Ending hunger, an ambition enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), specifically SDG2, which focuses on ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture by 2030.

In Tanzania, where more than 67 percent of the total population lives in rural areas and reliance on agriculture and agriculture-related activities is a vital source of employment, food is a matter of life and death. And this population is under a high nutrition deficit: Nearly three-quarters of the country’s undernourished and 80 percent of its hungry are found there.

Low access to food, high nutritional needs, the agricultural productivity gap, and vulnerability to environmental shocks are the most salient problems facing Tanzania’s rural population. Equally important, Tanzania is also nutrition insecure. Poor availability of diversified foods and poor food utilization due to low nutrition knowledge confront the country’s rural population.

Although Tanzania has a number of strong strategies, programs, and policies relevant for combating rural poverty, hunger, and food and nutrition insecurity, the country has yet to close the gaps and reach SDG2 by 2030. To do so, the Tanzania ERH case study recommends six priority areas:

  • First, the country must increase access to food and nutrition
  • Second, Tanzania should aim to reduce vulnerability to environmental shocks in rural areas by increasing the capacity of small-holder farmers to exploit the vast irrigation potential available in the country.
  • Third, the government and development partners should commit more resources in activities/programs/infrastructure related to boosting agricultural growth.
  • Fourth, the pace of policy reforms should go hand-in-hand with changes in other issues affecting the economy like demographic changes, climate change, urbanization, and changes in the income distribution.
  • Fifth, there should be improved coordination and complementarity between related ministries, donor projects, NGOs and between regulatory authorities in the agri-food systems.
  • Sixth, Tanzania should ensure an up-to-date implementation plan, including regular monitoring and evaluation of the stated plan/programs/strategies and policies.

Read the full article by Roselyne Alphonce about nutrition in Tanzania from Brookings