Policy and Strategic Responses to Food and Nutrition Security in Ethiopia

Background: Food and nutrition insecurity continues to be one of the persistent challenges in Ethiopia. The country has been responding to the challenges in various ways to foster sustainable development. Objectives: The objective of the study is to assess national food and nutrition security policy and strategic responses. Method: A qualitative review of policies, strategies, programs, guidelines, and a government commitment, document was conducted. Interviews with experts from food and nutrition-implementing governmental and nongovernmental organizations were also employed. Thematic analysis with description was used. Results: The results of the study revealed that global initiatives stimulated Ethiopia to progressively take various strategic directions to address the ongoing food and nutrition challenges. In addition to various policy directions, the country has been implementing nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programs under the multisectoral approach. The concepts and practices of food and nutrition security shifted from simply balancing the demand and supply of food to a broader and more inclusive food system approach with the involvement of multiple actors. However, more has been said than done. The policy, strategic objectives, and initiatives have not been adequately translated into practices. Actions toward ensuring food and nutrition security, on the other hand, are constrained by institutional, environmental, technological, and emerging priorities like an outbreak of a pandemic and political instability. Conclusion: The study concluded that available policy and strategic intents have sufficiently addressed food and nutrition challenges in documents and need to be fully translated into practices. Plain language title Ethiopia’s Policy and Strategies to Ensure Food and Nutrition Security Plain language summary Ethiopia is facing food and nutrition insecurity problems that require multidimensional action. We studied how the country is responding to the challenges through national food and nutrition security policies and strategies. We found that global initiatives stimulated Ethiopia to progressively take various strategic directions to address the ongoing food and nutrition insecurity problems. The country has devised nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programs under the multisectoral approach, which incorporates policy, strategies, program, guidelines, and a political commitment document. The concepts and practices of food and nutrition security have evolved from balancing the demand and supply of food to a broader and more inclusive food system approach with the involvement of multiple actors. However, the country did not fully translate the policy response into the ground. Interventions to ensure food and nutrition security are challenged by institutional, environmental, technological, other priority agenda, and political instability. Based on the study, we conclude that the country has a fertile policy environment that needs to be translated into practices uniformly across all regions.