Experts from 19 African countries meeting here have urged their governments to focus on the food nutrition deficiencies of their citizens because they are critical to the development of their countries.
Uganda's First Lady Janet Museveni, who was newly appointed the state minister for Karamoja, said Thursday at the opening of the two-day meeting that the continent has all the expertise on nutrition but it has not put it into practice.
"Over 30 percent of Africa's population is chronically malnourished, instead of lamenting, we should ask ourselves what we can do to reverse the situation," she said.
"We must translate what we know into practice so that people can know," she added.
Emmanuel Otala, Uganda's outgoing minister of state for primary health care, told the over 270 participants that more than half of the children in eastern Africa are stunted and over 60 percent of them are under the age of five.
"These children can never live to achieve their full potential. We must come out and say it can not be business as usual, this is the time to reverse this trend," he said, noting that the situation has been worsened by the increasing number of obese people, who also need attention.
"The problem is becoming very, very complex, malnutrition and over-nutrition are living side by side," he said.
Uganda's malnutrition level currently stands at 40 percent, which has greatly affected agricultural production, according to an official from the agriculture ministry.
Bibi Giyose, an official from the New Partnership for Africa's Development, said that while many programs to address the continent's nutritional deficiencies have been developed, governments have been slow to implement them.
The conference, which is held under the theme "Challenges, Successes and Opportunities to Improve Nutrition," will discuss the continent's nutrition deficiencies and ways to address them.