African Govts Urged To Include Traditional Foods In School Feeding Programmes  

By Wallace Mawire

A Senior Nutrition Officer for Policy and Programmes in the Nutrition and Food Systems Division at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Boitshepo Bibi has urged African governments to consider including traditional food and cuisines into their school feeding programmes to improve the health and nutrition of school children across the continent.              

  Bibi is currently on secondment to the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) as Special Advisor to the CEO of the agency since January 2018.               

 Her work focuses on integrating and mainstreaming nutrition into agriculture and related sectors. Countries from Africa recently took stock on progress achieved on homegrown school feeding programmes they  implementing at the 20^th edition of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Partnership Platform {PP) associated Malabo Policy Learning Event held in Harare, Zimbabwe on 29 October to 2 November, 2024 convened by the African Union Commission Department of Agriculture , Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment  and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).                                

At a side event held during the CAADP meeting, five African countries namely Ghana, Nigeria,Malawi, Zimbabwe and Kenya presented on progress they have made in their homegrown school feeding programmes.        

  The side event was held under the theme :Building Sustainable, Safe Nutritious Homegrown School Feeding Programmes:2 decades of learning and the role of policy and sharing lessons from innovations across AU member states and development partners.  The event was also supported by the Department of Health, Humanitarian Affairs and Sustainable Environment (DARBE).  It was also held with support of technical institutions and other stakeholders to commemorate the 15^th Africa Day for Food and Nutrition Security (ADFNS).                            

The side event was hosted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), HarvestPlus and NEPAD – AUDA under the sub theme:Empowering Youth and Women in Education, Nutrition and Agrifood Systems.            

   According to the organisers, the 20th CAA”P meeting was held during a critical juncture in Africa’s agricultural transformation.              

   It also marked the end of the second decade of CAADP, following Maputo 2003 and the malabo 2014.                

The events under the theme :Two Decades of CAADP Agenda: Cultivating the Nexus of Nutrition, Agrifood Systems and Education for Africa ‘s Growth provided a platform for sharing experiences and lessons and discussing opportunities and strategies to innovative agricultural practices, accelerating implementation and  scaling up  successful models and inclusive policies that empower all stakeholders, particularly women and youth.                               

  In 2022,the AU endorsed a declaration on fortification and bio-fortification. According to the organisers, full scale implementation of the declaration is yet to gain momentum in the majority of AU Member States, with the bio- fortification, a component of the declaration that requires AU member states to scale the adoption, production and consumption of nutrient-dense staple crops and foods.           

 The side event set the stage for building momentum towards an accelerated implementation of sustainable safe nutritious homegrown school feeding programmes in a Post Malabo CAADP era.            

Objectives of the event included identifying policy and strategic options for implementing cost effective, sustainable and safe home grown school feeding programmes, that have been successfully used in other AU member states or beyond, including developing a policy brief that can guide AU member states to accelerate the transformation of the home grown school feeding programmes, through the integration of nutrient rich staple crops to gradually substitute less nutritious ones.                                     

At the meeting Ghana and Nigeria reported that they had added traditional foods into their school feeding programmes.                        

Other governments  in Africa have been encouraged to introduce traditional foods into their school feeding programmes to boost the nutrition and health of the continent’s children.