Mr. Kafeero opening the workshop

Technical experts from five African countries namely eSwatini, Rwanda, United Republic of Tanzania (mainland and  Zanzibar), Zambia and Zimbabwe gathered in Dar-es-Salaam recently for a capacity building workshop on food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with Sokoine University of Agriculture.

The experts included those from the ministries of agriculture, health, women’s affairs, rural development and other ministries, who are part of the multi-sectoral technical task teams currently working on developing FBGDs in their respective countries.

National FBDGs are a government’s recommendation to its people on what constitutes a good diet. They are a set of evidence-based, easily understood, behavior-focused messages for the general public that take into account a country’s nutrition-related issues in the context of food availability, diet patterns and food culture.

A priority

Speaking at the opening of the workshop, the FAO Representative to Tanzania commended efforts by the Government of Tanzania and other stakeholders for leading the way on the issue.

“Food-based dietary guidelines were among the priority considerations at the International Conference on Nutrition, which was convened by FAO and WHO in Rome in 1992,” he said adding that due to this need, FAO assists Member Countries to develop, revise and implement food-based dietary guidelines and food guides in line with the current scientific evidence.”

According to him, Tanzania was the first country to initiate FBDGs progress in 2017 with FAO support. The FBDGs technical task team in Tanzania included several academics from the Sokoine University of Agriculture. They were able to benefit from direct capacity building and training provided by FAO.

Therefore, the Sokoine nutrition team was commissioned to assist FAO in the task of providing of technical support for developing FBDGs in other African countries, namely Rwanda, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar under the guidance of FAO.

“I would like to commend the Sokoine University of Agriculture for timely delivery of the project outputs and team working. The extra time you've been putting in on this has really paid off,” he added.

A healthy diet is one that meets the nutritional needs of individuals by providing sufficient, safe, and diversified foods to maintain active life and reduce risks of disease. It contains fruits, vegetables, legumes (e.g. lentils, beans), nuts and whole grains (e.g. unprocessed maize, millet, oats, wheat, brown rice), and is low in fats (especially saturated fats), free sugars and salt.

Most FBDGs contain a graphical representation which expresses recommendations in a visual format (e.g. plate, pyramid etc.) in order to facilitate understanding. Graphical representations of FBDGs provide the general population with a visual and practical guide for the selection of foods that will best help them maintain a good state of health.

The experts receieved additional skills to apply linear programming to calculate the proportionalities of food groups for recommended diets, which they can apply to the development of their national FBDGs.

Why Sub Saharan Africa

In a worldwide exercise undertaken by FAO of mapping FBDGs, Sub-Saharan African stood out as the sub-region with the least number of national FBDGs. Following advocacy workshops held in Africa in 2016, several African countries through Ministries of Health and/or Agriculture requested FAO’s technical support to develop FBDG. Consequently, FAO is according a high priority to assist these countries to develop and implement FBDGs.

Development of FBDGs is a multi-step process. Most of these countries have completed the comprehensive evidence review needed for providing the scientific basis for developing FBDGs. Among these countries, Tanzania, under the leadership of Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children was the first country to start FBDGs development in 2017.

Until recently, the focus of nutrition discussions in Africa have largely been targeting undernutrition especially, stunting, wasting and micronutrient deficiencies including anaemia deficiency in women of reproductive age.

However, the situation is fast changing with obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases rapidly rising, with many countries facing a multiple-burden of malnutrition. Unhealthy diets are a leading cause of malnutrition, being responsible for more adult deaths and disability than alcohol and tobacco use.

While some people are not eating sufficient amounts of food to provide the energy, vitamins and minerals they need for optimal health, others are eating far more food than is necessary for their health and well-being, or too much of foods high in fat, sugar and/or salt.

These nutritional problems call for urgent and scaled-up action by countries and their partners in line with the international commitments made at the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition 2016–2025, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Framework for Action of ICN2 recommends that Member States implement nutrition education and information interventions based on national dietary guidelines and coherent policies related to food and diets, among other things.

Implementation of FBDGs involves making use of strategies to embed FBDGs in national policies and programmes, and applying and activating them in different sectors (e.g. health, agriculture, education) and settings such as schools, communities and workplaces.

Coherent policies across sectors, utilizing regulatory instruments, economic incentives and disincentives, and educational activity at all levels of formal and non-formal systems) are needed to address the challenges of persisting undernutrition, rising obesity and associated non-communicable diseases facing our countries today.

FBDGs can be used to guide this coordinated action that is needed: it is not enough to use FBDGs as a tool for providing reliable diet-related guidance to the public – they also need to be used to persuade policy- and decision-makers to take actions that make healthy foods more available and affordable.