The 2016 Africa Day for Food Security and Nutrition kicks off in Ghana

From 26-28 October 2016, the Africa Day for Food and Nutrition Security  (ADFNS) was celebrated across the continent under the theme “Investing in Food Systems for Improving Child Nutrition: Key to Africa’s Renaissance”. The opening event was held in Ghana and led by NEPAD.

The 2016 event was specifically aimed at:

1. Focusing on infant and young child feeding, create a common awareness of investing in nutritious, safe, sustainable and healthy food value chains to enhance food and nutrition security that will impact on the worrying trends in child stunting in Africa;
2. Create a common and complementary investments in nutrition sensitive and specific interventions, through mutlisectoral approaches aimed at addressing childhood stunting as an important measure to impacting the survival of the African child;
3. Facilitate dialogue among stakeholders, sharing of experiences, best practices, innovations and mutual learning among various stakeholders on options for investing in direct and indirect nutrition interventions in order to eliminate child under nutrition in Africa;
4. Advocating for the scale up of proven and cost effective child sensitive nutrition interventions for maximum impact; and
5. Documenting and preparing a set of recommendations to inform action planning and the way forward.

The main purpose of the ADFNS is to serve as a platform for rallying political and financial commitments at all levels to address contemporary challenges of food and nutrition insecurity in Africa. The event provides a platform at national, regional and continental levels to share experiences, knowledge and mutual learning, as well as measure progress in assuring food and nutrition security for all by governments and multi-stakeholder partners.

Previously the emphasis by governments and even consumers had been on ‘filling stomachs’ but now, awareness has been created on the importance of nutrition – the consumption of nutritious and quality food.”

Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan, Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture

In Ghana, the Global Panel Foresight Report was launched with Global Panel Co-Chair H.E. John Kufuor, former president of Ghana. Former Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, in his presentation on ‘Scaling up Nutrition in Ghana’, said that although Ghana has performed creditably well in reducing the rate of malnutrition, it had to do more to improve the gains made.

Find more information at the NEPAD CAADP website

Learn more about the Ghana event citi fm online and NEPAD

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