“Getting nutritious foods to people”

What does the food you give your children contain? Do they get from it nutrients sufficient enough for their proper growth?

I arrived in Kigali-Rwanda today morning (via RwandAir) and I am getting ready for a discussion on getting nutritious foods to more people which starts tomorrow at Serena Hotel.  Uganda’s State Minister for Agriculture Dr. Zurubabel Mijumbi Nyiira was on the same flight, also here for the same conference.

You can get more about this event from the Press Release below this paragraph. I will give you more information as we progress.

PRESS RELEASE 

Media Contact: Vidushi Sinha, HarvestPlus, v.s.vidushi@cgiar.org Tel: +1 202-862-4686, +250-788-386198

Policymakers to Meet in Kigali on Getting Nutritious Foods to People

Washington D.C., March 27, 2014. On March 31, more than 275 high-level stakeholders from government, business and civil society will converge in Kigali, Rwanda, for a three-day consultation on ‘Getting Nutritious Foods to People.’

Nearly one in three people globally suffers from a lack of essential vitamins and minerals such as vitamin A, zinc and iron in the diet. This condition – known as hidden hunger – increases the risk of stunting, anemia, blindness, infectious diseases, and even death. Women and children are especially vulnerable.

HarvestPlus, a global program to improve nutrition and public health, has worked with partners to develop new varieties of nutritious food crops that provide more vitamin A, zinc, or iron. These crops – already being grown by more than a million farmers – have been conventionally bred. They include cassava, maize and orange sweet potato for vitamin A; beans and pearl millet for iron; and rice and wheat for zinc.

Studies have shown that these new varieties do provide nutritional benefits to consumers. “We’re just beginning to scratch the surface…we want to increase access to these nutritious crops as quickly as possible. Now is the time to bring partners together to figure out how we do this together,” says Howarth Bouis, the Director of HarvestPlus.

The conference is being hosted by the Government of Rwanda. More than 500,000 Rwandan farmers have already planted new varieties of beans that are rich in iron. These new iron beans also yield many more tons per hectare than the local varieties, and the surplus can be shared or sold.

Keynote speakers include M.S. Swaminathan, the renowned father of India’s Green Revolution; Chris Elias, President of the Global Development Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; and, Akinwumi Adesina, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and Forbes Africa Person of the Year 2013. Adesina serves on the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, a newly formed expert group that advises on nutrition-enhancing agricultural and food policies and investments. The panel will convene a special session to explore how biofortification could help decision makers in developing nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food policies.

“The evidence is promising, and we now need to explore the potential for biofortification to enhance agriculture and food policies for nutrition,” says Jeff Waage, Technical Advisor to the Global Panel and Director of the London International Development Centre.

The invitation-only consultation will be livestreamed and moderated by Jeff Koinange, an award-winning Kenyan journalist and past Chief Anchor for Africa for Arise Television and CNN Senior Africa Correspondent.

For more information, please visit the conference website. Learn more about HarvestPlus. Learn more about the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition.

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HarvestPlus, c/o IFPRI 2033 K Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006-1002 USA Tel.: +1-202-862-5600 • Fax: +1-202-467-4439 • www.harvestplus.org

Kampala’s Villageism Killing KCCA dreams

KCCA ED Jennifer S. Musisi

There has been two disturbing pieces of news about Kampala in the previous few days: The Sunrise article  of March 14, 2014, “KCCA in Spotlight over Security at Park” reveals how vagabonds have turned the gardens at Centenary Park into their den. This was followed by a story in the Daily Monitor “City fountains dry up as street lights vandalized” published on March 18, 2014 – this one tells how just a year after they were installed, city fountains have stopped working and street lights have been vandalized.

These developments must be very frustrating for the people at Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA). When they entered office three years ago, their dream was to turn Kampala into a shining city we had never seen before: Clear the garbage and keep the city neat (they have scored high here); plant grass, flowers and trees along the streets (done very well); let some toilets be free to the public (probably more needed); free-up public parks and road reserves (still in progress), the list of their dreams must be big. 

It is disheartening that before we can get to see what a beautiful city looks like, some people are destroying what the authority is putting up—this can be as annoying as someone pouring rubbish where you have just swept. Like Jose Chameleon sings: Ozimba bazimbulula (you build they dismantle; opanga bapangulula (you arrange they disarrange)! This state of affairs raises very important questions: 1) Are we ready for modernization? 2) Jennifer Musisi has been strict when it comes to orderliness, what will happen when she leaves the KCCA top office? Shall we sustain her legacy? At the moment we are looking at what Musisi indents to be permanent as temporary developments.

The problem is; we are failing to appreciate that Kampala is a city. Because most of us are rural-urban migrants, we have retained with us our villageism, except for using money to buy food as opposed to picking it from the garden: When we have rubbish we want to throw it anywhere as if we are throwing it in a bush, wherever we see grass is a urinal, so even when we see beautiful gardens we think they are not for us, maybe for Bazungu.

In reference to The Sunrise story, KCCA opened up these beautiful gardens for us to go enjoy them free of charge: You could buy some ice cream and popcorn and go to Centenary Park with your girlfriend to enjoy a quiet and peaceful time there; you could carry a novel, with your little flask of tea in the bag, or a bottle of soda, and you enjoy some good reading there. Because we are not using the gardens, vagabonds have taken them over. How would they get there if we had occupied our gardens? They fear to stay near orderly people.

The little park at Watoto Church looks beautiful with its fountain (when functional), why not go there and enjoy a photo-shoot? It may be very open and directly under the sun but even when the sun is not strong people are hardly there. Are we criminal that we fear to be seen because of the heavy traffic around this little park? Ok, if that is too open then why are we not in the Centenary Park?

Some people claim that public parks pose security threats and should therefore be given to developers to construct buildings there. If our government can secure the whole of northern Uganda from Kony then how can it fail to secure these few metres of space for us to enjoy our nature? In Nairobi, apart from public leisure parks (which are very popular by the way), there is even a whole National Park (with animals) within the city. The people of Nairobi are not saying “let-us remove the national park and build there shopping malls.”

In drawing its plans KCCA might have underestimated our villageism, but it is not too late. We might just need a campaign to educate us on how to use free open spaces in the city –. Naye tufa ekyaalo!

Stop rating the Nnabagereka!

The Nnabagereka Sylvia Nagginda

The Kabaka is the most revered person in Buganda. He is the pillar of Buganda kingdom. His power is unquestionable. His voice is the voice of the Baganda and of Buganda.  He is the kingdom and the kingdom is him. The Nnabagereka, his wife, is the symbol of motherhood and the highest woman in Buganda and for that, she must be respected.

The New Vision’s City Beat (Friday Mach 21, 2014) has done what I feel is insulting. How can you rate the Nnabagereka?   And you even give her a number?  This is insulting to Buganda and it should be stopped before it gets out of hand – very soon we will see them rating her as No. 1,000. Please give the institution of the Kabaka the respect it deserves.

This is my opinion. What is yours?

Amama Something

(By William Odinga Balikuddembe)

Honourable Servant,

Let them scorn that know nothing:

You are Prudent

They say you are Arrogant

You are Brilliant,

Intelligent,

Independent,

They say you are Adamant

They know nothing;

Nothing!

Do they know what’s Important?

They know nothing;

Nothing!

On your side some are Permanent

Permanent because they are Conversant

Or they are Dependant

But with this, this thing, where shall we end?

They, they, are making you a Serpent,

By your side no one do they want

Not your son, your daughter? Not

Amama, do you have friends?

They, they say you don’t

Or you shouldn’t

They know nothing;

Nothing!

Nothing more than Amama Something:

Amama Youths

Amama Journalists

Amama MPs

Amama Ministers

Amama Soldiers

Amama In-laws

Amama …s

Honourable Servant,

You can choose to be Obedient,

Or Defiant

But what is in the Covenant?