The Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNP) in
collaboration with the Partnership for Child Development (PCD) on Tuesday held a forum to deliberate on the promotion of Child Nutrition and
the development of the school feeding programme.
The forum, which runs between June 1 and June 5 in Accra, is being attended by 40 delegates from 15 countries. It has as its theme "The multi-sectoral approach: Linking School
Health and Nutrition, School Feeding and Local Agricultural Production".
Mrs. Gene White, President of GNCP, said the forum would build upon the momentum generated by the emerging global partnership on school feeding to strengthen and support the Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programmes.
She said the specific objectives of the conference was to provide a common platform for high-level advocacy on HGSF, strengthen the learning and knowledge exchange processes
among HGSF stakeholders and strengthen coordination between school health and school feeding interventions.
In his opening remarks, Mr Joseph Yieleh Chireh, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, said the theme for the conference was vital because the wealth of a nation
did not depend on its natural resources alone but on its human resources as well, hence the need to attach more importance to the education of young children.
He said government was committed to the development of the child and the successful implementation and sustainability of the school feeding programme.
"The programme started in Ghana in the year 2005, following the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development initiative to use home grown foods as 'Quick Impact
Initiatives' to achieve the Millennium Development Goals for rural areas facing chronic malnutrition and low productivity," he noted.
Mr Yieleh Chireh said the school feeding programme in Ghana covered 656,624 pupils across the country and expected to cover 1,040,000 pupils by the end of this year as the first phase of the programme came to an end, with support from the Royal Netherlands Government.
The Minister said government was preparing for the second phase of the programme which would tackle areas such as the strengthening of local procurement of foodstuffs, ensuring improved agricultural production and building linkages between all sectors involved in the programme.
Dr. Namanga Ngongi, President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), said school feeding programmes were one of the best social and economic investments in the world.
He said agriculture was the roadmap for moving tens of millions of Africans out of poverty, since three-quarters of the continent's labour force engaged in farming and 40 per cent
of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) came from agriculture.
Dr. Ngongi said Africans should have strategic plans to address food security at the local level, improve yields and harvests through better soil and develop more crop varieties with higher nutrient value.
"School feeding programmes can work in Africa but only if at the same time we make the necessary
investments in the other parts of the agriculture value chain such as better seeds, healthier soils and a supportive policy environment" he added.
Mr Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Governor of Osun State in Nigeria, said all nations of the world had drawn up programmes which expressed their belief in the rights of their citizens to education, adding that steps were being taken to concretise the vision of making education a unifying factor in the world.
Mr Oyinlola indicated that the Universal Declaration on Human Rights made education a basic right for everyone, and set out a number of principles to be applied in order to achieve the objective.
"Education shall be free, at least at the elementary and fundamental stages. Technical and Professional education shall be made generally available, and higher education shall be
equally accessible to all on the basis of merit" he declared.
Mr Oyinlola said Osun State of Nigeria started its Grown School Feeding and Health programme about four years, and that it was now being implemented as a pilot scheme in five
other states in Nigeria.
He said though the cost involved was enormous, the State had ensured its sustenance in view of its importance.