Working Group on Capacity Development in Food and Nutrition
Planned Activities for 2008-2009
1. Introduction. The WG’s focused mission, as part of the UNU Food and Nutrition Program,
remains unchanged and is expressed through three specific goals: (1) to assist developing regions
enhance individual, organizational and institutional capacity in the area of food and nutrition, (2)
to undertake research activities that require global efforts, and (3) to serve as the academic arm for
the United Nations System in areas of food and nutrition that are best addressed in a nonregulatory, non-normative environment.
2. SCN Capacity Building Working Group Plans for 2008 - Organized by the United
Nations University Food and Nutrition Programme.
The Capacity Development working group will continue to utilize its network of working
groups to enhance and build nutrition-related capacity worldwide.
A. Continue Implementation of African Plans of Action (Wageningen; Cornell)
The Food and Nutrition Program and David Sanders of the University of the Western
Cape co-chair the SCN’s Capacity Development Working Group. In this capacity the
Program has co-sponsored a series of workshops in Africa designed to develop 10
year plans of action for Capacity Development in Southern, Eastern, and West and
Central Africa. The FNP will continue to work with the Southern African Working
Group and assist with the planned initiatives. The Eastern and West Africa groups are
“on hold” until a suitable University partner is located.
1. Training Activities
a. Assist the progress of the Southern African Working Group’s
proposed Learning Co-operative. The Co-operative is designed to
build broad networks within the region. It draws on an extensive
review of the present nutrition situation, the regional status of
capacity development, and experiences of past efforts to enhance
capacity. Capacity development exists in the areas of:
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advocacy,
client-focused policy techniques,
program development and evaluation,
action-oriented research (e.g. assessing program efficacy),
sustaining selected short courses,
curricula development,
the harmonization of degree programs in the region.
B. Capacity development in Latin America.
The purpose of this initiative is to accelerate human and social development in the
Americas region by improving the nutrition and health of the population. This will be
achieved by enhancing the local and regional capacity for action at the national level
and by supporting research in the Latin American region. The network has formed
several research working groups to focus on specific nutritional problems such as:
stunting, acute undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, nutrition-related chronic
diseases including obesity and food security. Each research working group has
charge of the development of a multicenter project proposal.
The following activities are planned for 2008/2009:
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Conduct the 5th Leadership training workshop during the SLAN meeting in
2009.
Strengthen the network of regional nutritional researchers who have been
trained in the previous 4 UNU/LA leadership training workshops.
Provide update information about graduate programs (M Sc and PhD) in
nutrition available in LA through an inventory of such programs.
Propose a minimum standard for postgraduate nutritional programs based on
collected data.
Update and consolidate a sustainable Website for the BVS-Nutrition.
Reinforce WGs research activities. Including two regional working meetings.
One is for the acute malnutrition group in order to consolidate the group and
establish the objectives and plan of actions for 2008. The other would be
organized by the chronic malnutrition group at SLAN 2009 regarding the
micronutrient supplementation for pregnant and lactating women and
children younger than 2 years of age in the region.
Write a multi-center childhood obesity school based intervention project in
order to prevent childhood obesity based on formative research and
successful experiences in the region such as Chile and Mexico.
C. Asian Capacity Building Initiative: Capacity Strengthening In Nutrition-Asia
(CASNA)
a. CASNA-INF-Tufts University Workshop: Based upon CASNA survey of
Food/Nutrition Institutions in Asia as well as interactive discussion of key
Research Centers at the Asian Congress of Nutrition 2007 in Taipei, Taiwan;
there is a clear need to assist them on development of strategic research action
plan and implementation. Following the pilot workshop modules in Thailand
(February 2007) and Taiwan (September 2007), a 3-day Workshop entitled
“Institutional Strategies for Planning, Management and Communication of Food
and Nutrition Research” is proposed to be organized jointly by CASNA,
International Nutrition Foundation (INF) and Tufts University Friedman School
of Nutrition Science and Policy. The workshop aimed to strengthen institution
leadership skill through development of a comprehensive plan relating to setting
research agendas, generating research resources, capacity development,
managing research processes and effective communication of research findings.
Participants are a team of ‘three’ persons per institution, consisting of one senior
and two middle level researchers, a total of 5 teams or 15 persons per workshop.
The program consists of a mixture of lectures, panel discussion, practical
exercise and team presentation. The expected outcome is a draft of the Institute
Strategic Research Action Plan for 3-5 years. Resource persons will be from
INF, Tufts University and selected members of CASNA institutions. The venue
will be one of the CASNA Institutions that participated in the previous
workshops.
b. CASNA Symposium at the International Congress of Nutrition (ICN)-2009. The
ICN 2009 will be held in Bangkok, Thailand during October 4-9, 2009 under the
theme of ‘Nutrition Security for All’. This is an opportunity to organize a
symposium to review the progress of capacity development in nutrition research
in Asian Institutions, especially the Workshop team as described above. Five
speakers will be invited. Travel fund will be explored from potential ICN
Sponsors to complement the local expenses (accommodation, transport, per
diem) below:
c. CASNA Website: CASNA Task Force Members suggested a website
development to maintain information flow in addition to become a channel of
communication among the Task Force members as well as CASNA linked
institutions. The website development includes registration of domain name
(www.casna.net), building a basic website to introduce CASNA, content hyperlinking and links to selected organizations, online forum (members need to
register), online chat (private room only), Email facility, web statistical report.
There’s a minimum maintenance fee on a yearly basis.
d. CASNA participation in the South-East Asian Nutrition Leadership Program
(SEA-NLP): The program aims to facilitates the development of leaders in the
field of nutrition by providing knowledge in competencies of leadership,
enhanced understanding on the role of nutrition in development and a functional
forum for scientific linkages and networking for future collaboration and
partnership. SEA-NLP is organized annually by SEAMEO/TROPMED Regional
Center for Community Nutrition (RCCN), University of Indonesia. A partial
support in the form of travel grant will be provided, one per year.
D. Middle East and North African Nutrition Capacity Building Initiative (MENANA)
In 2004 MENANA held the first regional workshop to establish the initiative.
Participants from 15 countries were invited. The outcome of this meeting was the
launching of the Nutrition and Capacity Building Initiative in the region as part of the
global initiative for the development of Human and Institutional Capacity in Nutrition;
the development of a ten-year plan based on a conceptual framework and planning
guideline designed, developed and described by Dr. Azza Gohar; selection of regional
priority activities; the establishment of MENANA to be the formal structure/organization
for monitoring the regional Nutrition Capacity Building Initiative activities.
Planned activities for 2008-09 include:
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Development of tools for mapping research centers for supporting key areas
of nutrition-related research. Formulation of a list of centers and a map of the
research centers.
Mapping regional training centers including the development of the tools for
mapping and the assessment of the available regional facilities.
Mapping regional institutional academic capacity including the identification
and assessment of institutional capacity in each country.
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Building capacity for Libya for establishing, managing and monitoring an
electronic database for human nutrition.
A regional consultation meeting on food fortification will be held in to define
situations in the Middle East and North Africa concerning food fortification.
E. Capacity Development in Eastern Europe
The 3rd meeting of the Network for Capacity Development in Nutrition in CEE
(NCDNCEE) which will be on 1-2 November in Belgrade. Core members of the
Eastern European Working Group will continue to establish goals and projections for
ongoing and planned activities. Initiatives to be discussed include growth
monitoring, human right to adequate food including curriculum development by
FAO, the Second WHO European Action Plan for Food and Nutrition Policy
Network and CEE contributions to the WHO activities in nutrition and obesity.
Planned activities include a proposal submission to the Socrates project and
partnership with the EURRECA Network of Excellence and capacity building.
A workshop in Poland is planned for September 2008 and another is also currently
being discussed for 2009. In addition, the Network will hold two annual meetings.
F.
African Graduate Student Network (AGSNet)
The AGSnet will continue to maintain and expand its network of graduate students,
and organize academic functions at international nutrition conferences. Coordination
and organization continues from Cornell University.
3. Summary of the WG Session. The session focused on two primary themes: 1) the
current state of academic and research institutions in developing regions, and the
need to strengthen their capacity and sustainability and 2) the role of universities in
addressing regional public health nutrition needs. Within universities, the retention
of young faculty is increasingly a challenge due to low salaries, deteriorating
infrastructure, inadequate resources to conduct research, and increased teaching
obligations. North-South collaborations among universities can be effective in
training new faculty and providing resources to seed research programs for young
faculty. Universities play a key role in addressing local public health needs in the
areas of program research, monitoring, evaluation and training. The importance of
integrating context, inter-disciplinary approaches, qualitative & quantitative
methodologies, project/programme cycle, globalisation, transitions, policy
developments and governance was emphasized. An assessment of current practices
in program research, monitoring, evaluation and training indicates gaps in addressing
many of these key parameters. The group also recognises the importance of southsouth collaborations in informing and enhancing nutrition training.
4. Commentary on the Lancet Series. The overall sentiment of the WG discussion
reflected the conclusions reached in the Lancet Series regarding training and
institutional capacities. There was general agreement that there is a shortage of
appropriately trained academics, professionals and technicians in nutrition, and that
current nutrition training and education at all levels does not adequately prepare new
graduates for careers in nutrition. Current approaches to training were described as
“outdated”, “irrelevant”, and not regionally informed with a western bias. There was
less agreement in the WG regarding the value of educating students from developing
regions in American and European universities.
The WG would like more time to develop a more detailed and considered response to
be delivered at a later date.
5. Recommendations
a. The United Nations University Food and Nutrition Program in partnership
with the SCN consider conducting and publishing a comprehensive review of
graduate training in international nutrition. The review should:
i. Recommend a curriculum that reflects current needs, challenges and
opportunities and enables transformative advancements in translating
new nutrition knowledge into practice.
ii. Include a cost/benefit analysis of educating PhD students from
developing regions in regional versus western universities.
b. Strengthen south-south collaborations among training and research
institutions for knowledge sharing, research and training to overcome the
insularity of regions and institutions.
c. Renew efforts towards north-south collaborations among training and
research institutions for effective resource and knowledge sharing that is
responsive to capacity needs of institution, country and region.
d. For countries that do not have nutrition training institutions, UNU can
facilitate the training of their staff by linking them with well established
nutrition training institutions in the region.
Anna Lartey
Emorn Wasantwisut
Patrick Stover
March 5, 2008