Non-Aligned Movement is committed towards the realization of Goal 2 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda: “end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” and its related targets. At the 2019 NAM Summit in Baku, NAM leaders emphasized that food security and nutrition are essential aspects of sustainable development and stressed the need to strengthen efforts to enhance food security and nutrition.
The African Union (AU), a continental union consisting of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa, is committed to strengthening nutrition in Africa. The AU declared 2022 as “The Year of Nutrition” with the theme: “Strengthening Resilience in Nutrition and Food Security on the African Continent: Strengthening Agro-Food Systems, Health and Social Protection Systems for the Acceleration of Human, Social and Economic Capital Development”. This theme was proposed by the government of Cote D’Ivoire and adopted by the AU.
On December 8, 2022, the AU held a high-level meeting which renewed the commitment towards nutrition. The meeting was co-organized by the African Union Commission, the Government of Cote D’Ivoire, African Development Bank, and the support of partners and stakeholders. The meeting focused on promoting strong political momentum to mobilize commitments and investments to fight hunger and malnutrition on the continent and the means to accelerate progress toward the UN and regional development goals. More than 30 AU Member States participated in the meeting.
The meeting was officially opened by Vice President of Code d’Ivoire, Tiemoko Meyliet Kone who called for the operationalisation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to confront nutrition challenges effectively and collectively. Speaking during the opening ceremony H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, the African Union Commission Chairperson, called for multisectoral and multistakeholder cooperation in the implementation of all nutrition programmes noting that all stakeholders have a critical role to play. “Nutrition and food security is everyone’s business. If we all joined forces under the strong government leadership, with multisectoral actions, we will be able to respond to nutrition challenges the continent is facing,” he said. The African Union Nutrition Champion King Letsie III of the Kingdom of Lesotho, in his remarks urged all the stakeholders to redouble efforts to end hunger and malnutrition in the continent.
The meeting culminated with the adoption of the Abidjan Declaration. The Declaration recognized nutrition as a factor of social cohesion and resilience of the African populations, communities and countries. In order to achieve very rapidly the targets of the 2014 Malabo Declaration on the eradication of hunger, the reduction of child stunting to 10% and underweight to 5% by 2025, the Abidjan Declaration agreed to act to end malnutrition in all its forms, taking particular account of the specific needs of all children, including the youngest, adolescent girls, women, the elderly, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups, as well as people in humanitarian crises, with a special focus on women and children in the 1,000-day window between conception and the child’s second birthday; adopt sustainable agri-food systems,, climate-sensitive and environmental friendly including the use of drought-resistant indigenous varieties, resilient health systems with universal health coverage, inclusive of sanitation and drinking water systems, effective education/literacy and social protection systems for all, including young children, the poorest and most nutritionally vulnerable, strengthen and invest in the national multi-sectoral coordination framework with the participation of all stakeholders, including civil society, the public/private sector, academia and research, women and youth, for a convergence of interventions as a relevant approach to accelerate the improvement of the nutritional status of the population, make nutrition programmes gender sensitive and adequately address gender related barriers to accessing quality nutrition programmes and services, include target beneficiaries, especially women and adolescents’ in the design, implementation, review and improvement of programmes to ensure that their unique needs are addressed, adopt according to the realities of each country, an adequate anchoring of the coordination platform facilitating the responsibility and accountability of each sector, concerned by the issue of nutrition, notably agriculture, health, water/sanitation, education/literacy, trade, industry, women empowerment, among other and increase strategic investments to better address climate-related threats to food and nutrition security in order to achieve the long-term goal of sustainable, quality and safe food for all in Africa.
The Declaration also called for strengthening at the continental level the mechanism for monitoring commitments, traceability of funding and nutrition interventions, in coherence with national systems, through the creation of an African Nutrition Coordination Agency supported by sub-regional offices.
