By Edmund Smith-Asante, ACCRA
 |
| Prof Sandy Thomas |
Accra has been selected as the venue
for the third meeting of the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for
Nutrition, but the first to be held in Africa, from November 16 to November 18
this year.
Participants in the high-level
meeting will include ministers, UN agencies, the private sector and
non-governmental organisations who will try to define how the multi-sectoral
platform could work together to deliver improved nutrition for all.
The holding of the meeting in Ghana
follows an invitation extended to the 12-member Global Panel by the co-Chair,
former President Kufuor, who will incidentally chair the third meeting of the
panel.
This was disclosed by Professor
Sandy Thomas, the Director of the Global Panel which is based in London, at a
media briefing in Accra yesterday.
She stated that the Accra meeting
would review progress to date and also focus on climate change and its impact
on agriculture and nutrition.
“It will also inform the role it
will play at the Nutrition for Growth meeting at the Rio Olympics in 2016,
where we will launch our report on future diet in low and middle-income
countries,” she added.
Progress
in nutrition
Prof. Thomas, who said she was
impressed by the effort by the Ghana School Feeding Programme to improve
nutrition, however, noted that there was still stunted growth among some
children in the country.
“Ghana clearly has worked hard over
the past decades to reduce malnutrition. I have heard a great deal this week
about the progress that is being made, but obviously there is still more to do.
There is still more stunting in some children, particularly in some parts of
the country, and levels of anaemia in women that is still a challenge.
“I am here to listen to Ghanaian
ideas, visions and priorities to help identify where the Global Panel should
focus its discussions. I have been struck on every occasion by the high level
of expertise and commitment to enhance nutrition outcomes in Ghana and in some
cases Africa as a whole,” she stated.
She called for coordinated action,
as it was not only governments that could address malnutrition but NGOs and the
private sector, while there was a fundamental convergence among agriculture,
food and nutrition that was at the heart of the matter.
Writer’s email: edmund.asante@graphic.com.gh
This was first published by the Daily Graphic on August 12, 2015
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