Mangiza Chirwa, Hivos
Since the beginning of the project, the Lusaka FSL has been working towards creating an enabling environment for the provision of healthy food in Lusaka through the involvement of multi-stakeholder actors operating in Lusaka’s food system. The FSL engaged the mayors’ office to create time for dialogue with traders to express their challenges and propose what they see as solutions to help them provide healthy food to the citizens of Lusaka. This interaction gained momentum and resulted in the city committing to addressing selected challenges, such as increasing storage facilities and making them more affordable. Further, the city council has also committed to promoting food safety by intensifying inspections of food outlets and rating of restaurants to encourage increase in the level of compliance to safety standards.
Further, the city council officials have acknowledged the impact that the local policies have on the provision of safe food to the public. It has been open to discussion on services, innovations and has been involved in various food projects over the years which have highlighted the challenges and what needs to be done in the food system.
However, there is still a lack of policy coordination in decision-making on food-related policies hence the work that has been done on the HealthyFoodAfrica project has been to strengthen the multi-stakeholder group so that all concerned departments and stakeholders are participating in policy discussions that relate to the food system together. The multi-stakeholder group provides an opportunity for a holistic approach to achieve meaningful and significant long-term progress. Through the multi-stakeholder group, the project has also been able to partner with similar innovations and projects such as the Afrifood links project which aims to improve food and nutrition security while delivering positive outcomes for climate and the environment.