Kufuor Foundation begins Regional Consultation on Zero Hunger Strategic Review
The John Agyekum Kufuor Foundation has begun regional consultation on the Ghana Zero Hunger Strategic Review (GZHSR) as it seeks to develop a national framework to eliminate hunger by 2030.
The consultation is aimed at establishing a baseline that fosters understanding of the challenges and gaps in the national response to food and nutrition security.
Speaking at the first regional stakeholders’ consultation in Cape Coast, Professor Matilda Steiner Asiedu, Team Leader of the review, stressed that extensive multi-sectoral consultations and partnerships were key to achieving SDGs two and to further eradicate hunger and malnutrition.
Prof. Asiedu explained that the review was to result in joint agreement and consensus by the Ghana Government and its development partners on priority actions required to achieve the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal two (SDG 2).
The SDG two aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030.
According to her, the causes of Hunger and malnutrition were multi-faceted and highly interlinked which required a holistic response through multi sectoral interventions that linked nutrition with related causal factors, such as access to clean water, education, food and labour markets and health services.
She said the ZHSR was an important agenda and implored all Ghanaians to endeavor to make an input to it.
“Without eliminating hunger and malnutrition, I do not think we can achieve our developmental goals as a nation because nutrition is life, ever body has to be healthy and nourished to be able to work,” She added.
Though Ghana had performed creditably well in the areas of food and nutrition security, compared to other African countries, the improvements, she said had been slow and unequal across the population, while micro-nutrient malnutrition was highly prevalent and persistent.
The Chief Executive Officer of the John A. Kufour Foundation, Professor Baffour Agyemang Duah reiterated calls to the Government to make agriculture an attractive enterprise for the youth.
He said the outcome of the review would feed into the Government’s policy for food production as well as other agricultural policies geared towards meeting the SDG s and to further eradicate hunger, adding that, it was imperative for the nation to own the project.
He said the Foundation had set up a research team made up of professors and individual experts on food security who have been tasked to collect data from stakeholders, institutions and individuals involved in food security.
Source: GNA