Republic of Malawi

SPEECH
BY

HER EXCELLENCY DR JOYCE BANDA, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF MALAWI

AT

NUTRITION FOR GROWTH: BEATING HUNGER THROUGH BUSINESS AND SCIENCE EVENT

London 2013

Ladies and Gentlemen, I stand before you, wearing three hats - one hat as President of my country, second hat as Minister responsible for Nutrition, and third hat as a mother and a grand mother! All these hats place a huge sense of responsibility on me in so far as matters of nutrition are concerned. Hence I found it compelling for me to come to London and participate in this high level nutrition event. Ladies and Gentlemen, Malawi is one of the countries in Southern Africa with the highest levels of stunting at 47% which literally means that nearly half the children in Malawi are affected by stunting! Of concern is that this figure has not changed significantly over the last three decades. This is alarming, disturbing and not acceptable. It is for this reason that I personally took up the responsibility of being the Minister for Nutrition, in order to provide the highest political leadership and support to accelerate efforts to combat malnutrition and its consequences which include stunting. My government has committed to reduce stunting in children under-five years of age from 47% to less than 20% by 2020. I know this is an ambitious target, but we are confident that through the right mix of interventions, and with the necessary support, Malawi can do this.
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My government has already taken some action. In fact Malawi was recognised as one of the early riser countries in the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Campaign. Some of the good practices that my Government has done include the following examples; 1. Nutrition is now included in the national budget and has a vote in parliament 2. We has rolled out sugar fortification with vitamin A through the public private partnership 3. We have scaled up community based management and treatment of severe acute malnutrition which includes strengthening of community based outreach, growth monitoring and promotion for case identification 4. We have established multi-sectoral nutrition coordination structures at national, district and community levels, and this is crucial for attaining cost-efficient nutrition interventions 5. We have developed and rolled out the National Nutrition Education and Communication strategy for the Scaling up Nutrition programme in order to promote adoption of positive behaviour change that support maternal nutrition, infant, young child feeding and care; and 6. We have developed nutrition advocacy materials for different groups including traditional and faith leaders.

But, ladies and gentlemen, with disturbing statistics like ours in stunting, underweight, and wasting, we need to do more. Therefore, Malawi actions; 1. We will review the National Nutrition Policy and Strategy by December 2013 to incorporate emerging issues and develop a Nutrition Act by 2015 2. We are currently allocating 0.1% of the total annual government expenditure to nutrition and my Government is committed to steadily scale up the allocation to at least 0.3% by 2020. 3. We have mainstreamed Nutrition in the budgets of Government Ministries which have a role in fighting malnutrition such as Education, Health, Agriculture and Gender. 4. We will scale up coverage of community based nutrition services in all districts at Traditional Authority and Village level by 2016. 5. We will scale up coverage of Community based Management of Acute Malnutrition in all districts from 50% to 80%. 6. We will increase Public Private Partnerships on nutrition, building on successful examples such as the work with Illovo Sugar Corporation on sugar fortification with vitamin A and other companies in salt and oil fortification.
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has also committed to the following

 And finally we will increase accountability through rolling out the Nutrition financial tracking tools and the National Monitoring and Evaluation framework by 2014. Ladies and Gentlemen, while Malawi is facing many challenges we still have to focus on what is important. And nothing can be more important than caring for the health and future of our children. I believe that my vision to eradicate poverty in Malawi and bring incomes in the households of the poor Malawians is a sure way of beating hunger and its consequences. I am encouraged by the event here today and sincerely hope that we will be able to work together and really turn things around in Malawi so that we can ensure a healthier, and better future for all our children and mothers who are the unsung heroes of our nation. Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you all for your attention.