By Vincent Gunde
A Swedish International Development Organization, We Effect in collaboration with Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM) with funding from European Union (EU) is implementing Nourishing futures: Empowering Malawi’s Civil Society Organizations for Sustainable nutrition project in Dowa district.
The project is focusing on empowering local CSOs and CSO Networks to actively engage in establishing sustainable and nutritious food systems in Malawi in line with the EU global objective of empowering local CSOs as independent actors in the establishment and governance of sustainable, responsible and nutritious food systems in Malawi.
This is a 60 month’s project with a budget of around 1.5 million Euros that is aimed at strengthening the capacity of local CSOs and their networks to advocate for increased demand for food fortification and ensure availability.
Despite government efforts on issues of food fortification, enforcement mechanisms have been lagging behind and there has been limited support to infant food fortification and nutrition governance especially capacity development for CSOs to fully engage in technical debates on food fortification and infant nutrition.
Presenting the project to the District executive committee in Dowa, We Effect Nutrition Project Officer Olivia Mpulula, indicted that it aligns to the country’s priorities such as the Malawi Vison 2063 enabler 5; Health and Nutrition which prioritizes children’s and women health and nutrition and the Malawi Nutritional Multi-sector Nutrition policy and National Micronutrient Strategy.
She indicated that this is an advocacy project that will involve building capacity of local CSOs in nutrition related topics so that they are able to advocate and hold duty -bearers accountable saying apart from local CSOs, media groups are also going to be trained so that they have in-depth knowledge on nutrition.
In his remarks, Acting Chief Planning Officer for Dowa District Council Yusuf Laki, called on partners implementing nutrition interventions in the district to support the project so that its intended outcomes are achieved.
Laki also advised WE Effect to sign Memorandum of Understandings (MoU) with the council and the CSO Network for the district to enhance cooperation, transparency and accountability of projects being implemented in the district.
We Effect is implementing a-60 month’s project: Nourishing futures: Empowering Malawi’s CSO for sustainable nutrition with a total project budget amounting to 1,579,000 Euros.
