Strengthening evidence-based policy actions for healthy and sustainable diets in West Africa

 

Improving the food environment in Africa is an urgent public health issue and can help prevent all forms of malnutrition and diet-related noncommunicable diseases. Measures to change the obesogenic environment and address the burden of malnutrition include limiting the levels of saturated fats, free sugars, salt and trans-fatty acids in packaged products, responsible marketing of these products, especially to children, and better labelling of food products. However, progress across West Africa in implementing policy and regulatory mechanisms to promote healthy diets and restrict consumption of unhealthy products remains sporadic and insufficient.

This project aims to support a broad multisectoral coalition of food system stakeholders to address key evidence gaps and monitor progress towards healthy and sustainable food environments in West Africa. It will initiate the development of an appropriate nutrient profile model for Senegal that will be used to inform key policies such as food labelling, responsible marketing and school food environments. In Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, the project will undertake a review of best practices in school-driven food system transformation to inform school feeding programs.

A public communication component will promote the value of strengthening food environment policies and understanding the differential impacts on different genders and socio-economic groups. The objective is to strengthen the coalition of civil society groups, food producers and distributers and government who are aligned in their interest to improve health and nutrition outcomes at the population level.

This project will be funded through the Catalyzing Change for Health and Sustainable Food Systems initiative, a co-funding partnership between IDRC and the Rockefeller Foundation.