Global forum on food security and nutrition

59.Kuruppacharil V.Peter, World Noni Research Foundation, India

India next  to Brazil  legislated access and availability of food as a right of its citizens(1250 million) by an act of Parliament in 2013(FSA-2013).It has a time tested food distribution system in states like Tamil Nadu,Kerala and Chattishgarh.The mid day meal scheme implimented in above states through primary schools(Anganvadi) is lauded and appreciated.One egg/day/student or one banana/day/student enriched the nutritive value of the food served mostly rice based.Recently millet based food packets are supplied free of cost.Efforts are made to make available clean drinking water.Immunisation against polio is done by recording infants in the locality and administering anti-polio vaccine.There are classes on personnel and family hygiene.Open defication is seldom and toilets are made available.Despite all the above measures India houses the largest population of anaemic, wasted and underweighed women and children.Protein deficiency is rampant.Mosquito transmitted diseases like chicken guniya and water borne dysentry are common.

In India we have the grass root level Panchayat system of governance.The ward councillors need to be empowered and made responsible for the nutritional and food security of the people around.

60.Albert Fosso, Namibian Horticulture Trust, Namibia

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

61.Florence Egal, Food Security and Nutrition expert, Italy

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.  

62.Tricia Callender, Spanner Strategies, United States of America

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