Food security, nutrition analysis expands to 21 states and FCT as Lagos inaugurates committee
Lagos - The Government of Lagos State has inaugurated a special committee to drive the implementation of the food security and nutrition analysis (Cadre Harmonise) in the state.
This is consequent to a decision by the Federal Government through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to expand the analysis to the rest of the country after a successful implementation in 16 northern states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the last six years.
To begin with, five (5) more states have been earmarked in the current expansion phase, bringing the total number of states to be analysed in October 2021 to twenty-one (21) states and the FCT.
At the inauguration of the special committee in Lagos in June 2021, the State’s Commissioner of Agriculture, Ms Ruth Abisola Olusanya, said earlier phases facilitated by National Programme for Food Security by the Lagos State Agriculture Development Authority (LSADA) were very successful.
“I hope you will be able to deploy the early warning tool for the analysis of acute food and nutrition insecurity as it relates to Lagos State”, she told the committee members.
The outcome from the Cadre Harmonise analysis or CH in short provides early warning alert to national and state governments as well as development partners including the humanitarian community on prevailing and projected food security and nutrition situation with locations and is used to galvanise support towards targeted actions.
The CH tool has been operational in the states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Plateau, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, Zamfara and FCT. While the new states are Cross Rivers, Edo, Enugu, Abia and Lagos states.
Recall in March the Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) Dr. Earnest Umakhihe said FMARD management “approved the expansion of CH activities to other states of Nigeria so as to achieve a nationwide coverage to facilitate the generation of a general view of food security and nutrition situation in Nigeria”.
Taking ownership of the process and expanding it to other states in the country has always been one of the recommendations of the UN Agencies at the helm of the process. At the March 2021 launch, the Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Nigeria and to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Fred Kafeero, said since 2015 when the process was first introduced in Nigeria, its results have become a major yardstick for identifying vulnerable populations in need of humanitarian assistance.
The CH analysis, a unifying tool that helps to produce relevant, consensual, rigorous, and transparent analyses of current and projected food and nutrition situations, is led by the Government of Nigeria, facilitated through the National Programme for Food Security (NPFS) with financial and technical support from FAO, the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), European Union, the French Development Agency and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
It classifies the severity of food and nutrition insecurity based on the international classification scale through an approach that refers to well-defined functions and protocols. Other members of the technical committee of the CH Technical Working Group (TWG) are the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET), Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Oxfam, Administration for Children & Families (ACF) and Save the Children.
Related Link:
http://www.fao.org/nigeria/news/detail-events/en/c/1382380/
http://www.fao.org/nigeria/news/detail-events/en/c/1328855/
Contacts
Emmanuel Kihaule David Tsokar Opeyemi Olagunju
Communications Specialist Communications Specialist Communications/Reporting Officer
FAO Nigeria FAO Nigeria FAO Nigeria – North East Sub Office