With the aim to foster discussion and debate around policy and institutional reforms to promote sustainable food systems improving nutrition and enable healthy diets, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) is undertaking a policy process which will lead to the development of Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition.
Pursuing a wide and inclusive process, the CFS Secretariat is organizing a series of regional consultations to receive feedback and inputs on the from a broad range of stakeholders in order to improve the existing draft and foster awareness and broad ownership among key parties and all CFS stakeholders.
Joining this effort, together with stakeholders from different countries in Asia, representatives of A4NH's Country Coordination and Engagement (CCE) Unit in Vietnam participated in the regional consultation for Asia and the Pacific, held in Bangkok, Thailand, from July 25 to 26. Tuyen Huynh of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), who coordinates A4NH's work in Vietnam, spoke on behalf of A4NH's CCE, offering feedback and input on the Zero Draft of the Guideline's four chapters.
Huynh noted that, with the guidelines, different ministries in Vietnam would be able to map their activities into recommended interventions in the three food system elements documented in the guidelines, and refer to them for information during the policy making process. This would enable the country to find synergies and also scope with tradeoffs among food system elements. She noted that Vietnam launched the Zero Hunger National Action Plan in 2018, to provide enough food and nutrition for people to enhance health, intelligence, and stature; at the same time, committing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2.
Huynh added that, led by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in collaboration with other ministries, the government is carrying out the Zero Hunger model in 1,000 poor communes, applying a nutrition-sensitive approach. She added that the nutrition-sensitive policy guidelines and recommendations in CFS's voluntary guidelines, such as linking farm to school, nutrition-sensitive trade policies, and social and behavior change communication, can be good guidelines for the government as its works to prioritize intervention activities to implement in Vietnam.
A version of this post first appeared on the CIAT website.
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