Junior parliamentarians commit to advancing nutrition in their constituencies in Mashonaland Central

"Improving child participation in budget processes at sub national level influences local authorities to formulate child friendly budgets in future and in addition it ensures that budgets allocate adequate resources to fairly benefit children, including the marginalised. "

ZCSOSUNA believes children of all ages and abilities in Zimbabwe, including the most marginalised, should have a say in any matter concerning them. Our duty to respect the views and opinions of children is enshrined in Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child. However, many decision makers including junior parliamentarians are not aware of the malnutrition challenges and consequences currently being faced by many children in the country. In partnership with Save the Children UK and the Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Alliance in Malawi, ZCSOSUNA brought together a group of junior parliamentarians in Mashonaland Central province of Zimbabwe to discuss nutrition priorities in the province and how these can be best addressed. Provincial and national budgets are one of the most important tools the government of Zimbabwe can use to address economic and social challenges affecting infants and children, including tackling malnutrition. So the meeting supported junior parliamentarians to understand and meaningfully participate in budget formulation and implementation processes. Given the closeness of junior parliamentarians to communities and their influence in addressing issues affecting children, they can play an influential role in lobbing for increased financial resource allocation to nutrition.

Improving child participation in budget processes at sub national level influences local authorities to formulate child friendly budgets in future and in addition it ensures that budgets allocate adequate resources to fairly benefit children, including the marginalised.

During the meeting, Participants learnt with great shock that 1 in 4 children under the age of five years in Zimbabwe are being exposed to long episodes of poor nutrition in the first 1000 days of life, from conception up to 2 years. They were astonished to learn that stunted children are not only shorter than their expected height but are also more prone to illness and are at a greater risk of death.

They were concerned to hear that stunting also impairs children’s brain development which can result in low performance in school and means children are likely not earn as much as their counterparts later in life. Low pass rates in national ordinary level examinations have been attributed to under nutrition early in life among other factors. According to the Herald of 4 February 2017, only 29.96% of students who sat for their Zimbabwe School Examination Council (Zimsec) Ordinary level examinations in November 2016 obtained grade C or better in five or more subjects. Participants emphasized that this issue will be on the agenda list of issues to be debated in the next national sitting for junior parliamentarians. With the adoption of the new curriculum in the education system and the ministry’s thrust in teaching of Science, Technology, Arts, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) there was a general call from civil society organisations present for the ministry of primary and secondary education to invest in early childhood development and nutrition if these approaches are to yield results . Participants were also taught that effects of stunting are almost irreversible and can be passed from one generation to another.

Beyond the individual impacts of this problem, stunting is an enormous drain on a countries economic productivity and growth. Economists estimate that stunting can reduce a country’s Gross Domestic Product by as much as 2-3%.

Though stunting effects are almost irreversible, they are preventable. Adequate domestic investment to implement national nutrition policies and strategies will contribute greatly towards the reduction of stunting rates to acceptable levels. Junior parliamentarians were not impressed with the current government spending on nutrition as it is proving inadequate to address the economic and human challenges of under nutrition and is insufficient to meet the ambitions of both the Sustainable Development Goals and the World Health Assembly Global Nutrition targets.

After learning that children affected by stunting will not reach their full potential later in life, 13 junior parliamentarians promised to advance nutrition as a developmental issue in areas of their jurisdiction. They committed to lobbying senior parliamentarians within their constituencies to start changing attitudes to nutrition; seeing nutrition investments as a means to economic growth rather than seeing better nutrition as a result of economic growth. The Zimbabwe Youth Council which is a custodian body of junior parliamentarians promised to support junior parliamentarians in approaching the senior parliament so that their voice on nutrition is heard.

To ensure that children will are able to fulfill their full potential later in life it is important to involve them in issues that concern them from sub national to national level. They play a critical role in promoting positive change in their own environment and communities. As an alliance we hope to scale up this project to 7 rural and 2 urban provinces in the country. We plan to share lessons learnt, successes and challenges with other nutrition alliances in other countries so that they also adopt the same approach of engaging youth in the fight against malnutrition in all its forms. We also look forward to fostering our relationship with the Zimbabwe Youth Council, our new stakeholder in nutrition budget advocacy. We are confident this project will draw attention of key decision makers in the senior parliament and ministry of finance and economic development. We hope to see this culminate in separate budget lines being set aside for nutrition in the 2018 national budget and at least 3% of sector budgets addressing malnutrition challenges in sectors such as health, agriculture, primary and secondary education and social services.

Contact us on e mail- zcsosuna@gmail.com; Twitter - @zcsosuna; Facebook; Zimbabwe Civil Society Organisations Scaling Up Nutrition Alliance