A presentation by Hon. Kwabena Appiah-Pinkrah

1. 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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2. Outline of Presentation
1. Introduction to the SUN Movement
in Ghana
2. Nutrition Financing in Ghana
3. Role of Parliament in advancing
nutrition
4. Other Caucus Activities
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3. 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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4. 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

5. 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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6. 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. 6

7. 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. 7

8. 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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9. 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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10. 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. 10

11. 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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12. 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

13. 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 13

14. Photo Report
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15. Photo Report
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16. 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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17. THANK YOU
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