Africa should unite holistically and fight hunger and nutrition despite wars, pandemics and other headwinds and ensure its people maintain an unequivocal right to food, says Zambia’s Vice President, Mutale Nalumango.
Vice President Nalumango told delegates at the two-day-African Union’s High Level meeting in Abuja to be wary of the effects of the factors that are driving hunger and nutrition on the continent and act swiftly.
Speaking on the theme: “strengthening resilience in nutrition and food security on the African continent.” She urged Africa to devise policies to protect its more than 3 billion inhabitants.
There is a need to share experiences and learn from each other in devising a holistic approach in overcoming threats to the lack of food or its insufficiency-a threat to nutrition.
The UN meeting was vital for Africa to plan and agree on solutions which hinge on the 2015 Malabo Declaration that demands food sufficiency on the continent through improved production.
The meeting is envisaged to create a platform for countries to learn from one another’s experiences that can then be transposed and shared on how to approach the challenge posed by hunger and malnutrition and the solution was uniting as one nation with a common purpose.
“As Africa we can work and ensure that the issue of nutrition is tackled,” she said in a statement seen by FRA.
She cited Zambia as a country that has taken hunger and malnutrition seriously which have since been embraced under the Vice President’s office, arguably to holistically resolve all matters that cause hunger and nutrition deficiency on the people’s livelihood.
Nutrition involves people having the right food at the right time and having a good environment and unless precautions are taken, holistically, Africa could risk falling prey hence Zambia’s prioritizing hunger and malnutrition as risk factors.
“As Zambia, we see this meeting to be very important hence our attendance, we are hopeful to learn a lot from one another,” she said.
Vice President, Mutale Nalumango, says the government is committed to addressing issues of nutrition in order to achieve universal access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food.
This is in accordance with Sustainable Development Goal number two seeking to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030.
And in a closed door meeting with various interest groups including cooperating partners, Ms. Nalumango stated that Zambia is working with various cooperating partners to ensure that issues of poor nutrition are addressed in the country.
The government is working with its partners in the field of nutrition to improve human and social development which lie under Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) pillar two. The purpose of the meeting was to identify gaps in the coordination agenda on nutrition issues in the country.
The meeting will further help to coordinate better with Zambia’s cooperating partners in issues of nutrition.
Zambia was happy with the willingness of cooperating partners to co-exist with Zambia and her communities to ensure that the nutrition component is looked at seriously at a very high level as desired by President Hakainde Hichilema.
“The President last year made a commitment to zero hunger, which is SDG number two, the Sustainable Development Goal number two under the UN, he made a commitment and this is how seriously cooperating partners take us that we are not taking this lightly,”
The Zambian government seeks to continue to work on addressing issues of nutrition in order to be able to save people, particularly the young ones.
“We are as a government are aware that the first one thousand days of a human life is critical to the full development of a human being, the development that also affects the brain,” she said. The poorly nurtured children, it’s worrying, might not develop to desired capacity.
“And therefore, it becomes important that this group that looks at nutrition has that programme which they call the first 1000 critical days programme that looks at that,” she added.
Zambia and other 13 UN member countries are taking part in a two-day meeting which includes governments, experts and cooperating partners. It seeks to hear all Governments’ commitment on improving food and nutrition through agreements to be signed at the meeting.
And, King Letsie (3) from Lesotho urged Africa to prioritise implementation of the Malabo Declaration warning that hunger will perpetuate if no action is taken to domestic financing and investment in nutrition and Africa needs the resources to do so to improve nutrition.
Host nation’s Prime Minister Patrich Achi called for unity in Africa to fight food insecurity.
Children and women are the most vulnerable and require assistance from the government and other stakeholders. Africa Development Bank Vice President Beth Dunfort said more is needed to be done for the continent to redress the challenges.
Later Vice President Nalumango met her counterpart in Cote D’Ivoire Teimoko Meyliet Kone and noted the shared challenges by all African countries with a call for the continent to embrace the Continental free trade through strengthened bilateral ties for more opportunities.
