LEVERAGING PARLIAMENT’S ROLE FOR BETTER NUTRITION – GHANA’S

EXPERIENCE

Presented by Hon. Kwabena Appiah-Pinkrah(Co-chair of the Ghana Parliamentarians Against Hunger and Malnutrition Caucus)

at the 2015 Scaling Up Nutrition Global Gathering in Milan, Italy

21st October 2015

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Outline of Presentation1. Introduction to the SUN Movement

in Ghana 2. Nutrition Financing in Ghana3. Role of Parliament in advancing

nutrition4. Other Caucus Activities

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Introduction to the SUN Movement in Ghana • Undernutrition alone contributes to about 50 percent of deaths among children

below 5 years in Ghana. The Ghana Health Service estimates that Vitamin A deficiency could cause about 110,000 deaths among children from 2011 to 2020.

• Ghana faces the need to reduce chronic malnutrition among children below 5 years. • Ghana joined the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement in 2011.• A National Nutrition Policy (NNP) has been developed and was validated in 2013.• A multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder platform is being coordinated by the National

Development Planning Commission to develop a cabinet memo to accompany the NNP to cabinet for approval.

• The cabinet memo which will incorporate possible scenarios for scaling up nutrition and their cost implications will be reviewed by parliament and returned to cabinet for its approval.

• Some special components of the cabinet memo will include a Monitoring and Evaluation Plan, a Capacity Building Strategy, a Resource Mobilisation Strategy and a Social Mobilisation, Advocacy and Communications Strategy (SMACS)

• SMACS is envisioned to be a Comprehensive Communication strategy on nutrition for all stakeholders in Ghana.

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Introduction to the SUN: Nutrition Financing and Resource Mobilisation in Ghana

• Nutrition related sectors, such as health and agriculture, education, water, sanitation and hygiene, and budgets for nutrition interventions in their medium-term development plans.

• Financing for the implementation of these nutrition interventions have over the years been provided by government and to a large extent development partners.

• There has been a move, under the SUN initiative, to track financial commitments to nutrition, using the 2014 and 2015 national budgets.

• Apart from traditional nutrition sectors, other relevant sectors such as Employment, Local Government, and Trade are being sensitised on their linkages with nutrition and the need to address nutrition issues in their sectors.

• Government needs to allocate more funds to nutrition interventions. This would require comprehensive lobbying. The NNP and its accompanying cabinet memo will serve as an advocacy tool and the basis for lobbying government for more political and financial commitment to nutrition issues in Ghana. 4

The Role of Parliament in Advancing Nutrition

• Ghana’s Parliament is responsible for making laws, controlling the financial public purse, overseeing the executive arm of government, representing the various constituencies and local governments and deliberating matters brought before it.

• Parliament uses various techniques to achieve its mandate. These include lobbying, sensitisation and advocacy in all areas including budgeting.

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The Role of Parliament in Advancing Nutrition: Institutional Framework

• The Ghana Parliamentarians Against Hunger and Malnutrition Caucus was formed to help realise a hunger-free and well nourished society in Ghana.

• The objectives of the Caucus are:1. To create a high profile of hunger and right to food issues in national development agenda as a state policy backed by appropriate legislation and a well informed society.2. To mobilise national resources and capacities to carry out public advocacy to eradicate hunger while guaranteeing the right to food of citizens.3. To ensure continual deliberations in Parliament on the serious consequences of hunger and malnutrition to make it a prime focus of debates and dialogues at the highest level of governance.

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The Role of Parliament in Advancing Nutrition: Institutional Framework

• The Caucus aims at mustering the needed political will through advocacy and lobbying.

• The Caucus quietly lobbies parliamentary committees that handle nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive sectors to demand accountability and commitment from the Executive to improve nutrition outcomes in Ghana.

• In addition to lobbying for increased budget allocations for nutrition and food security, the Caucus serves as an ally of Civil Society platform for the intensification of national advocacy to raise the visibility of nutrition and Food Security in Ghana.

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The Role of Parliament in Advancing Nutrition: Sensitisation

• The Ghana Parliamentarians Against Hunger and Malnutrition Caucus has taken on the responsibility for sensitizing the entire membership of parliament through publications.

• Similarly it hopes to continue sensitizing the Parliamentary press corps to support advocacy programmes around nutrition.

• It will constantly remind leadership of Parliament, including the Speakership, the minority and majority leaders on malnutrition issues in Ghana.

• Keeping in mind the 4 main micronutrient deficiencies that have caused the death of many children in Ghana – iodine, iron, vitamin A and zinc and other issues of malnutrition, several deliberations on nutrition have been carried out. Some of these are:1. A National Stakeholders meeting held in 2013 to deliberate the development of a National Salt Strategy III to address the decline in salt iodization in Ghana and raise it to at least 70%.2. 14 episodes of a TV programme “Tomorrow, Today” by Paabec Foundation which seeks to educate the public, especially women and children on the need to change attitudes and behaviours in Nutrition.

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The Role of Parliament in Advancing Nutrition: Advocacy

• The right to nutritious food should be a state policy backed by appropriate legislation and society must be informed of the relevance of this right and encouraged to support its implementation. This calls for effective communication and social mobilisation.

• Parliament supports advocacy through various channels such as the electronic and print media, contributing to the development of brochures, engaging civil society representatives and other stakeholders on food security and nutrition. Such engagements encourage further consultations on food security and nutrition in Ghana.

• The Social Mobilisation, Advocacy and Communications Strategy (SMACS) which will be developed for Ghana’s Nutrition Scale Up Plan will present a blueprint for communication and advocacy around nutrition.

• Evidence-based advocacy: Findings on nutrition from various quarters including Ghana’s District Health Survey, the Ghana Health Service and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) provide the basis for advocacy.

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The Role of Parliament in Advancing Nutrition: Packaging Nutrition Information for Parliamentarians

• Statements on nutrition relevant subjects are presented to parliament. These statements seek to make convincing arguments for addressing malnutrition and food security issues in Ghana.

• Questions and answers arising from discussions are able to provide useful information and clarification on nutrition issues to parliamentarians.

• Fact sheets developed by technical practitioners are also very useful in providing information and scenarios on malnutrition in Ghana and the actions required to address the problem.

• Parliamentarians often engage in debates with other stakeholders in nutrition. These debates enlighten participants on the various issues for nutrition and how to prioritise interventions to tackle the issues better.

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The Role of Parliament in Advancing Nutrition: Budgeting

• Before national budgets are presented before Parliament, there is usually room to lobby for increases in budget allocations to nutrition.

• Parliamentarians lobby relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) such as the Ministries of Health, Agriculture, Education, Local Government, Communication and Finance to make their development plans and budgets nutrition-sensitive. This ensures that nutrition is tackled in all relevant sectors.

• Some MDAs directly responsible for nutrition in Ghana include the Nutrition Department found in the Ghana Health Service, Food Security and Food Supplementation at the Ministry of Agriculture, Hygiene and Sanitation desk found at the Local Government level and the School Health Education Programme at the Ministry of Education.

• Parliament does this through platforms such as stakeholder consultative and advocacy meetings. Such meetings often aim at sensitising MDAs through advocacy by Parliament.

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Other Caucus Activities • In support of the SUN Movement in Ghana, the Caucus has been working

with the Ghana Coalition of Civil Society for Scaling Up Nutrition (GHACCSSUN) on various activities. These include:1. In June 2013, the duo organised the first stakeholders forum to

deliberate on the Global Nutrition Summit which took place on 5th June 2015 and build consensus on the SUN process in Ghana. I called for the necessary political will to increase investment in nutrition in Ghana.

2. The Caucus was involved in a national consultative meeting on the national nutrition policy on August 2013 where the Caucus pledged its support to make the policy effective.

3. At a Media Practitioners Capacity Building Workshop in September 2014, the Caucus called on media practitioners to improve their reportage on nutrition to increase its visibility.

4. In September 2015, a round table dialogue on Ghana’s food security and nutrition was organised for Members of Parliament. Here, I called for a stronger collaboration between the Caucus and Civil Society Organisations to make nutrition a national development policy. 12

Photo Report

Ghana’s focal person on Scaling Up Nutrition, Prof. Agyeman Badu Akosa urges Ghana’s Parliament to support the implementation of the National Nutrition Policy

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Photo Report

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Photo Report

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Challenges of the Caucus

• The Caucus is currently operating as a civil society organisation planted in Parliament.

• It is not accredited and is therefore not included in Parliament’s budget

• The Caucus would function better with official recognition and funding support from parliament, local NGOs as well as external direct support to finance activities especially advocacy and media linkage.

• There is need for direct linkage to the SUN Movement Secretariat at the national and international levels to provide technical backstopping to the Caucus.

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THANK YOU

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