Consultative capacity needs assessment workshop on nutrition-sensitive agriculture in Ethiopia
The Ethiopian Government’s commitment to improving the nutrition needs of the country is reflected in its National Nutrition Strategy and Program developed since 2008. In the revised National Nutrition Program, nutrition-sensitive agriculture is prioritized as one of its objectives recognizing the role of the agriculture sector to improve nutrition. It is a food-based approach that places nutritionally rich foods, dietary diversity and bio-fortification at the heart of overcoming malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies. As an approach, nutrition-sensitive agriculture seeks to maximize agriculture’s contribution to nutrition to benefit poor households.
In line with this, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) organized a three-day consultative capacity needs assessment workshop aimed at identifying the capacity needs and priorities of government and other institutions to mainstream nutrition into its agriculture policies and programmes.
About 50 participants from different stakeholders including the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries and their regional representatives, non-governmental organizations, UN Agencies, the European Union attended the workshop.
Through practical participatory sessions, participants were able to develop a general overview of the key stakeholders’ capacity strengths and gaps for nutrition-sensitive agriculture and share methodologies for assessing capacity gaps for nutrition-sensitive agriculture at regional levels. The workshop also provided the opportunity to collectively analyze findings and come to consensus on key priorities, thus accelerating the process of data analysis and decision-making.
Most participants liked the high-participatory nature of the workshop and acknowledged that the workshop helped them to build a common understanding of the concept of nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food systems and its application to the Ethiopian context in order to identify in a coordinated and harmonized manner
They also identified priority areas for the effective-mainstreaming of nutrition within the agriculture sector; these were: awareness raising and training; high level advocacy for political commitment to strengthen multi-sectoral coordination; strengthening the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework and Systems, as well as government structures for nutrition-sensitive agriculture.
The workshop was organized at federal level to provide a general overview of the country’s capacity gaps for nutrition-sensitive agriculture, and later follow-up workshops will be organized at regional level in Afar, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Oromia, SNNP and Tigray to achieve a more in-depth understanding of woreda-level challenges and identify regional differences and priorities.
This work is being funded by the EU as part of a larger, joint UNICEF-FAO UNJP project.
For more details: http://www.fao.org/about/meetings/icn2/preparations/document-detail/en/c/238665/
Contact: Mesai Mitiku l National l Reporting Officer l [email protected]