Food and Nutrition Security
The goal of the ICN2 draft should aim to illustrate how making NUTRITION explicit in all relevant policies will maximise the opportunity to reduce poverty as rapidly as possibly as cost effectively as possible.
Policy makers from diffrent sectors need tools to help them implement this approach. Such a tool could be by providing a lens whereby they can view their policies through a nutrition perspective. Only by ensuring nutrition is explicit (and not underminded) can the sectors of agriculture, health, environment and education etc. develop coherent policies to prevent unintentional harm to human health and environment and so achieve development goals.
Attached is a document where food and nutrition security is viewed through a policy coherence for development lens. How different sectors can work together to achieve "win-win" solutions to challenges of population growth, increasing food prices and enviromental damage is discussed. This view through a coherent lens starts with
Dr. Aileen Robertson
1. what issues should be addressed by the Committee in the biennium 2016-2017?
The concept "Food Security" is not well understood by many decision makers especially because in many languages the the term does not exist and/or it is confused with the term "Food Safety". To ensure sectors working with "Food Security" routinely consider NUTRITION as a pre-requisite to ensure "Food Security" then instead of the terminology "Food Security" and "Nutrition" - these two should be merged and new terminology of "Food and Nutrition Security" addressed and recommended by CFS.
2. Explain why? (see attached for more information)
The term "food and nutrition security" reflects the multisector collaboration needed between those working with food security and nutrition and separate "silos". This new term expresses an integrated resilience and development goals to help guide implementation of policy and costeffective programmatic action.
If Food and Nutrition Security are viewed through a POLICY COHERENT lens the related programmes will be more likely to achieve their goals including:
1. Policy Coherence for Resilience Development.
2. Nutrition Insecurity hinders Resilience and Development.
3. Role of Sustainable Agriculture and Food production is primarily to feed people biodiverse, nutritious foods aligned with dietary intake recommendations and environmental sustainablity.
4. Post-2015 Agenda presents renewed opportunity, based on robust evidence, how to better reduce stunted growth in both economic and human health terms.
5. Climated Change and Green Growth cannot be successfully addressed unless reduction of malnutrition is explicitly considered.