Supporting Rwanda to fight chronic malnutrition through agriculture
Strengthening institutional capacities to address undernourishment
Chronic malnutrition or stunting remains a national challenge for Rwanda. In 2015, about 38 percent of children under the age of five were chronically undernourished (Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey, 2015).
Determinants of nutritional status are multifaceted and global evidence underscored that both nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions are necessary to eliminate all forms of malnutrition. This, therefore requires a comprehensive understanding of multisectoral causes, but in many contexts constraints remain due to limited technical capacities to design, implement, coordinate, monitor and evaluate nutrition related interventions across sectors and disciplines.
The coherence between agriculture, social protection and nutrition programmes was recognized as cornerstone to the successful fights against malnutrition in Rwanda and this increased ownership and accountability of multisectoral districts teams and developments partners involved in the planning, implementation, coordination monitoring and evaluation of nutrition related interventions at community level.
Promoting nutrition-sensitive agriculture
According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), nutrition-sensitive agriculture is an approach that seeks to ensure the production of a variety of affordable, nutritious, culturally appropriate and safe foods in adequate quantity and quality to meet the dietary requirements of populations in a sustainable manner. This requires to maximize Agriculture and Food systems’ contribution to nutritional outcomes across all stages of food chain-from production, handling and storage, processing, distribution, preparation, consumption.
With funding from Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), FAO trained some 40 national level specialists and officers on how to maximize agriculture sector and food systems contribution to address nutrition related challenges in Rwanda.
Ufitinema Adeline, Food and Nutrition Specialist said: “Sometimes farmers grow crops with selling in mind. They have also to eat what they grow. More efforts and knowledge is needed to sensitize them to maximize the food they grow to improve nutrition at household level.”
Existing initiatives to improve nutrition
The Government of Rwanda has come up with initiatives to improve household nutrition including, the kitchen garden programme through which every household grows vegetables, fruits and other healthy foods to help them have access to nutritious foods, thus improving the household food security, and the economic status of the family. Other key programmes include one cow per poor family programme, one cup of milk per child and national fortified blended food programme.
“Agriculture is the starting point and an important sector for good nutrition. It can play a significant role in addressing the causes of malnutrition while also tackling underlying issues such as social and economic underdevelopment and inequality,” said Gualbert Gbehounou, FAO Representative in Rwanda.
Developing guidelines to achieve nutrient intake goals
FAO is supporting the government to develop Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDGs) which are dietary recommendations expressed in terms of food and diet instead of nutrients, to be understood and used by the populations.
The premise of these FBDGs is to establish a basis for public food and nutrition, health and agricultural policies and nutrition education programmes to foster healthy eating habits and lifestyle.
The development process of FBDGs entails producing FBDGs Manual to be used by Health, Nutrition, Education and Agriculture professionals, and policy makers; FBDGs Summary intended for use by Food and Nutrition professionals at health centers and hospitals levels; as well as a Handbook for Community-based educators.
Contact:
Teopista Mutesi | Communications Specialist | Email: [email protected] OR [email protected]