PFAG and partners deliberate on National Nutrition Plan

By
Morkporkpor Anku, GNA

Accra, Aug. 29, GNA – The Peasant Farmers
Association (PFAG), in collaboration with the International Food Policy
Research Institute (IFPRI), has held a forum to deliberate on the
implementation of a National Nutrition Plan.

The forum on the theme: “Targeting the
Vulnerable; expectation of the Nutrition Implementation Plan,” brought together
policy makers and stakeholders to discuss and propose strategies for
consideration into the impending Nutrition Implementation plan.

Mrs Kate Quarshie, a representative from the
Nutrition Implementation Strategy committee at the Ghana Health Service, said
the main purpose of the National Nutrition Policy (NNP) was to re-position
nutrition as a cross cutting issue and facilitate integration and mainstreaming
of nutrition into all national development efforts.

She said it was to provide the framework for
nutrition services and interventions in Ghana, guide the implementation of
high-impact interventions and strengthen sectoral capacity for the effective
delivery of these interventions.

Mrs Quarshie said the long-term goal of the
policy was to ensure optimal nutrition and health of all persons living in the
country in order to enhance capacity for sustainable economic growth and
development.

She said the policy supports four strategic
objectives, namely: to  promote  optimal 
nutrition  as  an 
essential component  of  health 
and  development among all people
living in Ghana, to  increase  access 
to  and  create 
demand  for  quality 
and  timely  interventions,  for effective control of priority nutrition
problems in Ghana.

The rest are to  promote 
food  security,  food 
quality, and  food  safety 
at  the  individual, 
household, community, and national levels and to create an enabling
environment for the effective co-ordination, integration, and implementation of
nutrition programmes in Ghana.

The Implementation, monitoring and evaluation
of the NNP will be co-ordinated at the national, regional, and district
levels.  

Mr Eric Banye, SNV Country Programme
Coordinator, V4C Partnership, said their Voice for Change Partnership (V4C) is
an evidence based advocacy programme being implemented by SNV Netherlands
Development Organisation with partnership with the IFPRI.

He said issues they are working on as part of
their intervention areas are Food and Nutrition Security, the Water, Sanitation
and Hygiene and Energy.

Mr Banye said the Food and Nutrition Security
focused on Sustainable Nutrition for all with an emphasis on Gender and
Nutrition Sensitive Value Chains and on Post-Harvest losses and Food Safety.

He said the Food and Nutrition Security seeks
to ensure that both the government and the private sector improve the service
provision by creating the enabling environment for people to have sustainable
access to sufficient, affordable and nutritious food.

Mr Banye said the current nutrition situation
was not the best but the programme has being increasing the level of awareness
in the area of nutrition and collaborating with all partners in addressing the
nutrition challenges in the country.

“It is the primary issue of every Ministry and
stakeholder to have nutrition as part of their core values,” he said.

He said the programme was committed to
supporting decentralised structures in the implementation of the National
Implementation strategy of the NNP.

Madam Victoria Adongo, the Executive Director,
PFAG told the Ghana News Agency that they have been working with other partners
like the Ghana Health Service to improve on nutrition food security in the
agriculture sector.

She said, “We are also working to input into
the current implementation strategy of the NNP.”

“We as farmers intend to provide nutritious
foods that would contribute to the good health of the citizenry,” she said.

GNA

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