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Parliamentarians allege lack of information on nutrition

By Byron Mutingwende

Parliamentarians allege that despite their positions as policymakers and key members of government, they were not adequately informed by other stakeholders on the importance of pushing for legislation that promotes the scaling up of nutrition.

The legislators aired the sentiments at a workshop held by Progressio recently under the banner of Zimbabwe Civil Society Organisations in Scaling Up Nutrition (ZCSOSUNA) meant to raise parliamentarians’ awareness about the Global SUN Movement initiative and influence them to lobby for nutrition favourable strategies and budgets.

The ScalingUp Nutrition (SUN) Movement is a global movement and to date 54 countries have joined. Zimbabwe joined the SUN movement in 2011. Each SUN country should have effective and functional donor network, civil society network, UN network and a business network. The government is the focal point and brings together all networks in a multi-stakeholder platform to form the country network.

In Zimbabwe the Government, through the Food and Nutrition Council have already assumed the role of focal point. The civil society network, under the name Zimbabwe Civil Society Organisations in scaling Up Nutrition Alliance (ZCSOSUNA) started coordinating civil society players under the Multi-Partner Trust Fund in July 2014.

The government is a key stakeholder in decision making processes. Therefore Parliament as an important arm of government particularly the portfolio committees in Agriculture and Health play a pivotal role in the context of promoting nutrition. However, members of these committees felt they was delay in engaging them over the matter.

“We are hearing these issues for the first time. The SUN initiative is noble but to our surprise we are hearing it for the first time today in May of 2015 that Zimbabwe joined the SUN movement in 2011. That is five years down the line. We feel such a noble idea must have been communicated with us much earlier for us to lobby for legislation promoting scaling up of nutrition,” said Dr. Ruth Labode, the chairperson of the parliamentary committee on health and child care.

Labode’s sentiments come despite progress in reducing hunger and undernourishment in the country, nearly one in three children under the age of five years is stunted. Latest statistics from the National Nutrition Survey of 2010 (NNS 2010) reveals that stunting stood at 33.8% while in the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS 2014) the figure was at 27.6%.
“We stress that malnutrition in all its forms is a problem in Zimbabwe and needs urgent action to eliminate within our lifetime.
“We applaud the Government of Zimbabwe for crafting the necessary policy and legal framework for addressing the food and nutrition security challenges in the country. These include but not limited to the ZIMASSET, the multi-sectorial Food and Nutrition Security Policy and Implementation Plan of 2013. However, implementation of these frameworks seems to be a great challenge,” said Chris Mweembe the ZCSOSUNA national coordinator in a statement.

The Government of Zimbabwe joined the Global SUN Movement in 2011, and subsequently made the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) commitments in London, UK in June 2013. Analysts feel there is need to accelerate the fulfilment of these commitments to address malnutrition in the country.
Zimbabwe also committed to the Rome Declaration on Nutrition and its Framework for Action in Rome, Italy in November 2014 which emphasises the role of parliaments in addressing malnutrition, thereby contributing to globally shared vision of a sustainable world with food security and adequate nutrition for all.

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