MAFAP starts collaboration on calculating least-cost healthy diets for Ethiopian subnational groups to inform public spending policy
The Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) programme on behalf of FAO’s Agrifood Economics and Policy Division (ESA), and FAO’s Food and Nutrition Division have taken part in a workshop in Bishoftu, central Ethiopia, organized by the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI). This event officially kick-started a ground-breaking new research initiative to determine least-cost contextually appropriate healthy diets that take into account local customs, dietary habits and food production for subnational groups in Ethiopia.
The workshop was part of FAO’s Value-Added Impact Area (VAIA) initiative, “Making healthy diets affordable to all: Repurposing food and agricultural policies to lower the cost of nutritious foods”, which aims to make healthy diets more affordable to Ethiopians by repurposing food and agricultural policies. FAO’s Food and Nutrition Division and the EPHI’s methodology are leading the calculation of the new least-cost contextually appropriate healthy diets, which the MAFAP team will use to conduct further policy analysis.
Speaking at the opening of the two-day workshop, Marco V. Sánchez, Deputy Director of FAO’s Agrifood Economics and Policy Division stated this work will be “a cornerstone for FAO to work with Ethiopian experts to establish the least-cost contextually appropriate healthy dietary patterns for various subnational groups across Ethiopia, which are a key input for an upcoming analysis that will help understand how to optimize public expenditures in food and agriculture to accelerate agricultural transformation while increasing access to healthy diets for millions of Ethiopians”.
Dawit Alemayehu, Researcher at the EPHI, said the new methodology presented to partners “can guide the design and promotion of healthy diets that are not only least-cost but also acceptable and accessible to the diverse population of Ethiopia”.
Ramani Wijesinha-Bettoni, a Nutrition Officer at FAO’s Food and Nutrition Division added, “This work was born from the realization that when talking about the cost of healthy diets, we need to look at diets in more detail - how they vary regionally, culturally, by livelihood groups, to make sure that the diets are relevant for the population groups that consume them”.
Maya Hageali, Policy Officer and Nutrition Team Leader with FAO Ethiopia, underlined the importance of the new initiative “to help identify catalytic areas of investment and public expenditure that could enhance the availability and access to contextualized affordable healthy diets”.
The workshop gathered some 30 experts from FAO, the EPHI, the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Water and Energy, Ministry of Women and Social Affairs, Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration, Ethiopian Agricultural Authority, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, Central Statistics Service, UNICEF, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, International Food Policy Research Institute, Alliance 2015, Oromia President Office among others.
In the coming months, the MAFAP team of economists and policy modellers will work closely with the EPHI and the FAO Food and Nutrition Division to finalize the estimation of the new diets and use them in a policy optimization modelling tool to determine ways to optimally reallocate Ethiopia’s public expenditure on food and agriculture to make healthy diets more affordable in Ethiopia while helping accelerate agricultural transformation.
The results of this analysis and the concrete policy recommendations emerging from this support will be discussed and presented to government partners in the first quarter of 2024.
Photo: ©EPHI