A MONTHLY E-NEWSLETTER BY

CENTRE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS ASSAM ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF COLLEGE, GUWAHATI

ISSUE V: FEBRUARY 2019

Highlights:

• SDGs in Assam:

A Recap

• SDG Events

•SDG in Focus

•Readings

• News from

around the world

•Contact us

SDGs in Assam: A Recap

Assam was one of the first states to integrate the SDGs into its policy making process by issuing the first Gov-ernment Order in December 2015 for officially adopting the SDGs into the state and setting up of the Centre for SDGs in Assam. Furthermore, along with the vision and strategy documents. Some of the biggest milestones achieved by Government of Assam for the SDGs is stated below:

‘Assam Agenda 2030: Strategies and Actions for achieving the SDGs in Assam’: Government of

Assam is ready with the Assam Agenda 2030, which will pave the way for developing strategic planning,

action and monitoring in the state for achievement of the SDGs. This is a culmination of a series of train-ings organized in 2016 and 9 conclaves organized from April 2017-Dec 2017, with stakeholders from all departments, experts and civil society organisations participating in the finalisation of the Strategy and Action Plans, for each department which has been collated into the Assam Agenda 2030.

Economic Survey Chapter on SDGs: Government of Assam has been annually the importance SDGs in

the state by publishing an Economic Survey Chapter on important elements of the SDGs. It focuses on how various districts fare in some of the indicators suggested, besides analyzing the budgetary allocation to different SDGs. It sets out the baselines and targets which have been adopted by the state. This is an important exercise as it will assist in developing a strong monitoring system in the state, on a real-time basis. Currently looks at expenditure allocations to the SDGs in the budgets of 2016-17 (actuals), 2017-18 (revised) and 2018-19 (proposed), to understand the SDG outcomes, patterns of expenditure and budget priorities.

SDG Monitoring: A SDG Monitoring platform is being developed in conjunction with Assam Agenda

2030. This platform will be able to measure programmatic progress of major flagship programmes in the state in line with their physical and financial progress in a quarterly basis along with a alert system for both progress and non-performance. Secondly a strong institutional mechanism is being set up for monitoring at the State level for ensuring timely compliance and strong monitoring systems.

DG Acceleration through Nutrition Action Plans: The Government of Assam, with Technical Assis-

tance (TA) from World Bank is accelerating progress towards the SDGs with a special focus on nutrition deficient districts in Assam. The TA focusses in particular on supporting the State’s Department of Trans-formation and Development (T&D) and building the capacity of CSDGs in the State and in selected dis-tricts of Barpeta, Goalpara and Udalguri to work across departments for improved policies, institutions and programs to improve nutrition, health and early childhood development outcomes in the State, and to

promote inter-sectoral convergence and coherence to improve service delivery quality and coverage. As a part of this Technical Assistance, the World Bank appointed the Coalition for Food and Nutrition Security (CFNS - a multi-stakeholder alliance comprising of policy makers and program leaders working for sus-tainable food and nutrition security) to work closely with the Centre for SDGs to enhance its efforts in improving the nutrition, health and Early Childhood Development in the State. The main objective of the project is to adopt multi-sectoral approach for better policies, institutions and programs to improve nutri-tion outcomes in the State and to build the capacity of State to enhance its focus on nutrition as a human development issue for accelerating Assam’s progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Assam Human Development Index and Sustainability Report: Government of Assam under the guid-

ance of Centre for SDGs and in collaboration with knowledge and technical partners is designing the next phase of the Human Development Index with Sustainability as a core component for understanding the inter-linkages in disparities especially in terms of social, economic and environmental aspects.

Outcome Budgeting: Government of Assam has been mapping the budget outlay of the state against

the SDGs and its targets in the state. This exercise done by the Department of Finance gives an under-standing on the spending on sectoral allocations for achievement of the SDGs in the state.

SDG Events in Assam

Inception Workshop in Barpeta and Udalguri Districts on Nutrition

5th & 9th January 2019: The Centre for Sustainable Development Goals (CSDGs) in collaboration with the Coalition for Food and Nutrition Security (CFNS) organised an inception workshop in Udalguri district on 5th of January 2019. Participating in the workshop were the district authorities and key stakeholders. The workshop was chaired by the Deputy Commissioner, who highlighted the performance of Udalguri among aspirational districts at state and nation-al level. Dr R M Dubey (Head and Prof CSDGs) emphasised on the importance of addressing malnutrition in a multi sectoral way in his welcome note. Then a presentation on nutritional status of Udalguri district and multisectoral framework to address the issue was jointly made by Mr J C Phukan (Consultant, CSDGs) and Mr. Sayan Deori (Project Coordinator, CFNS). They also discussed the roles that various departments can play in reducing the bur-den of malnutrition in the district. Additionally, another workshop was organised in Barpeta District by CSDGs and CFNS on 9th of January, 2019 with all the key stakeholders in the district. The workshop was chaired by the Deputy Commissioner of the district, who appreciated the efforts of multisectoral nutrition action plan for the district and committed to review the plan in every two weeks along with the concerned department officers. Mr J C Phukan (Consultant, CSDGs) presented on India’s and Assam’s commitment to achieve SDG targets and briefly explained the role of Non Lending Technical Assis-tance by World Bank through CFNS in achieving the SDGs. Dr Sujeet Ranjan (Executive Director, CFNS) focused on the multi sectoral action plan for improved nutrition, health and early childhood development and discussed the way forward for project in the district. Dr Dubey (Head and Prof, CSDGs) highlighted about the glorious past history of the district and the current HDI levels for the district, he expressed the deep concern over the prevailing situation. He focused on strategies to overcome poor HDI’s especially relating to nutrition and health sectors in view of the suggested once in Assam Agenda 2030.

Community visit to Barpeta and Udalguri

21-24 January 2019: As a follow up action to the inception workshop in Barpeta and Udalguri district, a team from CSDGs and CFNS visited the “char area” to understand the status of nutrition linked indicators in the com-munity. Subsequently a qualitative research was undertaken to understanding the status of nutrition linked indi-cators in the minority communities including tea garden communities, char area communities and tribal commu-nities jointly with key department officials.

Policy seminar on Multisectoral Convergence to improve Nutrition, Health and Early Childhood Development Outcomes in Assam

25th January 2019: Centre for Sustainable Development Goals (CSDGs) in collaboration with Coalition for

Food and Nutrition Security (CFNS) organised the first policy seminar on 25th of January, 2019. The seminar

had representation from District Department Officials from – Education, Social Welfare, Public Health Engineer-

ing department, Joint Director of Health – Udalguri and Goalpara; State officials from National Health Mission,

Elementary, UNICEF, UNDP, UN Women, Piramal Foundation, Voluntary Health Association of India, Media

and Civil Society Organisations.

The objective of the seminar was to understand the experiences of stakeholders in addressing the challenges in the domain of nutrition, health and early childhood development; to understand the gaps that existed in imple-mentation of various programs and to deliberate on ideas and strategies to overcome the gaps. The seminar was started with a welcome note from Dr R M Dubey (Head and Prof, CSDGs) followed by Mr Chandi Prasad Bhatt (Pioneers of the Chipko Movement, Awardee of Ramon Magsaysay Award, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan and Gandhi Peace Prize), highlighting the linkages with nutrition security and forests. Dr Sujeet Ranjan (Executive

Director, CFNS) explained the multisec-toral convergence framework for nutri-tion giving the performance of Assam’s good and bad performing districts in nutrition and their corresponding perfor-mances in nutritional linked indicators to provide evidence of necessity of multi-sectoral approach for nutrition. The deliberations of participant groups on challenges faced was then facilitated by Mr J C Phukan (Consultant, CSDGs) and Ms. Rashmi Mohanty (Nutrition Specialist, CFNS)

State Inception workshop on Improved Nutrition, Health and Early Childhood

Outcomes to accelerate SDGs in Assam 2nd February 2019: The state’s inception workshop organised by Transformation and Development Depart-

ment, Government of Assam in collaboration with Center for Sustainable Development Goals (CSDGs) and

Coalition for Food and Nutrition Security (CFNS) saw participation from the state’s leadership including Chief

Secretary of Assam, District’s administration, World Bank, UN agencies, Civil Society Organisations and Acade-

micians. In the inaugural ceremony Ms. Ashi Kathuria from World Bank gave a brief introduction of non-lending

technical assistance project, describing the role of CSDGs for coordinating between departments to facilitate

convergence and role of CFNS as implementation partner. This was followed by inaugural addresses by Dr.

Shiladitya Chatterjee, Advisor to the Centre for SDGs, Shri Bhaskar Barua, Former Secretary to Government of

India, Ministry of Agriculture, Shri Anurag Goel, IAS Commissioner and Secretary, Health and Family Welfare

and the chief guest Shri Alok Kumar, IAS, Chief Secretary of Assam. Inaugural session was followed by four

technical sessions on –

1. Nutrition Scenario and issues and challenges in implementation of ongoing programmes in Assam:

The session was chaired by Shri Jishnu Baruah, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Social Welfare Department,

Government of Assam. He highlighted some of the issues in implementation of ICDS program from his recent

visit to the field. Dr Sujeet Ranjan (Executive Director, CFNS) presented the qualitative understanding of scenar-

io of nutrition and nutritional linked indicators gathered from field visit to select villages of Barpeta and Udalguri

district. Shri Anurag Goel highlighted the importance of sanitation for nutrition, he also brought attention to some

of the essential points like the need to retrain Anganwadi workers, portable weighing machines to weigh children

who were not covered on the VHND, appointment of a nodal officer at sub –block/CDPO level for convergence,

improvement of toilet facilities in schools especially for girls to reduce their dropout rate. The session was con-

cluded by Dr. Bandana Bhuyan (Former Regional Director NIPPCD).

2. Food Security & Issues and challenges in implementation of ongoing programmes in Assam: The

session was chaired by Sri Bhaskar Barua, IAS (Retd.), Former Secretary to Government of India and Board

Member of CFNS, and co-chaired by Dr. J. B. Ekka, Principal Secretary, T&D Department. Ms Supriya Khound

(State Technical Officer, UNDP) gave an overview food security and insights on district level food security imple-

mentation. Dr Rajshree Bedamatta (Associate Prof, IIT Guwahati) spoke about importance of PDS for house-

hold level food security based on her research study in Dhubri and Jorhat districts of Assam. Mr N M Prusty

(Board Member, CFNS) emphasized on the importance of bringing managerial efficiency in Government depart-

ments for improved outcomes. Dr J B Ekka draw linkages between food security, climate change and burden of

increasing population. The session was concluded by Dr Bhaskar Baruah.

3. Efforts towards developing M&E: System for SDGs tracking: The session was chaired by Dr. Shiladitya

Chatterjee (Advisor, CSDGs). Ms. Monalisa Chetia (Project Coordinator, CFNS) presented the progess that

CSDGs has achieved so far in development of Monitoring and Evaluation dashboard for tracking the progress of

SDGs in Assam.

4. Eat Right India Movement: The session was chaired by Ms. Ashi Kathuria (Senior Nutrition Specialist, World

Bank). Dr. Deepika Anand (World Bank) gave an overview of the Eat Right Campaign, an initiative of FSSAI,

Government of India. Dr RM Dubey further added that there is scope for the replication of Eat Right Campaign in

the State. Dr. Shiladitya Chatterjee also added that a study on locally available nutritious food items should be

conducted and media should be used for promotion of local dishes.

Chandi Prasad Bhatt,Guest of Honour addressing the participants of the Policy Seminar on Multi-sectoral convergence to improve health outcomes held on 25th January.

Below: Chief Secretary Shri Alok Kumar addressing the State Inception Workshop & Additional Chief

Secretary Shri Jishnu Baruah Chairing a session on Nutrition Scenario in Assam

SDGs IN FOCUS

SDG 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable

agriculture

Targets under SDG 2:

2.1 By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particu-lar the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round 2.2 By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adoles-cent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons 2.3 By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment 2.4 By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and im-plement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality 2.5 By 2020, maintain the genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals and their related wild species, including through soundly managed and diversified seed and plant banks at the national, regional and international levels, and promote access to and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, as internationally agreed 2.A Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries 2.B Correct and prevent trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets, including through the parallel elimination of all forms of agricultural export subsidies and all export measures with equivalent effect, in accordance with the mandate of the Doha Development Round 2.C Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food com-modity markets and their derivatives and facilitate timely access to market information, including on food reserves, in order to help limit ex-

DID YOU KNOW

Community Gardens:

A Growing Trend

Community gardens are a

upcoming trend in many cities/

towns/villages around the world

which tries to work with com-

munities together to improve

nutrition and create engage-

ment;

build community - a sense of

community develops through

participation in a common

enterprise

improve nutritional health –

by increasing the production

and consumption of fresh,

organic, locally grown food

improve amenity – by diver-

sifying and beautifying public

open space • reduce environ-

mental impact – by reducing

food miles and recycling waste

Create purposeful recreation

– by getting people growing

food

Source: https://

communitygarden.org.au/wp-

content/uploads/2010/06/

Good_Practice_Guide_CG.pdf

Community gardens provide space for

gatherings. These teens planted and main-

tained a community garden, then used it as

their stage to present a play to the public.

Photo credit Martie Sanders, Green Scene,

Chicago Source: www.soils.org

Why India must confront its nutrition prob-lems now

BY: PURNIMA MENON AND JOSE PAMPACKAL

(INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE)

Five years have passed since the World Health Assembly endorsed a set of six global nutrition targets to be achieved by 2025 in order to improve maternal, infant and young child nutrition across the world. The six targets are: 40 percent reduction in prevalence of childhood stunting, 50 percent reduction in anemia in women, 30 percent reduction in low birth weight, no increase in childhood overweight, increase in exclusive breastfeeding to at least 50 percent and reduction in childhood wasting to less than 5 percent. TheSustainable Development Goalsfor 2030 fully endorsed and included these nutrition targets. Although India has committed to contributing to the achieve-ment of the global nutrition targets, and nutrition has certainly improved in the last decade, its road ahead is still long. The deaths of children in the tribal belts of Nagada and Mal-kangiri in Odisha and Palghar in Maharashtra due to malnutri-tion are stark reminders of how things can go terribly wrong for the most vulnerable members of society. The data from the Indian government's Rapid Survey of Children (2014) captures the gravity of the situation at the national level, showing that more than 1 in 3 children are stunted, that 1 in 5 infants are born too small, and that wasting remains a challenge. The repercussions of malnutrition on the well-being of individ-uals are long-lasting and multidimensional, making it impera-tive that India up its investment in nutrition.

Abstract of Article, full article can be assessed at: http://www.ifpri.org/blog/why-india-must-confront-its-nutrition-problems-now

Source: www.scalingupnutrition.org

Improving school meals and farmer’s livelihoods through South-South Cooperation: a wise way to connect family farmers to local markets

Link: FAO http://www.fao.org/partnerships/stories/story/en/c/449393/

African countries yield positive results thanks to the Purchase from Africans for Africa initiative, that adapts the Brazilian suc-cessful school feeding model and public food procurement from family farmers

20 October 2016, Rome: Since 2014 Brazil no longer features on the World Hunger Map. Its powerful National School Feeding Pro-gramme, within the framework of the national Zero Hunger programme, has been key in eradicating hunger. Its valuable experience is now being shared with African countries through South-South Cooperation in order to adapt the approach to their local realities. Brazil’s suc-cessful model, which goes beyond providing school meals for all students by connecting food procurement to local farmers, is being adapted through the Purchase from Africans for Africa Programme. It is a Brazilian cooperation initiative with Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozam-bique, Niger and Senegal. The programme is being implemented in the context of a technical partnership between the Food and Agricul-ture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), and counting with the financial and technical collaboration of the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom (DFID) and the UNDP – International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.

Purchase from Africans for Africa

The PAA Africa Programme is inspired by the Brazilian experience, which since 2003 linked school feeding with local food production through the procurement from smallholder farmers. “Since 2009, the law guarantees that at least 30% of the budget for School Feeding is allocated to buy food from local producers,” said José Fernando Uchoa Costa, Director, Educational Actions, National Fund for Education Development of Brazil, in a side event within the context of the World Committee on Food Security (CFS43) recommendations on Con-necting Smallholders to Markets. The improvement of the procurement modalities of the Brazilian national school feeding programme in 2009 was possible and built on the successful Brazilian PAA (Food Acquisition Programme), which was one of the national programmes under the Brazilian Zero Hunger lunched in 2003, linking local agriculture and social protection. The Brazilian PAA stands nationwide until nowadays across the country. “Respecting tradition and eating habits of the country is foremost”, said Maria Laura da Rocha, Brazil Per-manent Representation to FAO, WFP and IFAD, who also emphasized the importance of family farming at the core of this programme to expand implementation of institutional food procurement programmes from farmers for public school food initiatives

Achievement and Results

The Purchase from Africans for Africa Programme goes now through its second phase. The main objective of the remaining months of the second phase that will run until 2017 is to finalize two evaluations in Senegal and Malawi. Thus far, according to the final monitoring results, the programme has successfully implemented local food procurement for school feeding. It has also contributed to dietary diversifi-cation among pupils and communities. The programme has promoted national ownership and strengthened smallholder farmer capaci ty in local food procurement. Senegal and Ethiopia have clearly seen the connection between school feeding and connecting smallholder farmers to institutional markets. Proof of their commitment, the government of Senegal has for instance included the PAA into its three-year National Investment Programme. “In Senegal, many family farmers have come from self-subsistence to commercialization thanks to the PAA Programme,” said Senegal’s government representative during the event. However, challenges lie ahead for this innovative way of connecting smallholders to institutional markets and African governments are committed to lead the process ahead. In particular it is necessary to ensure a stable supply of food through local smallholder when production is based on dry-land farming. There is also need for an improved coordination between the agricultural and educational sectors.

Wise investment

Brazil’s National School Feeding Programme has now evolved from basic assistance to fighting hunger through specific guidelines for a good nutrition. “It provides 40 million meals every day in 160.000 schools across the country,” noted Uchoa Costa.

Since 2003 the school food with local procurement is part of the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). Now counting with the PAA Africa monitoring and evaluation results, African governments commitment and the technical dia-logue, the South-South exchanges in the context of the FAO support for school food and nutrition will reach an important interface of South-South cooperation in Africa on school food and nutrition, were countries can learn from their own experiences within the continent, from Africa to Africa.

All round Cooperation

The Department for International Development of the United Kingdom (DFID) has contributed both financially and technically to the PAA programme, proving that every country, whether north or south, has something to offer. The participation of traditional donors or multilat-eral partners in the form of Triangular partners supporting South-South Cooperation can be crucial in achieving positive results, as demon-strated by African countries developing their own approach inspired in Brazil to secure the health and nutritional status of school children, while boosting the livelihoods of local farmers.

Contact: Centre for SDGs Assam Administrative Staff Col-lege, Khanapara, Guwahati– 22 Assam, India Email: csdgs.assam@gmail.com

*Disclaimer: This newsletter is only for internal circulation and uses material and resources from around the world with sources cited for spreading information on SDGs.

Readings

Nourishing India: National Nutrition Strategy, Government of India

Published and Prepared by: NITI AAYOG

This report gives a nutrition situational analysis in the country highlighting the poor performing states and districts, along with the nutrition interventions proposed. It discusses multi sectoral approach to nutrition along with monitoring systems, resources and institutional arrangements in India.

Link: niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/NutritionStrategyBooklet.pdf

The bumpy road from food to nutrition security—Slow evolution of India's food policy

Written by: Prabhu Pingali⁎, Bhaskar Mittra, Andaleeb Rahman Tata Cornell Institute (TCI), Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA This article describes the history of food security in India and need for nutrition security at all levels. Link: Available at Science Direct https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S2211912416301407?to-ken=8897C425FB7F65653161A8DA3C42CDC8A779530CF8E72C61EC5DEE79B502AB9B716123057654DF092AF275B864CDA4D1

SDG News from Around the World

• SDG Dashboard India: NITI Aayog with UN released the SDG Dashboard on 21st December 2018, via ,

Link: http://www.niti.gov.in/content/sdg-india-dashboard

• Renewable Energy Investments Increased Five-fold Globally Over Past 15 Years: Link: https://sdg.iisd.org/

news/investment-in-renewable-energy-is-clean-but-in-transmission-and-distribution-technologies-not-necessarily/

• UNDP, UN Women Present Evidence on Gender Equality as SDG Accelerator: Link: https://sdg.iisd.org/

news/undp-un-women-present-evidence-on-gender-equality-as-sdg-accelerator/

• Food choices today, impact health of both ‘people and planet’ tomorrow: Link: https://news.un.org/en/

story/2019/02/1032111

• More women and girls needed in the sciences to solve world’s biggest challenges: Link: https://

news.un.org/en/story/2019/02/1032221