SUN CSN coordinator Trip to Ghana on the occasion of the ANEC VI – African Nutrition Epidemiology Co

Meeting proceedings now available here

Rapport de la reunion maintenant disponible ici

This blog gives an overview of some highlights from the ANEC VI – African Nutrition Epidemiology Conference 6 (Accra, Ghana – July 21-25, 2014) and some meetings I was able to have with various stakeholders on that occasion.

First of all the Conference was impressive and counted renowned professionals from all over the world from Professor Allan Jackson to Professor Anna Lartey. A large contingent of academics but also many other participants from civil society, donor and UN agencies, businesses and of course governments took part in the event. This year ANEC VI dedicated a large space for showcasing SUN efforts and progress to date.

I was unfortunately not able to take part in the whole event so below are some highlights from sessions I attended.

Highlights from the conference

• The multiple burden of malnutrition is an increasing and growing concern for Africa

• Non-communicable diseases need to become more integral part of nutrition efforts

• Food systems are being challenged by climate change, increasing population growth to 9 billion by 2050 with more than half predicted for Africa, limited planet resources, urbanisation

• Food sovereignty is undermined by geopolitical processes

• The UN Secretary General’s Zero Hunger Challenge objectives were stated 1. 100% access to adequate food all year round 2. Zero stunted children under 2 years 3. All food system are sustainable 4. 100% growth in smallholder productivity and income 5. Zero loss or waste to food

• Standards and competency based training of human resources is essential but need to happen in a context where a structure for the delivery of responsibilities that professionals are being trained for is built

• We need to have ethical responsibility and accountability to ourselves and the wider society.

• Biofortified sorghum (www.biosorghum.com) – an interesting crop to consider as climate resilient and nutritious

• Evidence shows that animal source foods provides essential elements for child development

• Care of lactating women to ensure micronutrient rich breast milk should be strengthened.

• Potassium forgotten nutrient and there needs to be more efforts to promote increased potassium intake.

• Home gardening approach seems to be indicating improved diet diversity, improved micronutrient intake and for income generation.

• Food waste and losses is an issue in Africa

• Important to have a strategy to invest and promote production of indigenous nutritious crops vs reviewing products that require external products importation

• Fostering communities of practice are key to cross-learning and capacity building for scaling up nutrition efforts in the world

• The people we serve are our first responsibility.

• Through the ANS a home has now been created for programmes to improve nutrition in Africa and improve burden of disease.

Highlights from SUN plenary

· SUN is Nutrition’s most exciting movement for nutrition everyone can be part of and bringing together nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive efforts.

· SUN provides a framework for impact through country based and led multi-stakeholder, multi-sector and multi-level efforts to scale up nutrition in 53 countries and harness opportunity to learn from each other

· SUN is transitioning to delivery but already starting to show and demonstrate progress

· Building Capacity for Capacity, quality, at scale, integrated, aligned and harmonised efforts at both pre-service and in-service levels in order to build lateral skills to ensure we are successful in implementing – Multiple-stakeholder, Multi-sectoral, Multi-level

· It is important to get more evidence of country-specific cost-effectiveness, cost benefit, best investments and delivery mechanisms to assist prioritisation for scaling up nutrition efforts in countries.

· Academics and researchers have a key role to play in filling evidence gap on nutrition-sensitive efforts, building competencies and capacity through pre-service and in-service training support and provision, getting more evidence on cost benefits – ADAPTED, COUNTRY-SPECIFIC and TAILORED TO COUNTRY NEEDS and CONTEXT

· Engage – more academics and researchers, Inspire – leaders and invest in building skills for tomorrow’s leaders, Invest – human, technical and financial investments

· Essential Nutrition Actions provide a framework for building capacity for multi-stakeholder, multi-sectoral and multi-level efforts with skills to ensure capacity, quality, at scale, integrated, aligned and harmonised efforts building on existing interventions, adapted to country context and needs

Highlights from SUN forum on exchange of experiences – food and nutrition security

· Detailed notes from the forum will be available.

· Over 70 participants from Civil Society, governments, donors, research, business in West Africa and some from East Africa along with international representatives took part in the forum.

· Experiences from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Senegal, Uganda, Togo were shared and informed discussions.

· Challenges were raised, experiences shared and building blocks for effective action touched upon.

· Issues explored and discussed included - Effective and efficient coordination; Smart mechanisms for investment in development; Systems to develop, strengthen and build on – cross-learning; Decentralisation and how does it happen; Right to Food; Existing tools and insights from countries.

· Key messages from group discussions -

• Social auditing needs to happen more actively

• Stakeholder mapping & framework for functional coordinated efforts are important dimensions to multi-sector, multi-stakeholder and multi-level efforts

• Cross-learning needs to happen more often through well-thought communities of practices at all levels and documentation of processes and experiences need to be more systematic

• Existing tools like profiles and cost investment cases need to be shared and contextualised with country experiences

• It is important to build incentives as a recognition and acknowledgement of efforts of community actors to help build ownership and continued engagement for sustainability of efforts. this can be done through innovative ways of providing incentives beyond financial.

• Funding for coordination (including communication) needs to be a priority

• Sustainable change takes time

Meetings with various stakeholders

The ANEC VI was a great opportunity to meet with many country actors (Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Ghana, Niger) and others (People’s Health Movement, JB consultancy, …). These meetings help continue informing SUN CSN efforts in terms of:

· Developing a guidance note on governance

· Developing a country support strategy to enable improved and more systematic support to CSAs and broader SUN efforts

· Improving engagement of academics and researchers in the SUN movement in support of capacity to deliver efforts

· Getting a status update of where Civil Society Alliance efforts were at in Benin, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Niger

· Providing insights into systems for improved cross-learning to be further explored by the SUN CSN secretariat team in close collaboration with francophone CS actors

· Providing insights into the reality on the ground of functionality of multi-stakeholder platforms in different countries and the diversity of these

· Meeting with Ghana Civil Society Alliance CSO members (GHACCSSUN) presenting an opportunity to witness the progress of the alliance to date and take part in some important governance discussions as the alliance moves towards a constitution and independent registration.

I would like to thank especially Dr Francis Zotor for his leadership in getting African leadership for SUN efforts at this event and Dr Amos Laar and his wife Matilda for their incredible welcome and generosity Ghanaian style.