MAFAP strengthens country engagement with Ethiopia on agrifood policy support
The Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) programme team have held meetings in Ethiopia with government institutions to strengthen ties between the programme and the country on a number of agrifood policy issues.
To take stock of current policy monitoring support on public expenditure analysis on food and agriculture in Ethiopia and price incentives analysis for some of the country’s key commodities, Deputy Director of Agrifood Economics and Policy at FAO Marco V. Sánchez, FAO Ethiopia’s Policy Officer and Nutrition Team Lead Maya Hage Ali and National Agriculture Policy Analyst and MAFAP focal point for Ethiopia Firew Woldeyes met with Director Bereket Fesehatsion and his technical team in the Development Projects Directorate at the Ministry of Planning and Development (MoPD).
During the MoPD-MAFAP meeting they discussed how FAO support can provide the Ministry with policy evidence for its monitoring and evaluation exercises, as well as how MAFAP’s policy optimization modelling tool could be leveraged to shape the country’s current review of the medium-term investment plan and to feed into the next one. Both sides agreed on the importance of data sharing and mutual expertise to carry out the activities foreseen and agreed to strengthen collaboration together and to engage with the Agricultural Transformation Institute going forward.
Relatedly, the MAFAP team held a bilateral meeting with Policy Studies Institute (PSI) to discuss a Letter of Agreement (LoA) through which they will determine the degree of nutrition-sensitivity in public expenditure in food and agriculture in the framework of the Value-Added Impact Area (VAIA) initiative Making healthy diets affordable to all: Repurposing food and agricultural policies to lower the cost of nutritious foods.
Given the PSI’s extensive work on public finance and nutrition and synergies between the PSI and the VAIA initiative, the two parties agreed to write up and expedite the signature of the LoA, which will involve the PSI and FAO exchanging data and fully maximising the PSI’s knowledge of country and local contexts, implementation capabilities and commitment to evidence-based policy recommendations.
The same week, the MAFAP team - together with colleagues from FAO’s Food and Nutrition Division and FAO Ethiopia Office - also participated in a two-day validation workshop organized by the Ethiopian Public Health Institute as part of the same VAIA Initiative, which took place in Bishoftu, Ethiopia. The workshop served to validate the initial results of, and the methodology for, developing least-cost healthy diets for different contexts of subnational groups in Ethiopia.
The VAIA Initiative and meetings with the MoPD and PSI gave the opportunity for the MAFAP team to meet with FAO Representative in Ethiopia Farayi Zimudzi to update her on the programme’s activities, given that Ethiopia is one of MAFAP’s main partner countries to benefit from agrifood policy support for inclusive agricultural transformation.