Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

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Ms. Bibiana Muasya

Member since
Organization: Nutrition Expert-Independent consultant
Country: United States of America
Field(s) of expertise:
I am working on:

Supporting agriculture based African CSOs, Private sector, governments organization intergrate Gender and Nutrition

I am an international development professional with over 10 years of diverse experience across government, non-profit and private sectors, specialized in project management, and have a strong passion for food security, health/nutrition, and gender issues.

I have delivered in various capacities involving designing, coordinating, implementing and providing technical support to nutrition programs in cohesion with international humanitarian standards and national guidelines both locally and internationally.

I am resolved & committed to using my knowledge, skills, expertise, & experiences to grow others and contribute to agriculture-nutrition linkages & outcomes among rural farming families & urban poor households in Sub-Saharan Africa.

With resolve, attention to detail, integrity, and ethics I have had the opportunity to oversee research projects with proven results. I aspire to pursue a career contributing to close the gender data gap and provide research-based policy solutions to address public health nutrition and food security challenges sustainably.

This member contributed to:

    • Barriers include:

      • Limited access to decision-makers and policy-makers
      • Limited resources for research and dissemination of findings with a bias to informing policy
      • Limited understanding of policy-making processes among scientists and other knowledge holders as well as limited involvement of the researchers on policy making and governance
      • Limited engagement and collaboration between scientists, policymakers, and other stakeholders

      Opportunities include:

      • Increasing use of digital technologies to connect scientists and policy-makers
      • A joint consultation between scientist/researchers and policy makers should so policy gap analysis is a good opportunity on where to start; which policies are in place, which ones should be enacted what are the bottle necks, what information is missing that needs research done, what scope
      • Growing recognition of the importance of evidence-based policy-making
      • Increased funding for research on sustainable agrifood systems and involving policy makers in the process
      • Growing interest in interdisciplinary research to address complex challenges in agrifood systems
      • Growing demand for stakeholder engagement and participation in policy-making processes
      • Researcher and scientist should derive their research questions based on challenges policy makers are facing so that once the research is conducted it addresses a specific policy gap in agrifood systems

      It is important for scientists and other knowledge holders to proactively engage with policy-makers and other stakeholders, to build relationships, and to communicate their findings in a clear and accessible manner. Additionally, there should be more opportunities for scientists to be embedded in policy-making processes to provide real-time scientific research that speaks to policies within agrifood systems

       

       

    • In my opinion gender empowerment should first start in changing perceptions that are strongly rooted in the minds of everyone and not just rural communities.

      I recently took mental note of gender mainstreaming in families around me and it was saddening to realise that basic women empowerment issues like access to family finances within a home, property ownership of shared property is low, mind you this is families that have high levels of literacy.

      More civic education in my view should be enhanced in all masses not just targeting a section of women in rural areas, true they are most times producers in terms of agriculture and their empowerment is key for achieving food security goals, however if empowerment is done to all masses all gender (male and female and non binary) it will be key to see real change.

       

    • In order to achieve the global nutrition targets by 2025 it is vital for intergration to be embraced in Nutrition and food security. UN should include in programming a more intergrated approach to tackling malnutrition. This should be done in consultation with the public and private actors as a concerted effort with a clear cut goal.

      In my opinion Poverty is a key impediment to tackling malnutrition. Economic empowerment should be considered as part of the key activities in the intergration. In food security a wholistic approach should be sort. Stating with climate smart interventions that help to conserve water to provide a condusive environment for crops and livestock production. When all these fundamental nutrition sensitive programs have been layered nutrition specific interventions will be dealt with as well. The key is to support the safety nets.