Government, civil society and FAO in seminar on food and nutrition security

Throughout three days the "Dialogue for the strengthening of civil society in the food and nutrition security sector" brought together representatives of civil society organizations as well as from the Technical Secretariat for Food Security and Nutrition (SETSAN) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Maputo. As FAO Representative in Mozambique, Castro Camarada, noted in the meeting, the Organization contributes to the implementation of programs on food and nutrition security as well as the right to adequate food, "offering information on nutrition, food and agriculture but also creating knowledge and understanding on such subjects through the different actors of society".

This week’s seminar, which closed on Thursday (4/12), aimed at reflecting over the implementation of food and nutrition security policies in Mozambique as well as at strengthening the role of civil society organizations in its promotion. With the deadline (2015) established by world leaders to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) coming closer, "the question arises on what challenges and opportunities are there to consolidate the right to adequate food in Mozambique", said FAO Coordinator of the Right to Adequate Food project, Lázaro dos Santos, in the opening session.

The Executive Director of the NGO Woman, Gender and Development (in Portuguese: Mulher, Género e Desenvolvimento, MuGeDe), Saquina Mucavele, talking in the name of civil society organizations said that "not only does the civil society face the challenge of disseminating the right to adequate food, FAO and the Government of Mozambique do so, too". In the same line, SETSAN’s Executive Secretary, Marcela Libombo, noted that "only by giving each other the hands will it be possible to allow the most vulnerable ones to progressively have access to food and only like that will it be possible to reach food and nutrition security in Mozambique".

According to António Paulo, also from SETSAN, in 2013, "24 percent of the Mozambican households suffered from chronic food insecurity and 43 percent of the Mozambican children under five suffered from chronic undernutrition", considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be a very high rate.

Castro Camarada recalled that "FAO reccomends the implementation of the right to adequate food through a phased approach" and that "Mozambique has implemented the different steps in a creative way and according to the social, economic, and cultural reality of the country". FAO Representative highlighted in this context the identification of the people living in food and nutrition insecurity, the public policies oriented to poverty and chronic undernutrition eradication as well as the monitoring of the progress made and the evaluation of the impact of such policies on the lives of the population and on the country’s economy.

Since the Strategy and Action Plan for Food Security (ESAN II 2008-2015) was approved, the Government of Mozambique has oriented its food and nutrition security policies from a perspective of the right to adequate food. With FAO’s technical assistance, SETSAN coordinates the implementation of such public policies. The Technical Secretariat develops actions both for the integration and monitoring of the right to adequate food in strategic instruments of the Government and for capacity building and sensibilization of the stakeholders in related processes.

This dialogue with the civil society now approached the need both to create sustainability in individual and joint actions related to the right to adequate food and to improve the work of the existing networks in the field of human rights.