CATIE participated in the annual global meeting of food and nutrition security information platforms

• This meeting brought together nine countries to exchange experiences and lessons learned.

June 23rd, 2023. Under the theme "communication for informed decision making," the fifth annual global meeting of National Information Platforms for Nutrition (NIPN) was held from June 6 to 8 in Brussels, Belgium. 

This event brought together nine countries that are part of the global Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement, including Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kenya, Laos, Niger, Zambia and Uganda. The sessions focused on the sustainability plans of the platforms in these countries, effective communication for decision making, avoiding reinforcing gender biases, and the results of the NIPN contribution study. The event closed with a visit to the offices of the European Commission and the European Parliament.

Julio López, representative of CATIE (Centro de Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza) in Guatemala, commented that the objective of the event was to strengthen the capacities of the platforms to effectively communicate the results of the findings in order to contribute to decision making in favor of nutrition governance and vulnerable children.

The delegations participating in the meeting prepared and presented posters in which they shared the activities they have carried out to make the platforms sustainable. Lesly Chavaqué, monitoring manager, and Gabriela Ogaldes, nutritionist, both from the National Information Platform on Nutrition (PiNN) project, presented the progress made in technical, institutional and financial terms to contribute to the sustainability of the platforms, as well as the challenges that have been encountered and overcome in the six years of project implementation.

Eduardo Say, coordinator of the PiNN project, added that bilateral meetings were held with representatives from Ivory Coast, Ethiopia and Nigeria, to whom they shared the experience of the PiNN project in Guatemala on the food and nutrition security question bank (BpSAN).

Say emphasized that in the second phase of the PiNN project, the message that has been conveyed to officials and decision makers is that "data has a face", to contribute assertively to the prevention of malnutrition, focusing actions that will benefit individuals, families and households vulnerable to food insecurity. 

The global NIPN initiative was launched by the European Commission in 2015 and is committed to implementing evidence-based programs and interventions to improve human nutrition in its progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In the case of Guatemala, CATIE is responsible for implementing the PiNN project, with financial support from the European Union and in coordination with the Secretariat for Food and Nutritional Security (SESAN, its Spanish acronym) and member institutions of the National Food and Nutritional Security System (SINASAN, its Spanish acroym).