Seychelles learns more about Africa’s efforts to boost food security |04 October 2013

A multi-sectoral delegation from Seychelles recently attended a training workshop in Gaborone, Botswana aimed at discussing the development and improvement of food and nutrition security programmes in Africa in line with the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) framework.

The delegation was led by Mermedah Moustache, the CAADP focal point person for Seychelles and other members were from the nutrition unit in the Ministry of Health, from the ministries of Education, Finance and Trade, Natural Resources, the gender secretariat in the Department of Social Affairs, the Chamber of Commerce, and farmers’ association.

The workshop brought together similar delegations from 14 countries who explored ways to ensure nutrition interventions are planned, budgeted and carried out as part of National Agriculture and Food Security Investment Plans in African countries.

The CAADP brings together key players – at the continental, regional and national levels – to improve co-ordination, share knowledge, successes and failures, to encourage one another, and to promote joint and separate efforts to achieve the CAADP goals.

Seychelles became the first Indian Ocean island nation to sign the CAADP and implementing its provisions in September 2011.

It is to be noted that the CAADP was established as part of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) in July 2003 and focuses on improving and promoting agriculture to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty across Africa.

Each delegation prepared a nutrition country paper which was submitted for discussion. These papers summarised information on the nutritional situation of each country, identifying key nutrition related policies and programmes in all the relevant sectors and the major food and nutrition security challenges.

Country roadmaps based on a guidance checklist which defined how nutrition should be mainstreamed in National Agriculture Investments Plans (NAIPs) were prepared during the workshop.

The roadmap developed by each country team outlined the actions to be taken to ensure that recommendations are actually integrated in the NAIPs.

The country roadmaps will be subject to further in-country consultations after the workshop and used as a reference for follow up at both country and regional levels.