Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Programme (IFSNP)

The department took an active role in arranging the World Food Day celebrations that were held in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal on 16 October 2006. In celebrating this initiative of the FAO, more than 186 countries joined hands with our country on World Food Day. This was also symbolic in the sense that it was on this day that the FAO was founded in 1945. The theme for 2006, “Investing in agriculture for food security”, highlighted the vital role of agriculture in ensuring that all people have access to sufficient food of a wide variety to lead healthy, active lives.

The event also marked the midway point of the 20-year period between the 1996 World Food Summit when the world’s leaders pledged to reduce poverty and food insecurity by half by 2015. The World Food Summit plan of action and the South African Constitution (which was enacted in the same year) recognise access to food and clean water as part of basic social rights. To take further steps toward achieving this objective, the Special Programme for Food Security (SPFS) will be expanded to all nine provinces. Altogether 10 % of the total CASP budget will also be aligned to projects that contribute directly towards food security. In line with the strategic goal of reducing food insecurity, a total of 66 364 households were provided with agricultural production packages in all the nine provinces during the third quarter of 2006/07.

The Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information Mapping System (FIVIMS) project was piloted in Ga-Sekhukhune district, Limpopo Province and launched during October 2006. As part of the national roll-out, food security profiles for the 13 rural nodes will be developed and baseline surveys conducted in three rural nodes.

In the light of the importance of food security in the nation’s development and the overall goal of improved welfare of the population, Government places high priority on several national policies and programmes, which outline the coherent goal to raise the nutritional levels, especially the more vulnerable sections of the population. Some of these initiatives include:

• Ziyazondla in the Eastern Cape Province
• Siyavuna in KwaZulu-Natal
• Asibuyele Masimini in Mpumalanga and a number of other Household Food Production Programmes countrywide.

Within the Social Sector Cluster we are challenged to take the lead regarding the implementation of the IFSNP. For this purpose, we collaborated with relevant stakeholders, including nongovernmental organisations, schools and communities in general, to assist in the development and dissemination of suitable technologies, information and training modules to provide assistance in increasing the levels of household food production.

Through ASGISA, a number of initiatives were embarked upon to address its objectives and this includes Project Gweb’indlala, which focuses on food security through infrastructure development, provision of key production inputs, facilitating market access, job creation and poverty alleviation. As part of popularising of ASGISA and to relieve poverty and alleviate food insecurity in the country, the department expanded the Household Food Security Programme to all nine provinces. This programme was first piloted in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo provinces.