Welcome to Bite the Talk, the podcast that dives deep into the pressing issues of our time. I am Joyce, your host for today, and we are honoured to be joined by a special guest: Dr. Sanjo Faniro, who is the National Convenor of the United Nations Food System Summit in Nigeria, and also the Director for Social Development at the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning. In this role he has responsibility for the coordination of food systems, transformation initiatives, and ensuring effective implementation of the national pathways for food systems transformation. In addition, his ministry has responsibility for nutrition coordination, and implementation of the National multi-sectoral plan of action for food and nutrition in Nigeria. In this episode we'll be asking what is it really like to lead and coordinate the process on food systems transformation within the government of Nigeria? And as we approach the United Nations Food Systems Summit Stocktaking Moment, what needs to happen to drive further progress?
Joyce Akpata: Welcome to Bite the Talk, the podcast that dives deep into the pressing issues of our time. I am Joyce, your host for today, and we are honoured to be joined by a special guest: Dr. Sanjo Faniro, who is the National Convenor of the United Nations Food System Summit in Nigeria, and also the Director for Social Development at the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning. In this role he has responsibility for the coordination of food systems, transformation initiatives, and ensuring effective implementation of the national pathways for food systems transformation. In addition, his ministry has responsibility for nutrition coordination, and implementation of the National multi-sectoral plan of action for food and nutrition in Nigeria.
In this episode we'll be asking what is it really like to lead and coordinate the process on food systems transformation within the government of Nigeria? And as we approach the United Nations Food Systems Summit Stocktaking Moment, what needs to happen to drive further progress?
But before we delve into the Stocktaking process, let us first recall how the United Nations Food Systems Summit came about. The Summit was a first of its kind. A global gathering of government organisations, individuals, and an array of stakeholders working together to address the urgent challenges facing our food systems. This unique event took place in September 2021.
Sir, you are recently appointed as the new national convenor for Nigeria, what did you think when you were first appointed and what does the role look like on a day-to-day basis?
Dr. Sanjo Faniran: Thank you very much, Joyce. Once I was appointed, the journey was not new to me, for the reason being that I was part of the inception arrangements for the dialogues in Nigeria, where we had over 40 dialogues, which produced some of these recommendations that is considered priority actions for Nigeria.
So, the first thing that occur to me when I, when I became the National Convenor was that I would not disappoint the government of Nigeria. Neither will I disappoint the former president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, that presented these 7 key priority actions at the UN Food Systems Summit in September 2021, and that actually prompted me into designing an inner strategy that would enable me to deliver on the assignments. That brought about the constitution of a national multistakeholder and multi-sectoral taskforce that will work with me and think out the best way to go on the implementation of the, of all the 78 priorities.
I also initiated this constitution of technical working group of all relevant stakeholders by requesting for all the policy secretaries to nominate somebody who is in their heart, that is proactive, they'll be able to deliver and be able to report on what their ministry is doing with respect to transforming food system in Nigeria. And I also leveraged the nutrition policy where we have the multi-sectoral plan of action that has already established arrangements that cut across all the state of the federation. So, all this became a strength to me, and made me to swing into action with the determination to achieve the best for Nigeria.
Joyce Akpata: Would you say that the UNFSS process has had a tangible impact on the government's agenda in relation to food systems in Nigeria?
Dr. Sanjo Faniran: Yes, it does. Let me say that the governments-slash-food-system-policy, for instance now, we normally have a nutrition council meeting, which is presided over by the Vice President. The food system reports updates on the full system, on the implementation of the full system transformation pathways. It's now one of the agenda item in that meeting, and that will tell you that it has now become a critical issue that is now being taken over by the government, that a priority step to take to transform our food system.
And you know, nutrition as one of the components of the food system is just a subset of this system. People are mistaking food system to be agriculture only or food and nutrition only. Food systems cut across all what we can call element of food ecosystem. Anything that has to do food, from the farm to the dining table, including crops planting, processing, transportation, eating, and even the post-harvest losses, which is one of the key information provided by the incoming president that was sworn in today, that is going to address post-harvest losses which is going to be a priority in our food systems transformation pathways for Nigeria.
So, there is that arrangement now, that is making food systems to become more popular and to become the priority of the government as one of the accelerators for achieving SDGs by the year 2030. Thank you.
Joyce Akpata: Thank you, Doc. Good to see that government is deliberate about transforming the Nigerian food system. So, what would you say the progress has been thus far in driving the implementation of the national pathways. And are you able to share any key highlights in that regard?
Dr. Sanjo Faniran: Thank you very much. As a country, and as the national convenor, with the team that I set up and technical working group of all stakeholders, we have made tremendous achievements. And I can tell you that, Nigeria is one of the countries that the UN Food systems coordination hub is recognising as the champion in the implementation of the food system. Most of the letters that they normally write whenever they are sending letter to the formal ministers of State, they will always establish it there that Nigeria, via our approach to implementation of the full system is something that should be shared all over. I mean to share with other countries.
I’ve been invited to various countries, just recently I was invited to Vietnam to come and share our approach to implementation of the food systems transformation pathways. Another thing is, that as a country we have decentralised coordination that brought about all the state of the tradition to be speaking on how they we to move their full system, for now we are doing that one through the zones.
Nigeria has 6 zones, 6 geopolitical zones, and we have identified a particular state in the zone, that we coordinate all other states within the zone. And with that, it is within the zone they have organised themselves; they are having a platform where they are meeting virtually and physically and that means they are discussing, based on the strength that they have in each zone that will enable us to transform food system.
So, besides that, we have also commenced the development of an implementation strategy for the 78 priority actions t because what we did before was to have an ad hoc arrangement that selected 3 program in 2022 for implementation in terms of the where the information to all farmers across the country in terms of encouraging all states of the federation to have a farm estate, that will be able to accommodate the youth, the women, the vulnerable group, and every other private sector, and every other person that can be relevant within the farm estate.
So to that each state, we have an integrated farm estate that can accommodate the youth, the women, the vulnerable, the processor, the private sector, that we even build hostels for people that are interested in government to provide enabling environment in terms of land for use for those interested in farming. Those that are small processors they know that. They also discussed the issue of homestead gardening, small holder farming, backyard farming, which last week, just last week when we were having consultations on the implementation strategy that we are developing. Some states were posting on this platform what they have done within the shortest possible time to show that they are making a lot of progress at the community level.
There are a lot of products that they are planting, that they are selling, and that most of the transport organisations are engaging there to move those products to the market. And that's what we are talking about the food system.
This implementation strategy now we have gotten a zero draft that we are negotiating with all the states of the Federation. We have done it. We have done the consultation on geopolitical services. We divided the country into two, with northern on zones, having their own consultation on the 15 last week, fifteenth, May 2023, and then the Southern zone, they had that one in Kano. Then the southern zone, which is the south, east, south, south had their own in Oka and Anambra state on 18th, that's on Thursday, 18th of May 2023.
The essence of that consultation was to harvest inputs from all the states. There’re no states now that does not have information, that does not contribute to the development of the strategy, so that everybody will be able to bring in their own ideas. And besides that, we also develop an action plan for 2023, because we felt that if we wait until we finish the development of the strategy, we may not be able to do anything. So, we had only three programmes last year. We have added another 6 and out of the 6 we’re encouraging school gardens that will enable our students, our schools, those that are interested in farming to start planning something, doing something in the school. It will also help our home-grown school feeding system because it we enable us to be looking at dietary function, the food and nutrition within the school environment so that the students will see they can also contribute to the development to the implementation of the food system transformation pathways in Nigeria.
So, we've done a lot and the coordination has actually helped us. Every State is now talking or speaking they are talking, and they are discussing on how they are going to implement those that concern them, based on what we have developed as an action plan for 2023 and then waiting for the strategy itself that we have encompassed all the 78 priority actions that they we all do. Most of them have been doing it, but they'll be able to see those areas where they needed to increase, to improve their strength and strategies.
So, once we have a minister now, that means, he’ll start to take over the chair of the committees and now co-chaired by the lead agencies the UN, the 3 UN lead agencies, the country rep of those countries that is IFAD, WFP, and FAO. So, the 3 of them are co-chairing, so if one is not around, the other one will be available, but it where we did the inauguration committee, all of them were present, even including the resident coordinator. So, they have seen the reason why they have to back the Government on the idea, and GAIN is also supporting us with anything that has to do with this implementation. Even the implementation strategy is actually being singularly supported by GAIN, then why, the consultation was supported by all other of UN agencies, including GAIN. So, we actually have been an approach that's comprehensive that is encouraging everybody to be involved in the food value chain, and food ecosystem that we transform our food in Nigeria. Thank you very much.
Joyce Akpata: Well, thank you very much, Doc. It's impressive to see the amount of work that has been undertaking thus far, especially the far-reaching consultations and engagement with diverse stakeholders. Well done to you and the team. So, what would you see at the biggest implemented implementation related challenges? No doubt there would be some challenges as you go on this journey.
Dr. Sanjo Faniran: Yeah. Thank you very much. The only implementation challenges is that at the state level, some states are still here to understand what we call food system, and they are still misconceiving food system to only agriculture or only nutrition, or they don't look at some other elements, including logistics, included processing, including where every other thing that goes with this. So, in terms of comprehension, conceptual understanding of food system, we're having challenge in some states, there is some zones, too.
I mean the coordinating state in some zooms are not being serious, and what we did to mitigate that was that we just look at another State that is strong in the Zone, and now made them co-coordinated states like Southwest now, there we quickly sent a letter to the Governor of Osun States to rise up to the situation, and the permanent Secretary for government planning in Osun States to rise up to the situation and coordinate. We also use the geopolitical the Southwest coordinating office, which is the development assistant for Western Nigeria that they will co-coordinate with those two States so that we can have the best. So those are the only challenges we have.
In terms of a funding, we have been having support from our partners and the government of Nigeria that has actually put some resources into coordination. So, in the budget 2023 the minister of state fought extensively to make sure that we have resources to support coordination of implementation of food system in the further measure of financial budgets and planning. Why we’re are now encouraging all of the States to have budget line for the implementation for the coordination of food system by the ministry of economic planning.
In terms of technical implementation mostly all the relevant stakeholders have budgetary allocation to what they are expected to do in the food system, including in the nutrition now of it as budget or nutrition, but the State Minister of economic planning do not have budget for coordination of food system, because it's a new thing. So, in terms of resources, that is the challenge, and what we are trying to do now to mitigate that is that whenever we have a program for them that bring all of them together, we solicit for support for our partners, I mean, particularly we can say give them accommodation where we are going to have a workshop with them it. Let them now take care of their transport because the issue of transformation of food systems is an economic growth issue.We're not doing it for them. It is the states that the state level, at the grassroots level that we are going to achieve the objective of food system transformation pathways in Nigeria.
So those are the little challenges that we have, and as time goes on, we are going to walk around mitigating those challenges. Thank you.
Joyce Akpata: Yeah, thank you very much. Definitely continuous sensitisation and the capacity building on the importance of systems thinking will undoubtedly aid in addresses some of these challenges. Good. So how would you say other organisations in the sector and partners have supported the food systems transformation in Nigeria?
Dr. Sanjo Faniran: We have done a mapping of all the development partners, and donors that are supporting food and nutrition in Nigeria and the former minister of state actually called a meeting of all development partners, including ITA and spoke to them that we want to have an integrated approach in supporting the implementation of food system, so that will not be one sided and all of them have given their promises that they want to support.
I know whenever we call on the project in Nigeria, they are always ready. So that’s where we are with development partners, but what we have actually sensitised all of them. We have called them to a meeting, we have presented the transformation pathways to them, we have shared the hard copies. We have also shared the call to action as copies with all of them, and the current Minister of State that's actually spoke to persuade them to support the food system transformation pathways. And not only agriculture, not only for the nutrition, but everything that has to do with whatever I want to achieve in transforming food system in Nigeria, including logistics, including post-harvest losses and everything that goes with the food value chain. So, thank you.
Joyce Akpata: Thank you very much, Doc, as we count down to the Stocktaking moment, what are the key next steps for the immediate future?
Dr. Sanjo Faniran: Yeah. The next step is that we will not relent in our efforts to make sure that we, we continue the implementation. All the States through the geopolitical zones, are aggressive, and we have already told them that they are going to submit reports of what they have achieved on food system by last week in June which will serve as what we’re going to collate to respond to the whatever templates that is sent to us by the UN food system coordination hub ahead of the stocktaking on July 24th to 26th 2023.
So, then, the next step is that we are aggressively pursuing the implementation of the action plan for 2023, so that all, everybody, especially with the issue of issue of school garden, we want to have a pilot school garden in all the state of Federation we have already established that and the States, all the zones are working on that. It's just for the coordinating of state they'll make sure that for instance in Northeast they have six states, so, they make sure that there is a pilot school in each of the 6 States at that are having school gardens that we encourage all the states to establish farm estates and have started doing that now. For those that do not have, they have started consulting with their governors. For those that have, and are dormant, they are trying to reactivate it. So, we’re taking every step that will enable us to produce a robust report.
We also requested for a side event, during the Stocktaking, but we are still waiting for response from the hub. We submitted a request template. We also submitted a request for high level meeting during the stocktaking moment, that high level session by Nigeria, the Government of Nigeria to be led and chaired by our President, or the Vice President.
So not until when we get some of these responses that we now also escalate and aggressively pursue certain things, so that at the end of the day Nigeria’s visibility would be highly noted during the Stocktaking moment in Rome.
Joyce Akpata: Yeah, thank you very much, Doc. And thank you for taking out time to share with us, and we definitely at pleased to learn of what's been done in driving food systems transformation in Nigeria. We wish you and the team all the best on this journey, while we as GAIN undoubtedly are committed to supporting the process.
Dr. Sanjo Faniran: Thank you very much. We appreciate GAIN as a one of the serious and committed INGOs in food and nutrition in Nigeria. Not only the food system, not only the food pathway you’re supporting, you’re supporting a lot of things particularly the issue of estate gardening in the North East, particularly in Gobe, in our 3 local governments in partnership with Arnie, we are enjoying that supports, and we believe that your attitude to supporting the development of the of Nigeria is noted. So, thank you very much.
Joyce Akpata: Thank you. This brings us to the end of this episode of Bite the Talk podcast. We hope that the discussions of the United Nations Food system summit stocktaking process has provided you with valuable insight into the challenges and opportunities in our food systems. Remember that every small action we take can help to create a memorable, sustainable, and equitable future. Thank you for joining us. Until next time.