The African Leaders for Nutrition on Tuesday unveiled a position paper calling upon African heads of state and government to ensure that financing for nutrition is included in their country’s COVID-19 response and recovery plans.
The position paper entitled ‘Embedding Nutrition within the COVID-19 Response and Recovery,’ was sent to African member states by King Letsie III of the Kingdom of Lesotho, an ALN ‘Nutrition Champion’.
‘Embedding Nutrition within the COVID-19 Response and Recovery’ recommended that countries maintain and increase the level of funding allocated to nutrition to safeguard previous efforts to address malnutrition, and ensure no gaps exist within their multi-year nutrition programmes in immediate, medium-term and post-pandemic recovery responses.
The paper emphasised the role of high-level political leadership, in particular heads of state and ministers of finance, as nutrition champions. The champions aim to ensure that actions and economic stimulus packages developed to combat the pandemic include plans to secure healthy foods were made available and affordable to all.
The pandemic has created major global health and economic shocks, with unprecedented impact on people’s health, nutrition and livelihoods. As a result, Africa is experiencing negative economic growth, primarily as a result of the sharp decline in productivity, jobs and revenues. At the same time, recent data shows that Africa has the highest prevalence of malnutrition and may soon overtake Asia as the region with the fastest-growing number of hungry and undernourished people. Nutrition cannot be left behind in the COVID-19 response in Africa.
“As COVID-19 cases rise in Africa, the impact on nutrition and food systems cannot be denied. The threat of this new virus requires us to adopt new ways of looking and overcoming malnutrition,” said former President of Ghana, John Kufuor, an ALN founding member and nutrition champion.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a chance for Africa’s leaders to re-shape and spearhead high-level sensitisation, advocacy and resource mobilisation efforts towards securing increased investments in nutrition.
Embedding Nutrition within the COVID-19 Response and Recovery forms part of the African Development Bank’s COVID-19 Response Facility to deploy financial and technical measures for African economies and livelihoods against the health, social and economic impact of the pandemic.
The African Leaders for Nutrition Secretariat is hosted by AfDB to foster opportunities for high-level engagement to drive policy changes in Africa.
