Global forum on food security and nutrition

90.Jackson Tumwine, International consultant in the field of food security and nutrition, Uganda (second contribution)

Qn.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 ten years?

Yes, it’s a great opportunity to:

·         Bring together all initiatives and efforts by different stakeholders in Uganda to address the problem of food and nutrition insecurity and its consequences

·         Identify alignment gaps in the policies, initiatives and efforts implemented by different stakeholders

·         Develop and implement a common vision to improve nutrition and food security of the country

·         Map existing policies, strategies, plans and frameworks and make commitments to address food and nutrition

·         Identify challenges and opportunities for developing a coherent national framework to address the problem of food and nutrition insecurity

·         To develop a national road map for a harmonized and aligned food and nutrition frameworks etc…

Then how could it make a difference in improving nutrition and food security of the people in your country within the next ten years?

The UN Decade on Nutrition and the Framework for implementation in my view, addresses key issues of food and nutrition security. It could make a difference in Uganda by helping the country to address system level requirements- which would help to enable functionality of the systems, structures and implementation which are critical in the success of the UN Decade on Nutrition. Theses system level requirements include: strategic capacities and adaptive management at national & sub-national levels; Common understanding; Common communication; Coherent and authoritative policies & strategies & guidelines; Consensus on actions; Common results framework; High-level commitment, system commitment and leadership at all Levels; Clear roles & responsibilities; consistent incentives & accountability; coordinated M&E, operations research, learning platforms;  Community, NGO, Partner & Private Sector alignment; capacities, facilities, tools equipment; consistent financing; and Coordination

Qn.2 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?

High Level global/regional activities

·         Map existing global, regional and national policies, strategies, plans, frameworks and commitments related to food and nutrition;

·         Identify alignment gaps between the global, regional and national frameworks;

·         Identify challenges and opportunities for alignment of the global, regional, and national policy frameworks at country level;

·         Facilitate the development of global, regional and national road maps for alignment and implementation of food and nutrition frameworks.

Country level activities to be accelerated

·         Identify alignment gaps between the global, regional and national frameworks

·         Map out all initiatives and efforts by different stakeholders in Uganda to address the problem of food and nutrition insecurity and its consequences

·         Identify alignment gaps in the policies, initiatives and efforts implemented by different sectors and stakeholders

·         Map existing policies, strategies, plans and frameworks and make commitments to address food and nutrition

·         Identify challenges and opportunities for developing a coherent national framework to address the problem of food and nutrition insecurity

·         Develop a national road map for a harmonized and aligned food and nutrition frameworks

·         Effectively engage high level decision makers in government and partner organizations in addressing critical bottlenecks, through candid reporting from the technical secretariat, the use of real-time progress markers and the establishment of clear lines of accountability in the implementation

·         Strengthen human resources in the nutrition secretariat for strategic oversight and coordination

·         Create a full-time implementation team to support cascading and on-going support to sub-national levels.

·         Develop a phased work plan for the implementation of the program which will also inform development partner’s interactions and support.

·         Conduct institutional capacity assessment for the implementation at the national level

·         Build strategic partnership with all development partners supporting MSN in the country including agreement on key strategic directions for moving forward the country nutrition agenda. 

·         Continuous capacity building of all stakeholders involved in MSN implementation at all levels, in the areas of strategic capacity, adaptive management, documentation and sharing of experiences

How could these activities be funded?

·         Government

·         Development partners in the Country supporting Nutrition

·         Implementing Agencies such as UN bodies

Qn.3 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?

·         Securing high level decision makers commitment and support for strategic policy direction

·         Integrating nutrition in the national development plan which policy and programme implementation

·         Integrate nutrition in the country policies for all sectors, strategies and programmes and develop performance indicators for sectors and stakeholders-seek commitment

·         Integrating nutrition indicators in the national development plan which will be translated in the 5 years’ District Development plans-this will inform district planning and budgeting/resource allocation and implementation

·         Integrating nutrition indicators in the local Governments reporting indicators-this will ensure that all relevant Local Government Sectors and Departments include nutrition in their ToRs etc

What role(s) should public and private actors play in monitoring their implementation?

Public sectors

Government designated coordination entity Level

·         Create enabling environment for the implementation-policies, guidelines, contribute human resource etc.

·         Resource mobilization both financial and technical for implementation, operationalising/ cascading to the entire country

·         Host learning platforms to share the progress, challenges and next steps etc

·         Strengthen the coordination amongst the sectors of the mainstream ministries and decentralised levels

·         Put in place formal network in place with high commitment and guidance

·         Review of the current nutrition interventions and draw lessons to inform on going nutrition policy development, identify funding needs and mobilise resources

·         Undertake Functional/Institutional capacity assessment of nutrition coordination and implementation mechanisms at national and decentralized levels;

·         Continuous efforts to strengthen human resource capacity to plan, implement, monitor, and evaluate food and nutrition programmes.

·         Strengthen the Linkages between sectors and decentralised local government structures to ensure smooth implementation and reporting of the progress, challenges and bottlenecks and how to overcome such bottleneck in in the implementation.  There is need to promote vertical and horizontal communication which might help to overcome a number of challenges during implementation

Sectors level

·         Efforts should continue to target all the eight sectors that signed UNAP to ensure that nutrition is a priority in their sector development plans and strategic plans to ensure that sectors truck and report on nutrition indicators and implementation progress.

 District/local government level

·         Ensure that nutrition indicators are integrated in the districts five years’ development plans and Districts nutrition action plans

·         Ensure that NGOs and CBOS working in the respective districts contribute to the district nutrition action plans

·         Ensure effective monitoring and evaluation of nutrition activities districts

·         Resource mobilisation for district implementation and monitoring

·         Host district nutrition learning platforms

Development Partners

·         To promote and identify funding sources for nutrition agenda

·         Promote Joint resource mobilization, allocation and support

·         Contributing to the development partners consolidated fund for nutrition

·         Provide policy guidance on alignment of nutrition programs to the Sustainable Development Goals and the Nutrition commitments of the UN

·         Promotion of multi-sectoral approach, a shift from approaching nutrition from traditional sectors to include all nutrition specific and sensitive sectors in the funding arrangements and support

International NGOS and civil society organizations

·         To support, and amplify the voice of the populations suffering from malnutrition

·          engaging in social mobilization and awareness-raising efforts in close collaboration with the media

·         Ensure effective representation of the grassroots and support and hold governments and other stakeholders to be accountable - delivering on nutrition agenda

·         Help to ensure alignment of CSO programs and policies behind national priorities

·         Bring the grassroots voice to inform national policies and plans that reflect needs and realities on the ground

·         Support sub national level efforts in the implementation of the nutrition agenda for the country

·         Help to design interventions based on community driven demands and lessons (bottom up approach) to reduce on the challenges on voltage drop

Private sector

·         To adhere to regulation by the Government for quality standards of final products to customers to meet their nutrition needs;

·         improve fortification program to meet nutrition requirements

·         Train and increase processors and capacity for internal monitoring of fortification processes

·         Support the Government in the implementation of nutrition interventions.

Qn.4 How can other relevant forums, such as the CFS and the UNSCN, contribute, and how can other movements (e.g. human rights, environment) be involved in the Decade?

UNCSN

·         To promote cooperation among UN agencies in support of community, national, regional and international efforts to end malnutrition and its consequences

·         Support the implementation of the UN Decade on Nutrition at all levels

CFS

·         Promote intergovernmental platform for all stakeholders to work together in a coordinated way to ensure food security and nutrition for all. This will allow input and lesson learning from national, regional and global level to be heard

·         Ensure that the voice of other stakeholders is heard in the global debate on food security and nutrition

·         Exchange of information on nutrition with food security constituency and bringing food security considerations to the attention of the nutrition constituency

·         Include nutrition considerations in CFS work streams

·         Support member states to include nutrition in the CFS work agenda and keep on trucking new nutrition issues as they emerge

·         Provide synergies with other initiatives addressing nutrition

Human rights bodies

·         Raise national, regional and global awareness on the right to food and nutrition and other key international human rights norms

·         Support country, regional, global levels efforts promoting right to food and nutrition

·         Support countries in developing guidelines on the right to food and nutrition and its obligations at the national level

·         Support strengthening of countries capacities and contribute to the process of monitoring the realization of the human right to food and nutrition

Environment

·         Include nutrition a shared vision

·         Ensure that climate change and adaption are nutrition-sensitive

·         Include nutrition considerations in all climate change mitigation efforts

·         Ensure that finance, technological and capacity building on climate change are nutrition sensitive

·         Ensure policy coherence on climate change and nutrition