EAC Food and Nutrition Security Action Plan 2018-2023

The East African Community (EAC) region suffers from frequent food insecurity despite the huge resource endowments and great potential for production of adequate food. Food insecurity in the region is caused by both natural and policy related factors. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 20 million of the over 160 million people in the region are food insecure. It is against this back drop that in 2011, that the EAC Heads of States Summit directed the Secretariat to develop the first Food Security Action Plan (FSAP) 2011-2015 to guide the implementation and actualization of the regional food security objectives.

The goal of the EAC Food and Nutrition Security Action Plan (FNSAP) 2018-2022 is to contribute to elimination of hunger, malnutrition, and extreme poverty in the East African region by the year 2022. This will be achieved through three interrelated objectives and six intermediate result areas as follows:

(i) To improve sustainable and inclusive agricultural production, productivity and trade of crops, animal and animal resources, fisheries, aquaculture, apiculture and forest products; Under this objective there are three (3) intermediate results (IR);

▪ IR1: Improved agricultural production, productivity and incomes

▪ IR2: Improved trade and market access

▪ IR3: Increased farm and off-farm enterprise and job opportunities for youth and women at all levels of the Value Chains

(ii) To strengthen resilience among households, communities and livelihood systems by promoting sustainable utilization of natural resources, environmental conservation and uptake of disaster risk reduction with enhanced post-harvest value addition. Under this objective there are (2) IRs;

▪ IR4: Strengthened disaster risk preparedness and management with sustainable utilization of natural resources and environmental conservation under the changing climate

▪ IR5: Improved post-harvest handling, agro-processing and value addition

(iii) To improve access and utilization of nutritious, diverse and safe food. The IR under here is;

• IR6: Increased investment in nutrition

The action plan has also proposed Cross-Cutting Intermediate Results (CCIR) which include;

▪ CCIR1: Commitments by EAC Partner States and donors to invest in the action plan

▪ CCIR2: improved governance, policy, and institutional effectiveness