A meeting on Country Programme Advisory Committee (CPAC) was held to review the implementation of the Country Strategic Plan (CSP) 2023-2027 along with representatives of the United Nations World Food Programme (UN WFP) and members from concerned Ministries/Departments.The meet was chaired by Secretary, Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DA&FW), Dr. Devesh Chaturvedi, whereby, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare and the United Nations World Food Programme, informed Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, PIB.
The MoU was aimed to address the national priorities in food security and nutrition through capacity building and technical support, stated the Ministry. Under the MoU, the CSP 2023-27 addresses four strategic outcomes which include;
- more effective and efficient national food-based social protection systems;
- increasing consumption of diverse, nutritious, and fortified foods;
- enhancing the social and financial mobility of women; and
- strengthening the adaptive capacity to build climate-resilient livelihoods and food systems.
Under the Chairperson, Dr. Devesh Chaturvedi a country Programme Advisory Committee has been formed to analyse the progress on initiatives under the Country Strategic Plan. With its members; Joint Secretaries of concerned Ministries and NITI Aayog, the committee meets at least annually. This was the first meeting of CPAC under CSP 2023-27 to review and discuss the progress and accomplishments of the ongoing Country Strategic Plan (CSP), the Ministry remarked.
According to the Ministry, Dr. Devesh Chaturvedi focused on some points of improvements:
- To identify the scalable interventions and initiatives and prepare mechanism for including the same in ongoing programmes of ministries/departments.
- To organise a one-day workshop to present and discuss the important initiatives and pilots exclusively in the Agriculture Sector with officers of the department.
- To put emphasis on the standards on nutrition applicable for Indian population. Along with ongoing fortified varieties of different cereals, existing local varieties of red and black rice and millet, which are nutritious, should also be popularised.
- To explore the possibilities of bringing the Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO) intodifferent initiatives.
During the meeting, Elizabeth Faure, Country Director of WFP informed the committee about the status of various targeted outcomes of the CSP. WFP informed about various ongoing initiatives which include transforming agriculture and enhancing food security for smallholder farmers in states like Assam, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh; nationwide efforts for mainstreaming millets; building resilience in fishing communities through the ‘Secure Fishing’ App; initiative for optimizing the Public Distribution System (PDS); Annapurti initiative provides grain ATMs; school nutri-gardens; andrice fortification etc, the Ministry added.
