SWR/RAISE-FS in collaboration with Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) organized Training of Trainers (ToT) workshop on nutrition sensitive agriculture (NSA ) from November 28- December 2, 2022 at Adama. In attendance were 20 individuals including representatives from research institutes and their affiliated center’s, universities and regional RAISE-FS teams.
The objectives of the training were to provide scientific background on the basic concepts on NSA and Ethiopian Food Based Dietary Diversity (EFBDG) as well as to enhance the nutrition agriculture integration into the RAISE-FS project activities.
The training covers a wide range of topics including the fundamentals of human nutrition, healthy diet to the linkages between agriculture and nutrition, NSA approaches, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Gender and nutrition, social and behavioral change communication, multi-sectoral coordination for nutrition, context analysis and Ethiopian food based dietary Guideline. etc.
The training is an eye-opener for most of the participants who do not have a domain specific knowledge or background on nutrition. Participants were grateful to RAISE-FS for organizing this training workshop as it will enable them revisit their plans and determine whether they can incorporate additional activities to the project’s safe and nutritious food outcome area of the project.
The training is very timely; it helped us not only to execute our work with greater knowledge and understanding of nutrition sensitive agriculture but it also helped us improve our understanding for our own healthy life and nutrition.
Some participants expressed their views that there has not been much work done on nutrition and nutrition sensitive agriculture thus far and they suggested much more needs to be done using training and awareness creation strategies to reach more people and improve the situation. Some also suggested that it would be good if they could pass along what they have learned to other stakeholders at different levels in the food system.
Most of us simply operate within the confines of our area of expertise, focusing on production and productivity; but this training introduced us to a vast array of topics and encouraged us to think more broadly and consider the entire food system. Though the topics and delivery are very good, it might be challenging to fully comprehend all the topics covered within a week.
Facilitators and resource persons for the training were from the Ministry of Agriculture and RAISE -FS project.
RAISE-FS 