The East African Community food and nutrition security action plan 2019-2023
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Date
2019
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East African Community
Abstract
The East African Community (EAC) region suffers from frequent food insecurity despite the huge resource endowments and great potential for production of adequate food. Food insecurity in the region is caused by both natural and policy related factors. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 20 million of the over 160 million people in the region are food insecure. It is against this back drop that in 2011, that the EAC Heads of States Summit directed the Secretariat to develop the first Food Security Action Plan (FSAP) 2011-2015 to guide the implementation and actualization of the regional food security objectives.
Implementation of the first phase covered five Partner States of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. A number of actions proposed under the first phase were successfully implemented. The first phase provided valuable lessons to informing implementation of this next phase. Key among them were; the need to fast track domestication of various policies critical in addressing food security issues; development of a mechanism to track Partner States implementation; integration of the FNSAP 2019-2023 objectives within the relevant ministries and departments at the national and regional levels and synchronization and awareness creation among relevant stakeholders undertaken.
Others included the development of a comprehensive monitoring, evaluation and learning framework to effectively track performance and recommend corrective actions in a timely manner; advocate for increased Partner States’ investment in food security and explore strategies to mitigate risks on over reliance on donor funding; it recommended that the EAC Department of Agriculture and Food Security should increase the number of staff by filling key technical positions; implementation of regional commitments at national level be fast tracked; and finally, to enhance resource mobilization, there is need to maximize on regional organizations capacities by broadening partnerships.
This second phase of the action plan is aligned to the Food and Nutrition Security Strategy 2019-2023. It proposes actions that cover all dimensions of food and nutrition security as was in the first phase that is; food availability, access, utilization and stability. In addition, the emerging issues and trends that impact on food security in the region have also been taken into account. Some of the emerging issues of importance include; effects of climate change, urbanization, rapid population growth, increased focus on nutrition and diets, changing food systems that are putting emphasis on food safety, natural resource management, conflict and insecurity among others. During the implementation there will be efforts to leverage some of the activities being spearheaded by other regional economic communities and development partners.
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Action plan
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Citation
East African Community. (2019). The East African Community food and nutrition security action plan 2019-2023. East Afican Community