October: Month of Food Security - Addressing nutrition can drive development (Voices and Views)

A new VOICES AND VIEWS article, published on Capacity4Dev to mark World Food Day on 16 October, describes how the EU has committed more than €8bn to finance programmes in over 60 countries which requested support on agriculture and food security. Based on interviews with Jean-Pierre Halkin, Head of Rural Development, Food and Nutrition Security at DG International Cooperation and Development, the article tells how two new areas of focus have been developed: improving child nutrition and bolstering the resilience of African regions to drought and poor harvests. The EU has launched initiatives in the Horn of Africa (SHARE, or Supporting the Horn of Africa’s Resilience) and across the Sahel region which stretches below the Sahara desert from Senegal to Sudan (AGIR, or Global Alliance for Resilience Initiative). Together with Member States, the EU spent €56.5 billion in 2013 on helping countries across the world fight poverty. In June, the EU joined forces with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) on a platform to enable countries to develop better-informed nutrition policies. The National Information Platforms on Nutrition (NIPN) will monitor progress towards reducing malnutrition and provide analysis, starting in Bangladesh, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Laos and Niger.