Malnutrition in the OIC Member

Countries: A Trap for Poverty

based on the UNICEF conceptual framework (presented in section 2) and recognises that food

alone will not affectively address malnutrition in African and that a multi-sectoral approach is

necessary, is strong. However, challenges lie in the implementation of the policy.

CAADP is implemented by NEPAD and considered one of its most successful programmes.

CAADP was launched in 2003. In 2013, ten years on, a number of organisations undertook a

stock-take to assess if CAADP had been able to achieve its goals. CAADP has been successful on

two accounts. First, it successfully supported a comprehensive approach to agricultural

development in Africa, one which recognises the critical importance of not only looking at

production but also at infrastructure, trade, marketing and environmental sustainability.

Second, CAADP has increased government spending on agriculture, although not to the levels

promoted in the CAADP agreement (Howell and Curtis 2013). One of the primary objectives of

CADAAP is to ensure that African governments are spending at least 10% of their budget on

agriculture. However, as of 2011, the Regional Strategic Analysis and Support System,

ReSAKSS, the primary measurement agency for CAADP found that only seven countries had

met the target and seemed able to maintain the 10% target in the future (Howell and Curtis

2013). CAADP, has also not been able to achieve its overall goal of transforming African

agriculture. One of the main challenges has been that CAADP has prioritised Green Revolution

technologies focusing on prompting external inputs such as fertilisers and hybrid seeds rather

than looking at labour saving technologies which benefit more small-scale farmers, especially

women. Such a focus on technology means that wealthier farmers with greater land holdings

have benefited the most from the policy, and smallholders are increasingly left behind (Howell

and Curtis 2013).

While the CAADP process has been ongoing for 14 years, the mainstreaming nutrition initiative

of CAAPD was only launched in 2014 and thus it is too early to see potential impacts. The

second phase of the initiative will focus on ensuring that nutrition interventions are not only

included but also budgeted for and implemented as part of National Agriculture and Food

Security Investment Plans. A meeting of the nutrition task force met in March 2014 and

developed recommendations which were fed into the 2014 Malabo declaration which called

for ending hunger in Africa by 2025 and reducing poverty through agricultural transformation

(“Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Share

Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods” 2014]. At the regional level, two programmes are

supporting the integration of nutrition road maps: the Hunger Free Initiative in ECOWAS the

Mainstreaming Nutrition in CAADP and Agriculture Policies and Programmes in Sub-Saharan

Africa - Phase II (Oct 2014- Sept 2017) (FAO 2014).

An overview of West African Policy Initiatives

In West Africa, the main challenge lies in the abundance of nutrition-related policies and the

need for coordination (Crola, de Miguel, and Cortes 2015). Since the 2008-2009 food crisis,

there have been new policies and initiatives launched almost every year including L'Aquila

Food Security Initiative (2009), The Scaling Up Nutrition Movement (2010), The New Alliance

for Food Security and Nutrition, as well as the Global Alliance for Resilience - Sahel and West

Africa, and the Zero Hunger Challenge which were all launched in 2012, and finally the

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 (Crola, de Miguel, and Cortes 2015). The

following section presents some of the key policy initiatives in the West African region

including key accomplishments of various policies as well as some of challenges created by

such a complex policy environment.