Pusrat– Representatives from government line agencies and development partners met together to discuss food security and nutrition (FSN) at a forum held on Mar 24 in Pursat provincial town.
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The Forum was organized by Lutheran World Federation Cambodia (LWF) under collaboration with the Council for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) of the Council of Minister and Pursat Excom’s Provincial Rural Department Committee.
The Forum, sponsored by EuronAID, was held to increase the awareness of FSN and the framework of FSN in Cambodia 2008-2012 among participants, including representatives from all commune and district councils in Pursat, relevant departments and national and international NGOs operating in the province.
The forum provided the participants with an opportunity to address challenges related to FSN of rural community in Pursat as a whole and design tools for addressing this issue. The forum also discussed the possibility of forming FSN Networks at commune, district and provincial levels, aiming to share information, experience and respond in a systematic way to food insecurity and malnutrition across the province.
On behalf of H.E Khouy Sokha, Pursat Provincial Governor, Ms. Chu Sophany, Pursat Deputy Governor, said in her opening remarks that FSN is a cross-cutting issue which happens throughout Cambodia, not just the work of the Ministry of Agriculture alone. She stated that food insecurity and poverty in rural areas were closely linked which required us to pay more attention and tackle altogether.
In order to improve the FSN in Pursat as well as throughout Cambodia, Ms. Sophany gave some recommendations to the participants for consideration. They included: (1) increase agricultural productivity, find and create marketplace for selling agricultural products of rural farmers, (2) provide small loans with non or lowest interest rates for poor farmers to set up small businesses to generate incomes, and (3) educate the community about the reasons and impacts of malnutrition, health, and sanitation, and so on.
LWF Cambodia Deputy Representative Dr. Sam Inn pointed out some challenges related to food insecurity and malnutrition among faced by the rural poor, especially malnutrition among children, which impacted their physical and mental growth and high mortality rate.
In terms of improving FSN, Dr. Inn said LWF Cambodia established food security and nutrition network at the commune level in its target areas for years. “The network is playing an important role to help poor farmer groups in the network meet frequently to share experience, exchange ideas, and learn from each other about best practices in their successful work,” he said.
H.E Roath Vireak, General Secretary of CARD presented outputs of FSN which the government achieved over the pass years—the number of stunted children decreased from 44.6% in 2000 to 39.5% in 2008 and plan for 22% in 2015. The mortality rate of children under 5 years old decreased from 13.5% in 2000 to 8.3% in 2005 and plan for 6.5% in 2015.
He said that FSN was still a major challenge of the Royal Government which required a joint cooperation both the government and national and international development partners, especially active participation from local authorities at all levels and the community to solve.
After the discussion, the Forum agreed in principle that the FSN Networks at the commune, district, and province levels across the country should be established in addition to the existing national network.
For more information, contact
LEAK Ratna, Communications Coordinator, LWD
E-mail: ratna@lwd.org.kh
Tel: 012 819 121