By Neo Kolane
Lesotho is planning to leap a foot forward to steer actions towards beating the scourge of malnutrition at the African Union (AU) Nutrition Champion next month.
According to the plan, already on shelves, a high level five-day summit on nutrition and food security is to be held in the kingdom beginning March 20.
Lesotho’s constitutional monarch, Letsie III is the AU Nutrition Champion who last week delivered a speech through his right-hand man prime minister Ntsokoane Matekane at the side of the AU Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
A savingram issued by the principal secretary in the ministry of foreign affairs and international relations Thabo Motoko, about six Heads of State and government, and other renowned people in the region and beyond are expected to attend this august event.
However, the event is also part of the long-term vision set out in Agenda 2063, whereby the Heads of State of the AU have adopted common African goals and objectives on nutrition and food security, thus bringing about well-nourished citizens and in good health with more emphasis on women, adolescents and children.
Presently, reports on the status of nutrition have shown that in Africa, malnutrition remains an underlying cause of almost half of children hence the high-level event is expected to also explore lasting solutions regarding maintaining good nutrition.
The meeting is to follow an AU summit in Ethiopia whereby Matekane coughed out plans to deal with malnutrition on behalf of King Letsie III.
In his closing remarks last week at the side of the summit, Matekane disclosed that he hoped that everyone will attain the Malabo Declaration targets on the continent within the next few years.
The 2014 Malabo Declaration is a re-commitment to the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) principles adopted by AU Heads of State and government “to provide effective leadership for the attainment of specific goals by the year 2025, including ending hunger, tripling intra-African trade in agricultural goods and services, enhancing resilience of livelihoods and production systems, and ensuring that agriculture contributes significantly to poverty reduction.”
Matekane firmly pronounced that “it cannot be acceptable that the head of states stay silent and indifferent at a time when 60 percent of Africa’s population (799 million people) is affected by moderate or severe food insecurity – making it the highest level globally.”
He observed keenly that that meant one-third of the world’s undernourished, or 282 million people, live in Africa.
As political leaders, he substantially warned, they have what it takes to change the scenario especially through sustained dialogues among themselves.
“This remains a key strategy for developing policy and legislative solutions to address food and nutrition insecurity on the continent.
“Our dialogue must, however, be accompanied by action and commitment.
“One of these key moments is the decision by the AU last year to declare 2022 as the Year of Nutrition, and the possibility of extending these theme beyond 2022,” he reminded delegates.
He vividly added: “This momentum is what we must build on”, adding he was highly convinced that this is the right time to act, to reaffirm commitments towards accelerating the pace of agrifood systems transformation.
He described the moment as a right time to work towards achieving full access to affordable healthy diets for better nutrition, without leaving anyone behind;
Matekane added it is the right time to, “increase investment in nutrition in order to reverse the negative impacts of malnutrition on our population.”
In addition, he also stressed it is the right time “to take urgent policy, and political actions needed to reach the global nutrition targets, and deliver on our strong commitments.”
Lesotho is ‘on course’ to meet two targets for maternal, infant and young child nutrition (MIYCN). No progress has been made towards achieving the target of reducing anaemia among women of reproductive age, with 27.9 percent of women aged 15 to 49 years now affected.
Meanwhile, there has also been no progress towards achieving the low birth weight target, with 14.6 percent of infants having a low weight at birth. Some progress has been made towards achieving the exclusive breastfeeding target, with 59 percent of infants aged 0 to 5 months exclusively breastfed.
Similarly, Lesotho has made some progress towards achieving the target for stunting, but 34.6 percent of children under 5 years of age are still affected, which is higher than the average for the Africa region with a 30.7 percent.
The country is ‘on course’ for the target for wasting, with 2.1 percent of children under 5 years of age affected, which is lower than the average for the Africa region at 6.0 percent.
The prevalence of overweight children under 5 years of age is 6.6 percent and it is ‘on course’ to prevent the figure from increasing.
Lesotho has shown limited progress towards achieving the diet-related non-communicable disease (NCD) targets. A 30.1 percent of adult (aged 18 years and over) women and 5.9 percent of adult men are living with obesity.
The obesity prevalence is higher than the regional average of 20.8 percent for women but is lower than the regional average of 9.2 percent for men. At the same time, diabetes is estimated to affect 11.2 percent of adult women and 9.1 percent of adult men.
