المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Maximizing the Impact of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition

Before we proceed, I would like to ascertain what precise result of “UN Decade of Action on Nutrition” we intend to maximise. There would be a general agreement on undertaking suitable action to achieve this result, if it represents a significant increase in the number of people to whom a sustainable and adequate supply of wholesome food is made available at an equitable cost. This submission outlines a generic strategy for the purpose easily adapted to suit the local conditions.

If we intend “not to leave anyone behind”, it is necessary to change the modern food systems not only into a source of sustainable and an adequate supply of wholesome food available to everybody, but also making their use just and fair to all. This is not identical with increased agricultural production, but requires a holistic examination of what changes in and around the food systems are necessary.

Every social practice is governed by a set of norms. Some norms are common to several practices including the use of food systems. A food system is an array of tools designed and used by the people in order to satisfy their nutritional needs. Its use represents a social practice in use, even when a rare subsistence farmer may operate it from beginning to the end for his sole benefit.

However, before we take a look at the food systems, it is important to consider their operating ambience, i.e., the other practices in the society, for they may influence its structure and operation both directly and indirectly. Some of the most import among those are the political, legal, educational, trade, communications and transport practices of a country.

Politics determine the policies that govern these and the other practices like agriculture that are involved in constituting a food system. When it is possible to implement those policies with sufficient skill, their success depends on their appropriateness and adequacy. These depend on the competence of their formulators.

Their incompetence would result in policies that would result in inadequacies in a food system. However, inappropriate and inadequate policy formulation is not necessarily a consequence of frank incompetence, but it may also be due to a too rigid adherence to the notion of institutional autonomy, which manifests itself as ‘thinking in silos’. Sometimes, one’s desire to wield an unlimited power within an institutional domain may lead to the same undesirable result.

But, inappropriate and/or inadequate policies may also arise from incompetence due to corruption, nepotism, rigged elections, gaining and/retaining power by force, belief in some untenable political doctrine, etc. Unfortunately, there is little one could deal with this not uncommon problem at international level apart from mild verbal criticism or printed and signed resolutions of dubious effectiveness.

When it is possible to enhance the requisite competence, policy formulation should strive towards the greatest possible policy congruence in the areas relevant to achieving the optimal output from the food systems in use. The following non-exhaustive list may provide some pointers towards areas for further enquiry:

1. Environment policy that protects and promotes the ecosystem services as well as aiming at environmental regeneration.
2. Agriculture education and training appropriate to a country’s food culture, hence to its climate and geography, and with respect to its real need for employment, i.e., whether labour- or capital-intensive agricultural methods would provide the highest number of jobs.
3. Legal policy, which when implemented would result in laws that demand and require policy congruence with respect to the food systems that will not leave anyone nutritionally behind.
4. A health policy that promotes balanced nutrition in line with the local food culture as a remedy against the spreading of NCD’s and deficiency diseases.
5. Trade policy that supports and promotes the local food systems, and resorts to ‘free trade’ only insofar as it supplements but not competes with the local food systems, or promote NCD’s and deficiency diseases.
6. Communications policy that favours the use of waterways and railways extensively for transport while not forgetting the need for road networks.
7. Transport policy to encourage haulage by waterways and railways rather than by road transport.
8. Legal policies that lead to making laws to guarantee land tenure to farmers, sole forest harvesting rights to the original inhabitants of the area, fishing rights of small-scale fishermen, limiting large-scale harvesting of the seas, lakes, rivers, etc.,  by capital-intensive equipment, etc.
9. Across the board policy assessment to cut down on weapons expenditure, prestige projects with a view to channelling resources to agriculture, health and education.
10. An employment policy that takes into account the principle of non-discrimination, economic reality, achievable employment possibilities, etc.

Assuming that those policies are appropriate and adequate, their contribution to the success of a food system depends on how skilfully they are implemented. It is axiomatic that any tool may fail to serve its purpose for two main reasons, viz., problems related to its usage or to the defects in the tool itself. These may be called usage and structural problems respectively.

Assuming that a food system is structurally adequate, its optimal usage requires an adequate number of people to run it, which in turn depends on having access to a sufficient pool of its potential operators to renew its aging counterparts. Diminution of this pool is becoming a growing problem in many countries today as fewer and fewer young people take to agricultural pursuits.

Meanwhile, a food system may be ineptly used, or misused as any other tool and there is no a priori reason to assume that food systems are an exception. Therefore, maximising the impact of the “decade” will have to involve steps to ensure that the people’s access to food is not adversely affected either by those problems related to usages of food systems, or from the defects in them.

Once we have traced those possible inadequacies and rectified them, we should then ascertain whether we need to take steps to change the output of the food systems in use today. If this should be required, we should next ascertain the extent of the qualitative and the quantitative changes in the output of the food systems concerned. Finally, we can identify the optimal means of achieving our objective, and use them.

Achieving this requires understanding the generic structure of a food system. We can visualise it as a chain of generically identical sub-systems spanning the gap between a real producer of food and an end-user of his produce. Some of the sub-systems are used within the others, for example, storage and transport systems. This represents a recursive use of a system. Here is a list of some generic components of a food system (For more information, please see the end note.):

1. Yielder system that actually generates food or animals.  It may be a forest, body of water, or a farm. It may be entirely dependent on natural ecosystem services, or partially depend on man-made substitutes, eg. irrigation, manuaring.
2. End-user system that consists of two sub-systems:
   1. Procurement system where food is procured for use, for instance harvesting one’s own food or by purchase.
   2. Preparation system which may contain two sub-systems, viz., a refiner system to remove the inedible, clean and trimmed or cut, and then passed onto the culinary system where is made ready to eat.

1. Storage system which may vary from the family fridge or a farmer’s grain bin to a very large modern storage facility.
2. Transport system may range from a man’s back to ocean-going grain careers.
3. Preserver system is intended to ensure the longevity of perishable items. It may resort to drying, salting, conserving, freezing, etc.
4. Selling system resulting from the division of labour introduced by social evolution. It has given rise to several sub-systems:

1. Packaging system purported to serve customer’s convenience.
2. Commercialised procurement and preparation systems directly linked to a selling system. This may range from street sausage stall to a famed restaurant.
3.  A combination of procurement, refiner, storage and selling systems as seen in ready-cut meat and vegetable packages.
4.  A combination of procurement, preparation, storage and selling systems involved in industrial food manufacture and sales.

   V. Advertising system whose existence is supposed to be justified because it informs the public about the food items available for sale.

I have purposely avoided until now agricultural research and technology which has become an increasingly important adjunct to the yielder systems in use. Their basic purpose is twofold, viz., to understand how to improve the output of yielder systems with reference to some man-made standard, and then to develop technical means of achieving it.

Apart from steps to increase the physical mass, colour, etc., of the yield itself, this activity manifests itself as a supplement to the natural ecosystem services, on which agriculture historically had depended. Irrigation, use of fertilisers, biocides, etc., are examples of this. This adjunctive system is likewise prone to the shortcomings described earlier.

Obviously, the inept use of a yielder system would manifest itself as a lowered output, but it is not necessarily due to not using the most modern cultivars or breeds of livestock. In fact, their supplanting the traditional varieties could entail a price the farmers could not afford, may be unsuited owing to the local conditions, or users may not be skilled enough to manage them.

Introduction of high-yield cereals that depend on an extensive use of fertilisers and biocides during the “Green Revolution” of the 1960’ties is a classic example of this. It represents use of inappropriate materials and methods in agriculture. It represents an inept use of an adjunctive system.

Even when the physical components of a yielder system are adequate and suitable for a given locality, its users, i.e., farmers and labourers may fail to put them into their optimal use owing to their lack of knowledge and skill. This is not synonymous with their lack of familiarity with the most modern means of agriculture, but rather their lack of know-how and skills in tried and proven one’s compatible with their own food culture. Its resolution requires appropriate agriculture education and training.

Inept use of any other sub-system would result in waste of food. It is worth remarking that ‘targeted advertising’ of industrial food has reduced the sales of fresh fruits and vegetables leading to their wastage due to spoilage in shops. It is heartening to note that wastage of food has now begun to receive the attention it merits.

Unskilled use of adequate storage facilities, Inefficient running of otherwise ample transport and adjunctive systems as well as the commercialised sets of sub-systems of a food system (wastage of food in restaurants, ready to use packaging, and in industrial food factories) and the domestic wastage of food, all contribute to this undesirable result.

Now we come to the misuse of some component of a food system. This may appear to be a controversial postulate at the first glance, but it is not. We invented food systems, and the sole justification of its invention is that its use is believed to enable the people to secure an adequate and balanced diet in a sustainable fashion at an affordable cost.

Nutrition is one of our most important fundamental needs, while money is only a secondary tool whose justification in this instance, is in that it enables us to use the food procurement system, replacing the barter system of yore. So, the use of yielder system to grow cash crops or to use seller system to earn foreign exchange by selling a national dietary ingredient likes pea nuts (eg. Senegal and Cameroons) while malnutrition is a problem, represents a misuse of a part of a food system.

A familiar insidious misuse of a seller system involves dumping surplus produce in another country’s food market, and thereby undermining the long-term well-being of its own yielder system. Another misuse of the seller system is its encroachment into foreign food markets to sell products of dubious nutritive or gastronomical value claiming it to represent free trade.

Now we come to the situation where all the operators possess adequate know-how and skill while the food system fails to yield the intended result. Obviously, this arises from some structural problem in it. As a food system is under the dual control of political authorities and private sector to varying degrees, and it consists of several sub-systems, there are several opportunities for structural problems.

Consider now, political authorities opting to implement a policy of promoting modern agricultural practice, but not able or willing to implement a commensurable policies in communications and energy. As a result, yields will be adversely affected. This is an often seen example of policy incongruence due to reductive planning.

Using the same example, the authorities may promote the same agriculture policy when it is totally unsuitable to the local climatic, geographic and economic conditions. This will have the same consequences as those which arise when the operators lack the requisite know-how and skill. It represents a case of inappropriate policy.

The same result would obtain if policies concerning the other components of a food system should display the same flaw. Huge grain losses due to inadequate transport and storage systems in the Soviet Union are the classic example of policy inappropriateness.

Meanwhile, transport system is frequently in private hands motivated by the desire for profit. Even when the communications are adequate, means of transport may not always have sufficient capacity or speed. Its effect on the final output of a food system is clear, and represents a drop in the output due to sub-system incompatibility. The end-user will experience the same result if it should occur in any other sub-system of a food system.

Holistic and congruent policy formulation and their efficient implementation, addressing the problems related to inept use of food systems and their misuse, and overcoming the political obstacles to leave advising on decision-making in competent hands, and a willingness to confine oneself to decisions that leaves no one behind rather than opt for ‘cutting edge’ in agriculture and other areas then, are the most significant ways of making our food systems help us to move towards our objective.

I do not believe that we need more research or any other fancy technology to feed the current global population adequately, rather we need to take a pause for breath and rational evaluation of the tools already at our dispose I am convinced at some of the ‘cutting edge’ tools can be discarded with real benefit to the hungry millions and our environment.

On the other hand, what we need to do is to rearrange our food systems in line with our national needs with respect to a given food culture, and cease to think of food in terms of mere commodity open to every kind of commercial speculation. We should always recall that none can live without food, and money is merely just one of the tools that could be used to procure it. It is the inherent value of food that gives a value to the tokens that represent

Everybody knows the size and profits of food advertising including colourful packaging. But now is the time to understand that it is the end-user who foots that expenditure when buying food. It is time to think its effect on the affordability of food especially to people

Finally, enhancing the competence to build and run just and fair food systems need a pool of competent young people to replace aging agricultural population everywhere. However, youth’s attitude to agriculture is undeservedly negative owing to irrational social values propagated by entertainment industry, ‘media’, education, etc. I think we need a radical change in the social perception of the value of agriculture and food, for without a wider public appreciation of its vital importance not much can be achieved.

Best wishes!

Lal Manavado.

End note:

For a more comprehensive and a justifiable description of a food system, do please see: http://www.fao.org/fsnforum/cfs-hlpe/node/992

Dear Moderators,

First and foremost, I would like to thank for this opportunity to exchange opinions on how to maximize the impact of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition.

Herewith, please find below the comments on behalf of the Nutrition Division, Ministry of Health Malaysia.

Thank you.

1. What are your expectations for the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition and how could it make a significant difference in improving nutrition and food security of the people in your country within the next 10 years?

Despite significant progresses on nutritional status of the population since the first Rome Declaration on Nutrition in 1992, there is still a lot more to be done to improve and strengthen the global nutrition as multiple threats of malnutrition. The burden of NCDs continues to rise in Malaysia. Although the causes are complex, unhealthy diet is one of the major risk factors. On the other hand, under-nutrition continues to be a problem in certain segments of our population. Tackling the double-burden of malnutrition is central to ensuring the achievement of the global nutrition targets, the diet-related global targets on NCDs and the recently endorsed SDGs, which will lead to a more resilient, equitable, economically stable and healthy population.  The declaration of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition will help better garner all the commitments from all sectors to end all forms of malnutrition.

1. What critical activities need to be included in the Work Programme for the implementation of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition to reach the 2025 global nutrition targets? Which activities would need to be accelerated in your country to reach these targets?  How could these activities be funded?

Some of the critical activities that need to be included in the UN Work Programme are the integration of nutrition considerations in all development policies, making agriculture more nutrition-enhancing and advocating for school/urban farming. It is also important to give focus on strategies for behavioural change in transforming unhealthy eating habits and lifestyle which contribute to obesity problem among the population. To emphasise on nutrition promotion for the first 1000 days of life, effective strategies to address stunting and obesity problems among children also need to be highlighted.

Malaysia has reviewed its National Plan of Action for Nutrition of Malaysia (NPANM) for the time frame of 2016-2025 to be in line with the global targets in addressing the current nutrition situation of our population. The strategies of a whole-society and whole-government approach to address unhealthy eating and inactive living have been incorporated in this plan. Life-course approach has been implemented for nutrition programmes and activities in the country. In order to transform the population to eat healthily and be more active, the implementation of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ policies towards this agenda are given greater emphasis.

The increase prevalence of overweight and obesity among school children is an emerging issue in Malaysia. Several strategies and activities to halt this problem have been identified such as the implementation of the Policy Options to Combat Obesity in Malaysia, the revision of the School Canteen Guidelines by banning unhealthy food item to be sold in the school canteen, expansion of nutrition promotion activities and strengthening monitoring and surveillance system for school children. Obesity and NCD problems are advocated to all school children, parents and teachers through the empowerment of Parents-Teachers Association (PTA).

To support the ICN2 Framework of Action towards Sustaining Food Systems for Healthy Diets, Malaysia has elevated the component of food and nutrition security as one of the objectives in the NPANM III, 2016-2025. Thus, to reshape food system to promote healthy diet needs a coherent policies from all stakeholders throughout the supply chain. Close collaboration with the food producers or food industries as well as the agriculture sectors are crucial in ensuring availability, accessibility and affordability of safe, nutritious and healthy foods in a sustainable and resilient way. Government should take the leadership to mobilise all the relevant stakeholders.

1. What can be done to accelerate and improve the quality of commitments from the various actors? What role(s) should public and private actors play in monitoring their implementation?

To accelerate and improve the quality of commitments from various actors, continuous engagement and involvement of the relevant sectors should be ensured. Trans- and multi-sectoral collaboration and coordination is needed to successfully tackle malnutrition in all its forms. Coordination and commitment among different stakeholders are crucial. Strong and continuous inter and intra-sectoral coordination and engagement are essential at all stages, from the formulation of the policies and specific plan of actions as well as the implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Accountability and ownership of the activities/ programmes are very important to ensure all activities are being implemented.

Therefore, the roles of non-health sectors have to be clearly defined and well explained in the various nutrition and nutrition-related platforms. The integration of nutrition objectives and consideration into their policies is pivotal. Strong political commitment such as the Cabinet Committee on a Healthy Environment chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister will strengthen and mobilise the collaboration and involvement of various sectors in achieving nutrition agenda and targets.

1. How can other relevant forums, such as the CFS and UNSCN, contribute, and how can other movements (e.g. human rights, environment) be involved in the Decade?

Other relevant forums such as The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and the United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN) can significantly contribute to the Decade in line with their functions which providing and strengthening strategic guidance and advocacy in nutrition at the highest level. They can also facilitate dialogues as well as engaging the relevant stakeholders/sectors for strengthening nutrition action and mainstreaming nutrition into development policies.

I would very much echo the comments of Claudio and Florence. It is also important to ensure that any community based approaches also take all forms of malnutrition, and not ignore food systems that are driving obesity. As Corinna Hawkes said at the recent WPHNA congress on World Nutrition in Cape Town, we need to think about diet quality, and not be driven by reductionist science that favours single nutrient interventions using supplementation or fortification without addressing the underlying causes. Key to changing the apporach is building capacity, of all involved.

Dear madam/ sir

Of the three components of nutrition, protein and micronutrient deficiencies are critical. Here attention is needed at the production domain to produce nutrient-dense foods. This is in the context of the recent studies among different production systems and its nutrient profile, showed that organic and sustainable production systems help to produce products with high nutrient contents, especially micronutrients and vitamins. Hence focus on supply side issues needs equal attention.

Regards

Rengalakshmi

My name is Onoja Ifeoma Uzoamaka, I am an expert in the area of Maternal and Child Health Nutrition.

My contribution towards this is that:

1. In Nigeria, effort should be geared towards the creation of jobs for the unemployed

2. enforcing intake of key nutrients like folate, iron amongst the pregnant women

3. re-enforcing the promotion of exclusive breast feeding

4. encouraging agriculture, and

5. involving the political leaders in creating an enabling environment for nutrition works to thrive (security, easy access to health facility and improving in feeding of the vulnerable groups).

English translation below

Colombia es un país que tiene un problema principal y es la corrupción, lo que impide que la buena voluntad de muchos se haga evidente. No podemos confiar en las entidades que se encarguen de ayudar en lo concerniente a la cimentación de nuestro niños, por lo tanto una ayuda sería que organizaciones sin animo de lucro, pero no las ong nuestras, hablo de entidades con Rotary internacional u otra, se encarguen de los programas de alimentación. Con comunicación directa con el alto gobierno, porque ya una vez intentaron hacerlo y los mandos medios no dejaron que eso prosperara, porque para todo piden dinero. Solo así podemos garantizar que la comida en nuestro país le llegue a quienes la necesitan.

El control de los programas deben  tenerlo organizaciones internacionales. El gobierno  debe entregar ese dinero a una entidad  que responda en donde no haya intervención de ellos.

Colombia has a major problem: corruption, which impedes the prevalence of the goodwill of many people. We cannot rely on public institutions to improve child nutrition. We need help from non-profit organizations to take charge of nutrition programmes. I am not referring to Colombian NGOs but to organizations like Rotary International or others. Direct communication with senior government officials would be necessary, as several previous attempts failed due to the corrupt behaviour of middle-ranking officials, who are asking for money for whatever reason. This is the only way to ensure that food reaches those in need.

Programs should be monitored by international organizations. In addition, public funds should be assigned to these entities to work in areas which are not covered by government interventions.

Dear Moderator,

My name is Veronica Kirogo from Kenya and I am working at the State Ministry of Agrciulture, Livestock and Fisheries.

In the past couple of decades there has been a lot of emphasis on nutrition-specific interventions in addressing malnutrition, yet only limited impact has been realized as evidenced by the prevalence of stunting in Kenya which stands at 26 percent. Similarly, the focus on increasing productivity, commercialization and competitiveness of agricultural commodities has not resulted in improvement of food and nutrition security in Kenya particularly at household level. However, there are some interventions either by the government or partners that may have resulted in improved nutrition and food security, but with limited opportunities for sharing of experiences, lessons learnt or best practices, replication of these success stories is difficult.

My expectation for the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition is the need to focus on documentation and dissemination of successful food and nutrition security interventions for replication. There is also need for a standardized tool for advocating for increased budgetary allocation on the food and nutrition security sector. Seventy five percent of the Kenyan population is youth; therefore food and nutrition security programmes that specifically target this category should be formulated as they have the potential for feeding the future. The use of mobile telephone technology in dissemination of food and nutrition messages would ensure wide coverage since the majority of Kenyans have mobile phones.

Developing countries should be encouraged to establish or strengthen a food and nutrition security council in order to harmonize coordination, funds mobilization and implementation of programmes, prioritize activities and pool resources. The activities would be funded jointly by the government, partners and private sector. There is a need to focus more on nutrition-sensitive technologies since they are sustainable and more often homegrown solutions.

I am so glad to see the United Nations focus on Nutrition and Food Security. One tool that I think is being under-used is digital platforms. This is especially important when trying to reach food insecure youth. Though there is a digital divide between developed and developing nations, the digital divide is being closed rapidly. Rather than us finding food insecure youth, and citizens generally, we could find effective ways to listen to what they are already saying and map it in order to attack trouble regions more effectively. This would not require a bespoke platform, but simply a way to comb through social media (which people are already on and using heavily) to unearth messages and recommendations from the people living it, about how to help solve the nutrition problems. We must take better advantage of the egalitarian potential of digital platforms in order to promote an egalitarian world.

You could partner with other like-minded agencies in order to pool resources effectively to get things done. When I was at UNICEF we worked with UNDP and UN Women on inequalities initiatives, focusing on digital. People want to tell you their situation and how to change it. They want to be included in the problem solving. By partnering, we managed to create the largest and most successful online consultation platform in UN history. I say that to say, without that feedback the SDGs would have looked a lot different.

Whatever change does happen has to feature a healthy helping of people living in poverty and food insecurity in the conversation, the most effective, fastest and cheapest way to do that is through digital means. More focus needs to be concentrated in this area.

Dr. Tricia Callender

President and CEO of Spanner Strategies

www.spannerstrategies.com

New York and Johannesburg

While the present interest in nutrition (including the Decade) is most welcome, sustainable responses to all forms of malnutrition will in my view require a local approach involving all actors. The food and health sectors should be held accountable for jointly supporting local authorities to make this happen, and donors to co-fund their efforts.

The illusion that standard interventions can provide a response should not be encouraged any further. Clearly common principles should guide the process of developing and implementing local strategies, but applied to specific contexts will result in local specific and pragmatic strategies, which will draw on the array of tools and interventions developed in the last decades. 

There is no question that evidence is needed to help policy-makers make appropriate decisions but this evidence should be practice-based and take on board the experience of local actors. Multi-disciplinary teams from local centers of expertise would be best placed to review and document promising practices and assess their impacts on health, jobs and social equity, diets and environment (the different dimensions of sustainable development). 

Regarding funding, local strategies to address all forms of malnutrition would help articulate needs and resources> Relevant government institutions could then explore how best to pool existing resources and ensure convergence of relevant programmes and project, in collaboration with civil society actors. Centers of expertise could reorient their activities to support and learn from local processes. And last but not least the private sector should play an active role in removing constraints and supporting solutions.

One of the challenges to address is the inconsistency, contradictions and asymmetry of laws, regulations and procecdures at local level. Lawyers and institution experts are needed to revisit this context.

Another one is the conflict of interest underlying some of the so-called "nutrition interventions".

As the saying goes, nutrition is way too important to be left to nutritionists, health to health staff and food to the food sector. Unless people and local institutions become real actors in local development processes, it is highly unlikely that the Decade will achieve its intended purposes.  

Dear all,

In other to maximize the impact of the UN Decade on Nutrition:

UN should team with work in partnership with government.

Develop and implement projects in a more sustainable way.

UN already lost the fight on food security and nutrition, they should work with NGOs very active  in the field.

At each country UN should build a technical team where most important stakeholders are represented.

Best Regards,

Albert Fosso Founder (Trustee)

www.nhtnamibia.com