We nibbled this piece in The Guardian a couple days back, but it really deserves more:
Health, nutrition and agriculture experts from the 15 Ecowas countries said nutrition usually gains attention only in the context of crisis and emergency response, but it should be integral to agricultural and development programmes if countries are to pre-empt child malnutrition.
That seems to be quite a breakthrough. When I posted the link on the Biodiversity_for_Nutrition Yahoo Group, saying that putting “nutrition at the heart of agriculture” was quite a thought, Danny at Bioversity was quick off the mark:
A thought indeed. Raises some very good points – integration, policy and strategy fragmentation, need to mainstream nutrition into agriculture… All good stuff and hey, we even have a project in the pipeline that offers a great opportunity to address these issues. Unfortunately, the environment/biodiversity sectors are not highlighted as one of the sectors which should also be involved. They should be. Minor gripe. I would suggest that the focal points for the project in question circulate this short and to the point article to all their partners and beyond. Recommendation: Circulate widely!
Unfortunately, it is difficult to find details of the concrete actions that will be undertaken on the ECOWAS website. And one is also left wondering whether the link with biodiversity will be made. There is a parallel ECOWAS effort on biodiversity in which Bioversity is involved, so perhaps it will.