Posted 15 April 1999
In November 1998, the World Bank led a multi-donor team to Ethiopia to review and discuss proposals for a Food Security Programme (FSP), which the Government of Ethiopia presented to the donors for their consideration. The Food Security and Agriculture Committee of the Donor Community - linked to the ACC Network on Rural Development and Food Security - was involved in coordinating the Mission and will continue to assess the recommendations and carry out the next steps toward final design and appraisal of the Food Security Programme.
The Aide-Memoire of the Multi-Donor Mission (20 November, 1998) reviews some of the troubling statistics underlying the serious food security and poverty problems in Ethiopia, despite encouraging national food production performance in recent years. It states: "For children under 6 years of age, almost two thirds are estimated to suffer from stunting, and over 10 percent from wasting. Furthermore, in rural areas the stunting figures have increased, from 60 percent in 1983 to 65 percent in 1992 to over 68 percent in 1995/96." Furthermore, "A high proportion of girls (an estimated 70 percent) marry before the age of 17, and begin a child-bearing cycle in which infants are born underweight, and suffer severe shocks to their systems in the years immediately following....leading to their also being stunted in turn. This cycle, whereby one generation's food insecurity and under-nutrition lays the foundations for similar conditions for the next generation, must be broken. This must be the major task of the Food Security Programme."
The Mission makes a series of recommendations divided into programme matters, the policy framework in which the programme is set, and the implementation arrangements. Guiding all of these recommendations is the suggestion that, given the extremely serious nutrition situation in Ethiopia today, all food security investments in the future should be subjected to a critical test, namely "asking what it would do to address the underlying problems contributing to the situation, in such a way as to have a positive impact on it within a reasonably short time period."
One of the key recommendations of the Mission is that the Food Security Programme should more closely reflect the three main pillars of the Food Security Strategy proposed by the Government of Ethiopia in 1996: Economic Growth and Employment; Additional Entitlement/Access and Targeted Programmess; and Emergency Capabilities. The proposed Food Security Programme gives greatest emphasis to the first pillar, becoming in essence a "rural development programme", omitting key access issues, particularly measures to directly reduce undernutrition in infants and expectant mothers. Other recommendations for an improved programme include building stronger links with ongoing and planned food security investments; building human and financial capacity to implement the proposed Food Security Programme; and creating a facilitating policy context for the programme to succeed (e.g. policies related to the role of public/private sectors; women's access to education and resources; land access and administration; rural finance institutions; migration and employment mobility; and population growth).
The next steps are for the Government of Ethiopia to review the Mission Team report, and carry out further project preparation activities in light of the report recommendations, including a series of workshops and consultations leading to a new version of the FSP. It is anticipated that the revised FSP should be ready for appraisal by May 1999. The Food Security and Agriculture Committee will be an important partner in this consultative process. For further information, please contact: Robin.Marsh@fao.org
The achievement of food security has been a major goal of development policy since India became independent in 1947. The strategy adopted was to attain self-sufficiency in the availability of food; raise the purchasing power of the poor through the endowment of land and non-land assets and by generating employment opportunities so as to enable adequate access to food; and to encourage public intervention for stabilizing consumption, i.e. reducing the annual variations in the availability of food and providing subsidized food to the poorer and most vulnerable sections. There have been substantial achievements in India in reaching near self-sufficiency in food, and in overcoming transient food insecurity through the public procurement and distribution of food grains.
However, while availability of adequate food stocks is necessary for ensuring food security, it is by no means sufficient to satisfy the hunger of the poor and undernourished. The access of poorer households to food depends on the purchasing power in their hands; the local production or proximate production of food grains; and accessible food grains being of the type preferred by poorer households in their respective regions. The Government of India and UNDP have signed a Programme Support Document (PSD) for food security, which provides a framework by which UNDP can support national efforts for ensuring food security at the household and community level.
Attention is being focussed on entrusting greater responsibility to local institutions called panchayats. According to recent constitutional amendments, the village panchayats should prepare area plans for the economic development and social justice of their respective populations, otherwise known as People's Action Plans (PAPs). The new role and responsibilities of the panchayats will become crucial for carrying out the village-level PAPs to achieve poverty alleviation and greater food security for all, using primarily agricultural-based soil, water, vegetation and livestock resources. It is therefore essential that panchayat members be trained and provided with knowledge of participatory micro-level planning and implementation, linked to the enhancement of literacy and scientific awareness.
The sub-programme, "Food Security and Panchayati Raj", was prepared by the Department of Rural Development and Water Conservation of the Government of Maharashtra for UNDP/FAO support. It will be a pilot training operation to socially mobilize village communities to address all dimensions of food and nutrition security, including gender empowerment, employment generation, health and nutrition, and adopting ways of increasing agricultural productivity. Capacity-building will cover different trainee target groups with a variety of learning requirements, including village gram sabhas (mass assemblies), elected members of village panchayats and self-help women's groups. Training will include development of PAPs for food security and the management of fair-price shops, grain/seed banks and village-level community assets.
FAO will assist the Government of Maharashtra in this sub-programme by providing expertise in participatory training methods and in the preparation of training materials and evaluation studies. This assistance will be channelled through the Inter-Agency Working Group on Food Security and Nutrition, which began in June 1996 and is now linked with the ACC Network on Rural Development and Food Security. For more information, please contact: Peter Rosenegger@fao.org (or FAO-IND@field.fao.org)
'Making women farmers count, too' was the theme of this year's International Women's Day celebrations held on March 8 at FAO Headquarters, which underlined the need for development planners to recognize women's key role in rural development and food security. The range of activities organized for the event demonstrated clearly that, despite women's crucial contribution to global food security they are still marginalized and 'invisible' partners in development.
Henri Carsalade, Assistant Director-General of the Sustainable Development Department, made a key-note address on behalf of FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, reiterating the Organization's commitment to gender equity and calling on member governments to collect, disseminate and use gender-disaggregated data in agriculture, fisheries, forestry and rural development. The scarcity of gender-disaggregated data throughout the world has meant that women have continued to be overlooked and neglected in development strategies.
The day was marked by a multi-media exhibition and a video on gender and food security, as well as a technical seminar on gender-related statistics in agricultural and rural development. The highlight of activities, however, was the official launching of FAO's Gender and Food Security corporate Website. The major new site contains over 60 pages of gender-related information in English, French and Spanish on gender issues related to rural and agricultural development, including fisheries and forestry, as well as a database containing over 200 bibliographic references, gender-specific statistics, details on projects and initiatives and links to other key sites.
For further information, visit the Gender and Food Security Website and the Women and Population Website
In the future, the ACC Network and the national Thematic Groups of the African Network for Sustainable Food Security (RASAD) will work together more closely at the country level to promote rural development and food security in the West and Central Africa sub-region. That was a clear message resulting from the recent Second Technical Meeting of RASAD (21-27 February 1999, Kpalime and Lomé, Togo), which brought together 32 participants from 7 member countries of RASAD: Benin, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal and Togo.
The meeting participants, including representatives of rural organizations, NGOs, educational and research bodies, training institutions and public services, paid particular attention to the establishment and operation of RASAD Thematic Groups at the country level which have selected 37 themes for action. However, a priority issue on the meeting agenda was cooperation between the ACC Network and RASAD. The need for complementarity between the two networks was recognized as essential and mutually beneficial for the management and operation of both mechanisms and some practical suggestions were made to achieve synergy in their development efforts. RASAD Thematic Groups were asked to work in close partnership with the relevant FAO Representatives in their country. Furthermore, RASAD national units were invited to become more integrated in the ACC Network by contributing ideas emanating from civil society - the sector that most of its members represent. At the close of the meeting, delegates approved the choice of SASAKAWA Global 2000 in Benin as the organization responsible for regional coordination duties.
Importantly, RASAD is promoting the use of the latest information technologies as networking tools. A training course on information technology was organized within the framework of the meeting, and this allowed leaders of national units and some thematic groups to learn more about the crucial role of the Internet in promoting and generating networking.
For further information, please contact Antoine.Fayossewo@fao.org.