AUC, AfDB launches scorecard to track nutrition progress

The African Union Commission (AUC), the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) and global partners have launched the Continental Nutrition Accountability Scorecard to raise awareness and reinforce commitments by African governments to help end malnutrition.

King Letsie III of the Kingdom of Lesotho and African Union Champion for Nutrition, and Dr Akinwumi A. Adesina, President of the AfDB co-hosted the scorecard launch.

The launch was on the sidelines of the 32nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a news release copied to the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday said.

King Letsie said: “The nutrition accountability scorecard offers an opportunity to lay a solid foundation to aid African leaders to act strategically and deliberately in implementing policies and investing in nutrition programmes that tackle malnutrition in our respective countries."

“As responsible leaders, the onus is on us to take action for the wellbeing of the African people. We need to take appropriate and decisive actions now rather than later.”

President Dr Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi of the Republic of Botswana commended the Bank for the initiative.

“I am so proud about the African Development Bank’s involvement… the scorecard is an extremely useful tool. It is important to get a continental picture of the state of our nutrition so that we ask ourselves the right questions to make sure we get our priorities right and fix them."

The Continental Nutrition Accountability Scorecard is produced by the African Leaders for Nutrition Initiative (ALN), headquartered at the African Development Bank, in collaboration with partners including the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“We must change how we look at the problem of malnutrition. The greatest contributor to economic growth is not physical infrastructure but brainpower, what I refer to as “grey matter infrastructure”.

While it is obvious that a road and a port can add to improved trade and economic growth, it is often not recognized that stunting shrinks the size of the brain and therefore compromises the current and future economic growth of nations,” said Dr Adesina.

“Let us rise and do the right thing for Africa’s children: secure their future with better nutrition. Let us turn the red colours on these scorecards to green. Let us score goals for nutrition in Africa.”

Africa remains the only continent with high levels of malnutrition, and suffers slow progress to reverse the situation in comparison to the rest of the world.

Data from the United Nations indicate that the number of stunted children in Africa increased sharply from 50.6 million in 2000 to 58.7 million in 2017.

A growing body of evidence recognises that malnutrition and economic development are closely interlinked.

Poor nutrition is responsible for stunting children’s growth, harming children’s educational development and future economic prospects.

The scorecard launch, therefore, presented key findings and recommendations including calls for governments to increase budgetary allocations for multi-sectoral nutrition plans.

It also called for the enhanced empowerment of women and adolescent girls and the provision of nutritional support at the most critical time of a child’s life - during pregnancy and early childhood.

The nutrition assessment tool provides a snapshot of the status of key nutrition indicators, including internationally agreed nutrition targets, specific interventions, sensitive interventions, policy and legal provisions, nutrition financing, and socio-economic impacts.

Ms Jennifer Blanke, the Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development at the AfDB, said: “Over time, the Continental Nutrition Accountability Scorecard will expand in depth, data and usefulness, and will help to identify solutions to mitigate the burden of malnutrition that has impeded the Continent for the past few decades.”

The African Leaders for Nutrition Initiative targets the highest levels of African governments to build advocacy to improve nutrition across the Continent.

In attendance were members of the diplomatic corps, health ministers from Ghana, Malawi, Botswana, Kenya, Senegal, the Gambia and development partners including FAO, WHO, UNFPA, and UNICEF.