TECHNICAL MEETING OF THE ASIA-PACIFIC NETWORK
FOR FOOD AND NUTRITION ON NUTRITION INTERVENTIONS FOR
FOOD SECURITY – CAN THEY WORK EFFECTIVELY IN ISOLATION?
Bangkok, 22-24 July 2008
1. The Technical Meeting of the Asia Pacific Network for Food and Nutrition (ANFN) on Nutrition Interventions for Food Security – “Can They Work Effectively in Isolation?” was organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO-UN) at its Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) in Bangkok, Thailand from July 22 to 24, 2008. A total of eight participants representing seven countries attended the meeting. The countries represented included Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam. Also present in the meeting were Biplab K. Nandi, Senior Food and Nutrition Officer of FAO RAP and Secretary of the Asia Pacific Network for Food and Nutrition (ANFN), Peter Sousa Hoejskov Food Quality and Safety Officer FAO-RAP, and Kraisid Tontinsirin, former Director of the Nutrition and Consumer Protection Division of FAO Rome, as the Special Invitee for the meeting. Appendix 1 shows the list of participants, invitees and guests.
2. Biplab K. Nandi welcomed He Changchui, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific and the participants. He then requested the participants to introduce themselves and moved on to underscore the importance of the meeting. In particular, he informed everybody of the background and rationale of the meeting. He further stated that there was a need to boost nutrition within the agriculture sector on the one hand and agriculture within the nutrition sector on the other hand. While efforts to promote the nutrition–agriculture nexus dated back to the 70s and had resulted in some degree of success, there was still a need to sustain and revitalize those efforts for a more integrated and holistic view of the farm to the table continuum. Often the consumption and biological utilization aspects and the resulting nutrition and health outcomes were not given due emphasis.
3. He Changchui, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific delivered the opening address of the meeting. He informed the participants that this year’s ANFN topic was quite interesting and important, amidst the current issues of soaring food prices. He stressed that the record-high increase in food prices particularly of staples like rice and wheat impacted on FAO efforts to reduce hunger and poverty as more people in the developing world were likely to go hungry. Furthermore, the increase in food prices not only made food less available but also reduced the variety and choices poor people were able to make.
4. It was important to recognize the critical role of the agriculture sector in addressing other aspects of the problems of malnutrition. Agriculture and nutrition were linked in many ways. Food security was one of the three pillars of good nutrition along with good care and good health. According to the WFS 1996 “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. Governments needed to understand the crucial role and impact of the agriculture sector not only on food production, but also on poverty and malnutrition. If the agriculture sector, including fisheries and livestock, could increase and better demonstrate its anti-poverty and nutrition benefits, the sector was likely to generate more support for many important public goods that are associated with agricultural development.
5. Mr Changchui also emphasized the importance of nutrition in agriculture through food-based approaches, which needed to be pursued vigorously so that they could become a larger part of longer-term global strategies. Increased attention to nutrition could enable the agriculture sector to better meet its own needs in many ways. It could enhance the anti-poverty and nutrition impacts of agriculture and ensure greater support for a broad range of important public goods that were associated with agricultural development. Clearly, what was essential is a common nutrition goal or vision to guide all related sectors, including agriculture, in policy-making, strategy and programme development.
6. Lastly, he recognized the valuable contributions and initiatives of Biplab K. Nandi who would be retiring at the end of 2008. He acknowledged Mr. Nandi’s role as Secretary of the ANFN in effectively sustaining the activities of the network which to a certain degree had influenced actions of governments toward ensuring food and nutrition security in the region.
7. He then wished the participants a successful and productive meeting and declared the meeting open. The full text of the opening address is given in Appendix 2.
8. The Secretary proposed that Maria Antonia G. Tuazon, Professor and Director of the Institute of Human Nutrition and Food (IHNF) of the College of Human Ecology (CHE) at UP Los Banos (UPLB) and Hardinsyah, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Human Ecology of Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) Bogor - Indonesia to be the chair and rapporteur, respectively, which was wholeheartedly accepted by the participants.
9. The participants were then informed by Mr Nandi of the objectives, agenda, expected outputs, timetable, and organization of the technical meeting. Specifically, the objectives were as follows: 1) to review and better understand the nutrition interventions to tackle the problems of malnutrition, and 2) to examine whether nutrition interventions can remain as a stand-alone programme particularly in the agriculture sector. There were four provisional agendas of the meeting, namely: 1) review of currently used nutrition interventions, 2) multisectoral dimention of nutrition programmes – constraints and opportunities, 3) agriculture sector vis-à-vis stand-alone nutrition programmes, and 4) review of International Conference on Nutrition/World Food Summit (ICN/WFS) follow-up activities in the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The expected output of the meeting was a better appreciation of the strategies and approaches to address the issues of food and nutrition security in the context of the MDGs. Reference to two documents distributed to the participants namely, Selecting Interventions for Nutritional Improvement, FAO, 1983 and The Lancet’s Series on Maternal and Child Undernutrition, 2008 were made by Mr Nandi. He also mentioned that the responses provided by the participants to the questionnaire sent by the Secretariat will provide valuable inputs to the workshop sessions and were very much appreciated. The timetable was adopted as given in Appendix 3.
10. The participants noted that for this year the meeting was organized differently. Instead of country presentations, workshop sessions were designed to serve as fora for sharing relevant information and to discuss the following agenda for presentation during the plenary sessions. The first day focused on agenda 1 (Review of Currently Used Nutrition Intervention) and agenda 2 (Multisectoral dimension of nutrition programmes – constraints and opportunities). The second day tackled agenda 3 (Agriculture sector vis-à-vis stand-alone nutrition programmeme), and the third day focused on agenda 4 (Review of ICN/WFS follow-up activities in the context of MDGs).
