By MWIINGA MUKUWA
HUNGER and malnutrition are two of the greatest global challenges. This means eradicating hunger and malnutrition among mothers and children is the most effective investment for their future.
In Zambia, the majority of the rural population depend on subsistence farming, and a huge percentage of farmers engage predominantly in maize production.
Lack of food diversity has resulted in an insufficient macro and micro-nutrient intake for the vast majority of the population especially in rural areas. This is causing serious health conditions, especially for vulnerable groups such as pregnant and lactating women as well as young children.
This has led the Government of the Republic of Zambia to prioritise reducing stunting more especially in the most affected provinces like Luapula province.
The Government through the National Food and Nutrition Commission is implementing this initiative through the first 1,000 most critical day’s programme (MCDPII).
The implementation of the MCDPII programme is being supported by different stakeholders, among them Germany Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) Food and Nutrition Security Enhanced Resilience Project (FANSER).
The FANSER Project is part of the special global initiative called “Transformation of Agricultural and Food Systems” which is implemented by GIZ and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
In Luapula province, the project is being implemented in Mwense, Mwansabombwe, and Kawambwa districts.
The main objective of the project is to improve nutrition situations for people living in food insecure households especially Women of Reproductive Age (WRA) and children under the age of two years.
Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist under the FANSER project in Luapula province, Grace Tembo, said the overall goal of the project is to improve the nutrition situations for vulnerable households especially women of reproductive age and those under the age of two years.
Ms. Tembo explained, “the overall target of the project is 110 women, but here in Luapula, we are looking at 32,500 women of reproductive age, 16,250 men and 19,000 children.”
Senior Food and Nutrition Security Advisor Christopher, Bupe Mulenga,says the project has a mandate of increasing dietary diversity among the beneficiaries in the districts were the project is being implemented.
“In Luapula, we have had a lot of engagements and facilitation with the beneficiaries and the farmers around crop value chains such as the Mbereshi beans, which are nutritious fortified with Iron and Zinc. In the past, we have also invested in Orange maize and Orange fleshed sweat potatoes,” Mulenga said.
He said that the project is also piloting interventions such as fruit trees like paw-paw, and also encouraging the consumption of vitamin A rich sources of foods.
Mr. Mulenga explained that there is the fourth output within the FANSER project which is the economic dimension, the farmer business school. This entails households are taken through lessons which are focused on production in a business way.
Mr. Mulenga explained that malnutrition is a multifaceted problem which needs a multi-sectoral approach.
“We have the UNICEF conceptual framework, which gives a basis who should be in the room fighting malnutrition. In the past, there was a lot of room leaning towards nutrition specific, but now this has evolved it’s a battle for nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive interventions,” Mr. Mulenga said.
The FANSER Project also endeavors to strengthen nutrition governance by making contributions at district, provincial, and national level platforms and spaces for dialogue.
And Zungikanji Nachilongo, who is Junior Advisor under the FANSER project in Mwense district emphasized that the FANSER project has the objective of increasing knowledge of nutrition, through the promotion of nutrition sensitive agriculture among communities.
“We are promoting a number of varieties, when the project started in Mwense. We started with promoting cowpea, small home gardens, Onion, Amaranthus, among others so that our beneficiaries can have different varieties all year round,” Nachilongo stressed.
The FANSER programme aims at building capacities among the intermediaries so that the beneficiaries are reached with research backed interventions in order to promote all year round production of crops and available of food. – NAIS
