Regional Centre of Excellence against Hunger and Malnutrition

About:

Cote d’Ivoire has prioritized the fight against malnutrition and hunger in its plan to become an emerging nation. It has developed successful models for homegrown school feeding and is committed to share its expertise and resources to scale up efforts by other countries. The Regional Centre of Excellence against Hunger and Malnutrition (CERFAM) is a regional hub for exchanges, partnership-building & South-South Cooperation which allows developing countries to access the best expertise, knowledge & technical assistance for achieving SDG2.

Based in Abidjan, the Centre draws upon the expertise of WFP, and the specific strengths of Cote d’Ivoire and other countries in the region in family farming, postharvest loss management, malnutrition control, convergence of nutrition, community resilience and social protection. According to Abdou Dieng, Regional Director of WFP in West and Central Africa, the centre seeks to be an incubator of solutions and a meeting point for sharing hunger solutions adapted to the African context. There are a lot of successful approaches to improve food security scattered around the region, but few make it across borders.

Objectives:

1. Support governments and development partners to advance in their efforts to implement the SDGs, particularly SDG2;


2. Act as a knowledge hub for good practices and lessons learned, by facilitating the identification, documentation, exchange, dissemination, adoption and implementation/scale up of locally owned and durable solutions with effective impact on hunger and malnutrition;


3. Strengthen, establish and mobilize strategic partnerships and alliances to support efforts and lasting solutions against hunger and malnutrition;


4. Contribute to advocacy in the fight against hunger and malnutrition, ensuring synergies and complementarities with partners.

The initial and ongoing inclusive and extensive consultations and reviews indicate a growing demand for investment in capacity strengthening from national governments, especially in school feeding and local purchase, post- harvest losses, nutrition sensitive/specific interventions, community resilience, agricultural development. Further consultations and analyzes of Zero Hunger Strategies are planned and are expected to contribute to validating the priority programmatic areas in which CERFAM will focus on.