The New Partnership for Africa’s Development  Agency (NEPAD Agency) through its flagship programme the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in collaboration with the Botswana Government, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Development partners, will be hosting the Southern Africa Regional CAADP Nutrition Capacity Development Workshop from 9 to 11 September in Gaborone, Botswana.  

Due to the fact that many countries are not on track to meet MDG1 (Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger) and, where poverty targets have made little or no progress, improving nutrition is imperative and achievable. Evidence-based interventions exist and must be scaled up. Therefore concrete actions are needed to facilitate nutrition security through improved agricultural practices for diversified diets.

Under the theme ‘’ Building capacity to mainstream Nutrition in National Agriculture and Food Security Investment Plans in Africa’ and, as nutrition is a cross-cutting issue, the workshop will bring together a range of country-focused participants from 14 countries, versed in Nutrition and other key multi-sectoral issues, including CAADP Country Focal Points, and delegates from Ministries of Agriculture, Health, Education, Finance, Civil Society and the Private Sector with the common objective of addressing the challenges of malnutrition and exploring how best to coordinate efforts to effectively deliver nutrition services where they are most needed.

The overall goal of the Nutrition Workshop is to ensure that nutrition interventions are planned, budgeted and implemented as part of National Agriculture and Food Security Investment Plans (NAFSIP). The workshop is also part of a wider capacity-development process designed to assist countries in enhancing the nutritional impact of national agriculture and food security investment plans.

According to Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki the NEPAD Agency CEO, “The major constraints identified for the promotion of nutrition-sensitive agriculture food-based approaches included low political commitment, lack in understanding of the role agriculture plays for nutrition within the agriculture sector and too few food security programmes having nutrition improvement as an explicit objective and component’’.

To this end, countries are urged to develop action plans in order to’’ to strengthen coordination among appropriate sectors and stakeholders in aligning on-going and new nutrition programs with current or planned agriculture programs’’ says Dr Mayaki.

The Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Boweditswe Masilo reckons that ‘’this workshop is coming at the right time, when the Government of Botswana, through highest office, has declared agriculture as one of the most important avenues for poverty eradication, rural development and improvements in the nation’s nutrition. The cross Member State sharing of experiences, best practices and learning is welcomed. Putting small holder farmers at the heart of these programmes through local market development is important for wealth creation and sustainability.’’

The workshop is organized within the context of improved food supply and the fight against hunger under CAADP Pillar 3, Framework for African Food Security (FAFS), and the Pan African Nutrition Initiative. Participating countries will therefore set out plans of action for achieving key food and nutrition related MDGs. FAFS objective is to achieve MDG1 through agriculture led growth aimed at reducing risk at all levels by increasing the supply of affordable nutritious and safe food, improving incomes of the poor while ensuring overall dietary diversity.

Participants are expected to produce at the end of the workshop recommendations, revised NAFSIP and action plans for strengthening capacities across various institutions and sectors including Agriculture, Health, Social Protection, Education, Trade and Industry, and Finance and Economic Development Planning dealing with agriculture issues, promoting advocacy activities to decision makers to ensure better visibility of nutritional aspects in projects and programmes under implementation.

These recommendations will also tackle issues of adequate financial resources for food and nutrition activities, their cross-sectoral dimension and, moreover, ensure that all opportunities and potentialities are deployed to mainstream nutrition in the broader development agenda.

Particular attention will be given to coordination and management, as nutrition is multi-sectoral by nature. HIV/AIDS and Gender will be considered as cross-cutting issues as HIV/Aids and Nutrition are intimately linked.

Ultimately the Workshop will play a great role in ensuring that SADC and each of the Member States will seize the opportunity to do nutrition business differently in order to improve their food and nutrition security situation for enhanced national economic development.

The workshop is the third of its kind after the first hosted in Dakar, Senegal for the West Africa region in November 2011 and the second hosted in Dar-es-Salam, Tanzania, for the East and Central Africa region.