apart from its success in maintaining macro-economic condition, this newly middle income country still can not escape from the problem of hidden hunger, especially of those children from poor household.

When talking about caring and feeding of children, then we have to aware about the prevailing gender-norm which become the context. The prevailing gender-norm in Indonesia and many other parts of the world, still put women as the main care giver in household who are the most responsible in assuring children's food intake and nutrition. With increasing number of women participating in economic work, some people believe it will give rise to new problems related to the fulfillment of children food intake and nutrition, especially children from poor household. Economic constraints experienced by poor households has encouraged women of the households to work outside home looking for additional income. While on the other hand, they still have to carry out their responsibility to ensure food intake and nutrition of children at home. Double burden that women experience will affect the quality of care provided to children as can be seen from the children’s nutritional status. This also has been exacerbated by the fact that family ties is no longer in the form of extended family but already a nuclear family, especially for those who lives in urban. If in the past women could get support with child care from other family member, it is now becoming increasingly difficult for them to do so. Moreover, the existing government programs and campaign in increasing children's nutrition status are mostly put women as the main key actors in the household without put any attention to the women’s labor in providing the care and intra household caring arrangement. Women in particular mother's (instead of carer's) level of education and knowledge in feeding practices are often used as important indicator in assessing children's food and nutrition security status.

Although many advocacy and government institutions share common arguments on the importance of care for future generations and believe that women give significant contribution in children's nutrition status through the caring practices they provided, the government has not given any sufficient support for households—especially poor households, in providing quality care. Caring practice is still perceived as something taken for granted that do need to be intervened by public policy thus a household must find its own way of arranging child care and assuring food and nutrition needs of children.

Do  we  need evolution or revolution? MAPEX is an effective tool with the potential to make a significant contribution in the area of development assistance. A global partnership for development rooted in a commitment to excellence, thanks to MAPEX, would be truly innovative.

MAPEX, a methodology for excellence in project management, places good governance at the  heart of  sustainable and balanced development for  all. Action should no longer be taken in haste, but rather on the basis  of a real strategy of excellence for sustainable development. Actions should not be based on generosity alone; they should be well founded and intelligible, while remaining people -centred. We are at the dawning of a new era of partnership reflecting values and common sense.  One  way  to  explain  this  is  through  the  example  of  climate  change. The consequences of the actions of so -called developed countries are extremely harmful for populations, in particular the most vulnerable ones. Companies from so -called developed countries cut down trees that represented the livelihoods of local people, without replanting them. Consequently, even if development assistance is provided, it is irrelevant in the face of those companies ’ actions. If there are no trees left on the Earth, how will the peoples of either the North or the South breathe or live? None will be spared. It must be emphasized that climate change has devastating consequences, such  as rising sea levels,  melting ice,  disease, hurricanes and  the death of animals, that affect everyone.

We must therefore work together to ensure that actions are taken in the form of projects. We must all see ourselves as stewards of the Earth and act to protect it. To do so, we must move forward together, being sure to include the most deprived in particular. The goal is to live in a world that provides prosperity for all. Therefore, actions must be devised in terms of projects. That involves considering the life cycle of a project, which comprises several stages: design, implement ation and evaluation. When  doing  so,  it  is  desirable  to  focus  more  on  preventive  measures  than  on curative   ones.   We   have   therefore  carried   out   upstream   work   to   develop   a methodology that strengthens the first stage of the project: the design. Why? The reason is simple: when a project is well designed from the beginning, it has every chance of success. We offer a toolkit that makes it possible to take better -informed decisions concerning assistance. More than a simple assistance application, what is needed is a process for developing true projects of excellence. That involves taking the time to select and prepare actions in accordance with strict eligibility criteria and conditionalities.

English translation below

أقترح تشكيل مجلس شبيه بهذا المنتدى الإفتراضي , يتبع للفاو والمنظمات المعنية بالتغذية , ويشرف على مجالس في كل بلد لمتابعة مشاريع يقوم بها الشباب ويشرف عليها , ويبحث لها عن التمويل والخبرات اللازمة , والوسائل , ويكون المجلس الوطني في كل بلد من المتطوعين , يشرف على مجالس في المناطق الداخلية , وأقترح على سبيل المثال مواضيع لمجالات يمكن للشباب الإشتغال بها لتحقيق مردود مالي معتبر , يتيح فرصة للقضاء على الفقر , وكذلك يزيد من إنتاجية البلدان في مجال الغذاء:

1. زراعة النخيل : عن طريق الأنسجة , في المناطق المختلفة لإنتاج التمور , وخاصة في المناطق الصحراوية وشبه الصحراوية , مع امكانية توسيع رقعة زراعة النخيل بهذه التقنية في مناطق واسعة من العالم. تسمح هذه الطريقة بانتقاء أفضل الأنواع , والفسائل تكون مقاومة للأمراض , وسريعة الإنتاج
2. مشاريع إنتاج الغاز الحيوي من النفايات العضوية , ومخلفات الحيوانات :  تسمح هذه العملية بتشغيل الشباب فيؤ مشاريع مربحة تنتج طاقة متجددة صديقة للبيئة ,. وتنتج سمادا عضويا من أفضل أنواع السماد يمكن استخدامه لزيادة الإنتاج الزراعي
3. مشاريع تشجير مناطق واسعة خاصة في المناطق المعرضة للتصحر واختفاء الغطاء النباتي , ويمكن الإستفادة من مشاريع البيئة وغيرها في هذه العملية التي ستوفر فرصا لتشغيل الشباب وزيادة الدخل وبالتالي القدرة على توفير الغذاء وزيادة الإنتاج, يمكن زراعة شجر الباولونيا مثلا سريع النمو , وبيع الأخشاب التي تعبر جيدة من هذه الأشجار .

يوجد العديد من المشاريع ذات صلة بإنتاج الغذاء مباشرة , أوبصفة غير مباشرة , إلا أنها تزيد من الفرص التي يمكن استغلالها للقضاء على الجوع وسوء التغذية , و إنتاج الغذاء .

في بلدي يمكن مثلا أن يدعو رئيس الدولة إلى سنة للقضاء على الجوع تسخر فيها إمكانيات ويتطوع البعض لزيادة إنتاج الغذاء , والموارد كثيرة ومتوفرة لتحقيق ذلك , ويمكن الحصول على التمويل لمثل هذه المشاريع من خلال تخصيص كل قطاع في الدولة لمنطقة معينة يتطوع المسؤولون في هذا القطاع للمساعدة , وكذلك تخصيص نسبة 5% مثلا من الموارد , أعتقد أنها كافية لتحقيق إنجاز , نذكر أن أحد الوزراء قبل فترة أرجع عشرات الملايين من الميزانية لأنه لم يجد ما تنفق فيها , فإذا تبرعت كل وزارة بمبلغ مماثل سنوفر أكثر من المطلوب لتمويل ما ذكر ,

هذا إضافة إلى المواطنين والمؤسسات الخاصة الذين يتبرعون عادة بعد كل إعلان مهم من السلطات العليا وهو ما قصدته , بتدخل رئيس الدولة , وربما حتى وزير الزراعة أو شخصية ساميىة تطلق نداء للتطوع من أجل إحداث فرق هذه السنة بمناسبة اليوم العالمي للأغذية 

I suggest that a council or a board similar to this virtual forum be formed. This board shall be affiliated to the FAO and to the organizations concerned with nutrition and shall supervise boards in every country in order to follow up and monitor projects undertaken by the youth. The national board, which is comprised of volunteers from each country, shall also look for the funding and expertise required for these projects. I suggest that youth should be engaged in some topics where they can achieve a good financial return that helps in eradicating poverty and increase the country's productivity in the field of food. These topics are:

1. Planting palm trees: through tissues in the different areas of dates production specially in  the desert and semi-desert areas. This is in addition to the possibility of expanding the area of planting palm trees using this method in larger areas in the world. This method allows for the selection of the best types and the seedlings can fight diseases and have a higher rate of production.
2. A bio-gas production project from organic waste and animal residues. This process allows the employment of youth in profitable projects that produce eco-friendly renewable energy. It also produces organic fertilizers from the best types of fertilizer that can be used to increase agricultural production.
3.  Afforestation projects for large areas, especially the ones that are prone to desertification and disappearance of vegetation cover. We can also take advantage of the environmental     projects which will provide employment opportunities for youth and increase income and consequently this will increase the  ability to provide food and increase production   The  fast growing paulownia trees can be planted   and  the timber of these trees can be sold.

There are many projects that are directly or indirectly related to food production, but they increase the opportunities of eradication of hunger  and malnutrition as well as  increase food production.

In my country, the President may call for a year of eradication of hunger where all the potentials will be deployed and some people will volunteer to increase food production. There are plenty of resources that are available to realize this goal. Funding for this project could be attained through allocating a certain area for each sector in the country where  the officials  of this sector volunteer to help and allocate, for example, 5% from the resources. I guess this will be enough to realize the goals. I remember that one of the ministers has returned a sum of tens of millions from the budget as he did not find the channels to spend this money on. If each ministry donates a similar amount we will be able to provide funding for the above mentioned tasks. This is in addition to the citizens and private institutions that give donations directly after each important announcement from the supreme authorities. This is what  I meant by the intervention of the Minister of Agriculture or a  

dignified official  who will call for volunteers in order to make a difference in this year on the occasion of the World Food Day.     

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on how we might best maximise the potential of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition. Please find comments from Australia below. 

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition: Online consultation on the work programme for the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition

Comments from Australia

Australia supports the need to focus global attention on the double burden of nutrition and the United Nations General Assembly’s proclamation of 2016–2025 as the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition. Critically, the Decade of Action on Nutrition presents the opportunity to accelerate actions to implement the Rome Declaration on Nutrition and the Framework for Action. Australia appreciates the opportunity to provide comments on how we might best maximise the potential of the Decade of Action.

Foremost, the Decade of Action on Nutrition should be used as a catalyst to accelerate actions to implement the Framework for Action, which provides an agreed set of policy options and strategies for Member States to consider implementing in line with national circumstances and priorities.

To achieve this, better coordinated actions across all relevant sectors will be fundamental. A successful Decade of Action will therefore support coherent and strategic alignment of issues within the Framework of Action to bring to life the multi-dimensional nature of nutrition action.  It will be important to break down some of the sector silos that have been hindering accelerated action on nutrition.  It is also important to help actors identify roles and responsibilities, but also to show where collective action across sectors can drive nutrition outcomes and how the various inputs across food and health systems can come together to deliver results.  

The Decade of Action is also an opportunity to encourage and develop international partnerships on nutrition.  We acknowledge the important role that the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization will play in leading this work.

Member States should also initiate opportunities to exchange information and share technical resources. Private-public partnerships, as well as collaborations between governments and NGOs, should also be explored.  It should be recognised that malnutrition has many underlying causes requiring coordinated action supported by strong leadership at all levels. Mechanisms such as the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement may assist in this regard.

The Framework for Action focuses on the need to build on existing commitments, goals and targets. By focusing on how to accelerate existing commitments and strengthening existing mechanisms, creation of parallel or duplicate structures can be avoided.  For the purpose of accountability, we note the Framework for Action adopts the existing global targets for improving maternal, infant and young child nutrition and for noncommunicable disease risk factor reduction to be achieved by 2025. Consideration could also be given to developing an additional set of indicators – including progress indicators – by which development practitioners in all nutrition-sensitive sectors can measure their impact on nutrition and know whether their efforts are likely to lead to future positive impacts on nutrition.

The Decade of Action presents an opportunity to summon resources to drive research and targeted, evidence-based interventions to address the double burden of malnutrition and obesity and its related chronic conditions, particularly in developing countries. Availability of robust data on nutrition is essential for surveillance, policy making, program targeting and accountability.  The Decade of Action should consider how to build the capacity of countries to undertake data collection and analysis. Additionally, where appropriate, the agriculture and health sectors should be encouraged to cooperate in the development of data collection techniques. The cooperation between these two sectors could lead to data that can inform nutrition-sensitive agriculture policies and inform the development of food security policies.  

The following list provides some examples of additional aspects that would be important to consider in the Decade of Action:

-          Promotion of nutrition outcomes through nutrition-sensitive approaches in key sectors (such as agriculture, social protection, financial inclusion, WASH and education) should be a key strategy for achievement of nutrition objectives.

-          A focus on the first 1,000 days is necessary to make an impact on child stunting in particular.  This demands special efforts to boost the nutrition of vulnerable women of reproductive age, along with promotion of maternal, newborn and infant care practices such as pre-natal health checks, breastfeeding and diet diversity.

-          Building resilience to malnutrition – closing the gap between development and humanitarian support – will be an important contribution to the achievement of nutrition outcomes.  Nutrition-sensitive sectors have a large role to play in this.

-          Promotion of the role of trade in improving food supply, which has an impact on nutrition. Research by FAO and OECD has shown that open, efficient and reliable international agricultural and food markets help manage risks and allow food to move to where it is needed, particularly in times of crisis.

We look forward to working with the WHO to implement the Decade of Action on Nutrition and to realise achievement of global nutrition-related objectives. 

Cochrane Nutrition

Comments for the Online Consultation on

“Maximizing the Impact of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition”

Cochrane Nutrition fully supports the UN Decade for Action on Nutrition to catalyze and sustain intensified and concrete actions to fix our food systems, end hunger and malnutrition and ensure that high quality, diversified and more sustainable diets can be accessed by all people, especially vulnerable groups. We welcome the opportunity to provide comments for this online consultation initiated by the UNSCN.

The UN Decade for Action on Nutrition has the potential to foster and strengthen the political will, accountability and inter-sectoral collaboration needed to translate the commitments of ICN2, the SDGs and the Global Nutrition Targets into effective actions in the form of policies, programs, and partnerships, accompanied by  feasible implementation plans, to improve nutrition and food security.

Critical activities for inclusion in the Work Programme for the implementation of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition to reach the 2025 global nutrition targets

Cochrane Nutrition would like to raise three activities related to use of evidence and research approaches:

1. Activities that emphasise the value of using synthesised evidence for translating knowledge into effective, implementable and scalable actions to reach nutrition targets. Finding and implementing effective, scalable and sustainable solutions to address the complex, multi-sectoral nutrition burden is challenging for all stakeholders, particularly since decision-makers often have to deal with diverse and competing interests. Readily prepared syntheses of quality-appraised evidence, such as systematic reviews, deliver valuable support to decision-making by integrating findings from many studies to give a clearer and more comprehensive picture than any single study can produce.

Global synthesised evidence can be combined with national, sub-national or local evidence on service use, practice, costs, policy and organisational factors to inform decisions on what actions are effective and how to best implement and deliver these actions. Training of all stakeholders and organisations in using synthesised evidence can facilitate evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM).  EIDM involves using research evidence with expertise, resources, and knowledge about contextual health issues, local context, and political climate to make intervention, policy and program decisions. This systematic and transparent inclusion of research evidence in decision-making can strengthen nutrition actions, promote the provision of effective and efficient nutrition interventions and services, and support a more responsible use of financial and human resources.

2. Activities that support methodological research innovations to advance our knowledge on the ‘how’ questions - how do we implement an appropriate combination of actions (nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive) at scale, in an equitable way in different contexts?

We know a lot about the multi-faceted aetiology of malnutrition and about effective nutrition-specific interventions options.  But many questions still remain about how best to address some of the complex emerging and underlying drivers of malnutrition, especially when different forms of malnutrition coexist as is the reality in many countries. Furthermore, we face challenges on implementation and delivering impact, especially for prevention. Low intervention coverage and poor quality of implementation continues to contribute to poor nutrition outcomes in developing countries, and delivery itself needs to be improved. The effects of interventions depend on the extent to which they are implemented, as well as the dependability of their implementation. These two factors are enormously dependent on the capacity of ‘coalface’ workers, the quality of frontline facilities and organisation of intervention delivery platforms. To address these complex questions requires developing and applying innovative research approaches for both primary research and evidence synthesis. The ongoing work in this area needs support and growth to generate the required knowledge for solutions and actions to enable countries to reduce their nutrition burdens.

3. Activities that support and improve the quality of primary nutrition research and evidence synthesis

Nutritional epidemiology research has expanded over the last 50 years, and the number of trials and observational studies in nutrition has increased exponentially. Generally, this growth has not led to better quality or more useful research results, and duplication, as well as redundant efforts have characterized many research initiatives. Although there have been several activities to enhance nutrition research prioritization, design, management, reporting and interpretation, many of these aspects still need to be improved.  A strong interdependence between nutrition and the complex biological, physical and social systems that affect nutrition outcomes contributes to the difficulties of executing nutrition studies and synthesizing this evidence. As we answer nutrition research questions, there is a need to better understand and consider potential biases, as well as interactions with other systems, to improve nutrition research in general.

Cochrane Nutrition would also like to emphasise three research areas:

1. Activities to ensure that policies and programs to improve nutrition include cost-analyses. Understanding cost implications of interventions is a very important dimension for analysis of program delivery and implementation, and a key tool for policy and prioritization.

2. Activities and mechanisms to assist countries to ensure that public policies are coherent from food production through to consumption, and across sectors to meets people’s nutrition needs and promote safe and diversified healthy diets. Food system policies and interventions, particularly in trade and markets, should be designed in consultation with both food system stakeholders (e.g. agriculture, post-harvest, retailers, consumers) and health stakeholders to ensure they seek to balance health and nutrition with profitability and are coherent with health policies.

3. Activities to address the knowledge gap on effective actions to fix our food systems. The current knowledge base on food system interventions is sparse and more focussed research is needed to identify the ‘best buys’ within the different types of food systems, from industrial to rural, that enable all people to access healthier foods. More focus is needed on interventions that reduce commercial exploitation of people’s biological, psychological, social, and economic vulnerabilities enabling healthier diets.

Actions to accelerate and improve the quality of commitments from the various actors; Roles of public and private actors in monitoring their implementation

Greater emphasis on the role of civil society in monitoring implementation, improving governance and accountability of policies and commitments is needed. As consumers in food systems, an informed civil society can help to create the demand needed for healthier food systems.

Actions and contributions from other relevant forums, such as the CFS and the UNSCN

Supportive forums can provide the platforms needed to identify and pull together a critical mass of nutrition champions (in districts, countries and regions) to identify gaps, coordinate actions, strengthen collaborations, and monitor impacts within the shared framework of the ICN2 outcomes, the SDGs, and the Global Nutrition Targets.  Once identified and committed, the critical mass of all stakeholders can collectively work with the relevant forums to build leadership, advocate for and create demand for enabling environments, more resources and better governance to support the multi-level changes required for improved nutrition.  The forums are also in a position to promote knowledge sharing across borders and to build the leadership needed to put nutrition on the agenda and keep it there – strong and active nutrition champions within all sectors (private, civil society, academic, government, NGO etc.) can be identified and can be instrumental to build the coherence needed across sectors. Supportive forums can assist nutrition champions with prioritization of actions and competing interests.

Cochrane Nutrition looks forward to further engagements, and is committed to partnering to implement the Work Programme for the implementation of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition.

Daniela Küllenberg de Gaudry, Cochrane Germany

Celeste Naude, Centre for Evidence-based Health Care, Stellenbosch University, South Africa; Co-director: Cochrane Nutrition

Solange Durão, Cochrane South Africa, South African Medical Research Council, South Africa; Co-director: Cochrane Nutrition

on behalf of Cochrane Nutrition, http://nutrition.cochrane.org/

The United States Council for International Business (USCIB) would like to thank the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for the opportunity to submit comments on the Maximizing the Impact of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition.  USCIB promotes open markets, competitiveness and innovation, sustainable development and corporate responsibility, supported by international engagement and regulatory coherence.  Its members include U.S.-based global companies and professional services firms from every sector of the economy, with operations in every region of the world.  With a unique global network encompassing the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Organization of Employers and the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD, USCIB provides business views to policy makers and regulatory authorities worldwide, and works to facilitate international trade and investment.

It is indisputable that nutrition provides a vital foundation for human development and is central to meeting one’s full potential.  Nutrition is also important from an economic point of view. Hunger and under-nutrition weaken the mental and physical development of children and adolescents. This in turn lowers the work capacity and income potential of adults and leads to huge social and economic costs. According to estimates by a 2013 FAO report, hunger and under-nutrition cost the global economy an estimated 2-3 percent of global gross domestic product, equivalent to $1.4-2.1 trillion per year.

So what is the private sector doing on nutrition? For starters, the private sector is a key actor in providing nutrition from investing in agriculture; to improving the social, economic and environmental practices in farming and the supply chain; to mobilizing, innovating, and finally delivering agricultural products and food.  As an employer, the private sector also has a vital role in increasing the livelihoods of society as a way to address poverty, malnutrition and under-nutrition. But that’s not the whole picture. It’s far from it and more can be done. One stakeholder alone can’t solve complex nutrition challenges.

The importance of good governance policies and regulations that support private sector involvement in agriculture should not be underestimated. Access to finance and empowering women is also crucial for improving nutrition around the world. Women are often the family’s primary caretakers and they tend to invest in their children’s health. It’s therefore important for governments to promote policies that help women become farmers, traders and entrepreneurs. Promoting trade and investment in agriculture is also crucial for combating global hunger. There is significant evidence from UN reports that demonstrate increased trade, particularly in the agriculture and food industry, raises the standard of living in developing countries and improves the performance of national economies, all of which are necessary for healthy societies.

Additionally, multi-stakeholder partnerships should be encouraged. More and more of these types of approaches are widely recognized as necessary to increasing the scope of financial and human resources in order to tackle nutritional challenges on a large scale. The private sector often partners with governments and researchers to innovate and create new tools for farmers that improve nutrition. It is essential for all stakeholders to work together and develop a global food system that improves people’s nutrition in a sustainable way. We are committed to public-private partnerships that support nutrition strategies and to preserving natural resources to continue to grow food which is necessary for nutrition.

The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda provides a terrific opportunity for the private sector to demonstrate the central role it plays in nutrition and society. While government has been successful in outlining a visionary mission for global development, businesses have the unique ability to bridge the capacity gap to reach the impact and scale necessary to meet the SDGs and in particular those that relate to nutrition. Partnership between the public and private sectors, at both the global and at national levels, is vital in creating an effective strategy and successfully implementing it to achieve these goals.

USCIB has been at the forefront of this initiative. Last year USCIB launched Business for 2030, an online platform showcasing business engagement with the SDGs.  We invite you to review what business is doing to meet the 2030 goals including those related to nutrition. 

Qn.1 What are your expectations for the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition and how could it make a significant difference in improving nutrition and food security of the people in your country within the next ten years?

Yes, it’s a great opportunity to:

·         Bring together all initiatives and efforts by different stakeholders in Uganda to address the problem of food and nutrition insecurity and its consequences

·         Identify alignment gaps in the policies, initiatives and efforts implemented by different stakeholders

·         Develop and implement a common vision to improve nutrition and food security of the country

·         Map existing policies, strategies, plans and frameworks and make commitments to address food and nutrition

·         Identify challenges and opportunities for developing a coherent national framework to address the problem of food and nutrition insecurity

·         To develop a national road map for a harmonized and aligned food and nutrition frameworks etc…

Then how could it make a difference in improving nutrition and food security of the people in your country within the next ten years?

The UN Decade on Nutrition and the Framework for implementation in my view, addresses key issues of food and nutrition security. It could make a difference in Uganda by helping the country to address system level requirements- which would help to enable functionality of the systems, structures and implementation which are critical in the success of the UN Decade on Nutrition. Theses system level requirements include: strategic capacities and adaptive management at national & sub-national levels; Common understanding; Common communication; Coherent and authoritative policies & strategies & guidelines; Consensus on actions; Common results framework; High-level commitment, system commitment and leadership at all Levels; Clear roles & responsibilities; consistent incentives & accountability; coordinated M&E, operations research, learning platforms;  Community, NGO, Partner & Private Sector alignment; capacities, facilities, tools equipment; consistent financing; and Coordination

Qn.2 What critical activities need to be included in the Work Programme for the implementation of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition to reach the 2025 global nutrition targets? Which activities would need to be accelerated in your country to reach these targets? How could these activities be funded?

High Level global/regional activities

·         Map existing global, regional and national policies, strategies, plans, frameworks and commitments related to food and nutrition;

·         Identify alignment gaps between the global, regional and national frameworks;

·         Identify challenges and opportunities for alignment of the global, regional, and national policy frameworks at country level;

·         Facilitate the development of global, regional and national road maps for alignment and implementation of food and nutrition frameworks.

Country level activities to be accelerated

·         Identify alignment gaps between the global, regional and national frameworks

·         Map out all initiatives and efforts by different stakeholders in Uganda to address the problem of food and nutrition insecurity and its consequences

·         Identify alignment gaps in the policies, initiatives and efforts implemented by different sectors and stakeholders

·         Map existing policies, strategies, plans and frameworks and make commitments to address food and nutrition

·         Identify challenges and opportunities for developing a coherent national framework to address the problem of food and nutrition insecurity

·         Develop a national road map for a harmonized and aligned food and nutrition frameworks

·         Effectively engage high level decision makers in government and partner organizations in addressing critical bottlenecks, through candid reporting from the technical secretariat, the use of real-time progress markers and the establishment of clear lines of accountability in the implementation

·         Strengthen human resources in the nutrition secretariat for strategic oversight and coordination

·         Create a full-time implementation team to support cascading and on-going support to sub-national levels.

·         Develop a phased work plan for the implementation of the program which will also inform development partner’s interactions and support.

·         Conduct institutional capacity assessment for the implementation at the national level

·         Build strategic partnership with all development partners supporting MSN in the country including agreement on key strategic directions for moving forward the country nutrition agenda. 

·         Continuous capacity building of all stakeholders involved in MSN implementation at all levels, in the areas of strategic capacity, adaptive management, documentation and sharing of experiences

How could these activities be funded?

·         Government

·         Development partners in the Country supporting Nutrition

·         Implementing Agencies such as UN bodies

Qn.3 What can be done to accelerate and improve the quality of commitments from the various actors? What role(s) should public and private actors play in monitoring their implementation?

·         Securing high level decision makers commitment and support for strategic policy direction

·         Integrating nutrition in the national development plan which policy and programme implementation

·         Integrate nutrition in the country policies for all sectors, strategies and programmes and develop performance indicators for sectors and stakeholders-seek commitment

·         Integrating nutrition indicators in the national development plan which will be translated in the 5 years’ District Development plans-this will inform district planning and budgeting/resource allocation and implementation

·         Integrating nutrition indicators in the local Governments reporting indicators-this will ensure that all relevant Local Government Sectors and Departments include nutrition in their ToRs etc

What role(s) should public and private actors play in monitoring their implementation?

Public sectors

Government designated coordination entity Level

·         Create g enabling environment for the implementation-policies, guidelines, contribute human resource etc.

·         Resource mobilization both financial and technical for implementation, operationalising/ cascading to the entire country

·         Host learning platforms to share the progress, challenges and next steps etc

·         Strengthen the coordination amongst the sectors of the mainstream ministries and decentralised levels

·         Put in place formal network in place with high commitment and guidance

·         Review of the current nutrition interventions and draw lessons to inform on going nutrition policy development, identify funding needs and mobilise resources

·         Undertake Functional/Institutional capacity assessment of nutrition coordination and implementation mechanisms at national and decentralized levels;

·         Continuous efforts to strengthen human resource capacity to plan, implement, monitor, and evaluate food and nutrition programmes.

·         Strengthen the Linkages between sectors and decentralised local government structures to ensure smooth implementation and reporting of the progress, challenges and bottlenecks and how to overcome such bottleneck in in the implementation.  There is need to promote vertical and horizontal communication which might help to overcome a number of challenges during implementation

Sectors level

·         Efforts should continue to target all the eight sectors that signed UNAP to ensure that nutrition is a priority in their sector development plans and strategic plans to ensure that sectors truck and report on nutrition indicators and implementation progress.

District/local government level

·         Ensure that nutrition indicators are integrated in the districts five years’ development plans and Districts nutrition action plans

·         Ensure that NGOs and CBOS working in the respective districts contribute to the district nutrition action plans

·         Ensure effective monitoring and evaluation of nutrition activities districts

·         Resource mobilisation for district implementation and monitoring

·         Host district nutrition learning platforms

Development Partners

·         To promote and identify funding sources for nutrition agenda

·         Promote Joint resource mobilization, allocation and support

·         Contributing to the development partners consolidated fund for nutrition

·         Provide policy guidance on alignment of nutrition programs to the Sustainable Development Goals and the Nutrition commitments of the UN

·         Promotion of multi-sectoral approach, a shift from approaching nutrition from traditional sectors to include all nutrition specific and sensitive sectors in the funding arrangements and support

International NGOS and civil society organizations

·         To support, and amplify the voice of the populations suffering from malnutrition

·          engaging in social mobilization and awareness-raising efforts in close collaboration with the media

·         Ensure effective representation of the grassroots and support and hold governments and other stakeholders to be accountable - delivering on nutrition agenda

·         Help to ensure alignment of CSO programs and policies behind national priorities

·         Bring the grassroots voice to inform national policies and plans that reflect needs and realities on the ground

·         Support sub national level efforts in the implementation of the nutrition agenda for the country

·         Help to design interventions based on community driven demands and lessons (bottom up approach) to reduce on the challenges on voltage drop

Private sector

·         To adhere to regulation by the Government for quality standards of final products to customers to meet their nutrition needs;

·         improve fortification program to meet nutrition requirements

·         Train and increase processors and capacity for internal monitoring of fortification processes

·         Support the Government in the implementation of nutrition interventions.

Qn.4 How can other relevant forums, such as the CFS and the UNSCN, contribute, and how can other movements (e.g. human rights, environment) be involved in the Decade?

UNCSN

·         To promote cooperation among UN agencies in support of community, national, regional and international efforts to end malnutrition and its consequences

·         Support the implementation of the UN Decade on Nutrition at all levels

CFS

·         Promote intergovernmental platform for all stakeholders to work together in a coordinated way to ensure food security and nutrition for all. This will allow input and lesson learning from national, regional and global level to be heard

·         Ensure that the voice of other stakeholders is heard in the global debate on food security and nutrition

·         Exchange of information on nutrition with food security constituency and bringing food security considerations to the attention of the nutrition constituency

·         Include nutrition considerations in CFS work streams

·         Support member states to include nutrition in the CFS work agenda and keep on trucking new nutrition issues as they emerge

·         Provide synergies with other initiatives addressing nutrition

Human rights bodies

·         Raise national, regional and global awareness on the right to food and nutrition and other key international human rights norms

·         Support country, regional, global levels efforts promoting right to food and nutrition

·         Support countries in developing guidelines on the right to food and nutrition and its obligations at the national level

·         Support strengthening of countries capacities and contribute to the process of monitoring the realization of the human right to food and nutrition

Environment

·         Include nutrition a shared vision

·         Ensure that climate change and adaption are nutrition-sensitive

·         Include nutrition considerations in all climate change mitigation efforts

·         Ensure that finance, technological and capacity building on climate change are nutrition sensitive

·         Ensure policy coherence on climate change and nutrition