Tanzania keen on stamping out malnutrition

Dar es Salaam. Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition Tanzania (Gain) is currently in talks with the government and other stakeholders to introduce a Smart City (Green City Solution), which aims at creating easy access to affordable nutritious foods.

The Gain Tanzania country director, Mr Enock Musinguzi, said this during a Scaling Up Nutrition (Sun) Business Network event,

Sun is one of the five global stakeholders in the Sun Movement that aims at harnessing the expertise in the private sector to improve nutrition for consumers.

He said they were already consulting with stakeholders including government, Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre (TFNC), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the private sector to come up with the initiative.

“We are doing a study on food vendors and gap in food quality to understand the content of nutrition as well as the people who visit food vendors,” he said.

According to him, lack of awareness is currently a major challenge and therefore initiatives are being undertaken to visit schools to ensure that they learn about fortified products.

He said the initiative for Green Cities will create conducive environment where people can visit and get good food.

He added as countries face urbanisation, they also face a nutrition crisis.

According to him, WHO 2016 THDS -MIS 2015-2018 reveals that malnutrition in Dar es Salaam currently stands at 34.4 per cent, stunting (8.4 per cent), low birth weight (59.2 per cent), exclusive breast feeding (4.5 per cent or the under 5s) and 3.6 per cent overweight under 5.

Others include 39.6 per cent women anaemia for 15-49 years, 7.6 per cent adult glucose (diabete), 25.6 per cent adult overweight and 7.1 per cent adult obesity.

In view of the malnutrition burden, he said that the talks aim to create supply chains that allow nutritious food to move from market to demand.

He explained that street vendors need to be empowered with awareness to come with nutritious options including vegetables, meat, fortified flour, instead of sugary foods,” he said.

He said that the aim is to reduce carbohydrates, sugar, salts and increase micro nutrients.