TITLE:
Advocacy and Use of Advocates as a Quick Win in Scaling Up Biofortification in Nigeria: The Case of Building Nutritious Food Basket (BNFB) Project
AUTHORS:
Olapeju Phorbee, Oguzor Gift, Adeola Ojo, Ganiyat Olatunde, Adeyinka Onabolu
KEYWORDS:
Biofortification, Advocacy, Policy, Investments, Scaling Up
JOURNAL NAME:
Food and Nutrition Sciences,
Vol.13 No.9,
September
27,
2022
ABSTRACT: The Building Nutritious Food Baskets (BNFB) Project explored advocacy and the use of advocates as a model strategy for scaling up
biofortification in Nigeria during its three-year implementation. In addition
to its direct advocacy efforts, the BNFB project identified and selected key personnel
across disciplines, gender and sectors, based on some selected criteria, as
Advocates to support the scaling up of biofortification by raise of
investments, resource mobilization, the inclusion of biofortification in relevant policy
documents, strategies and plans of action. To realize these, the selected 32
Advocates were empowered to mainstream biofortification into their existing
and/or potential programs/projects, as well as create awareness and demand for biofortified crops within
their spheres of influence. Training and retreats were organized for the
Advocates to strengthen their capacities in advocacy and promotion of biofortification
and biofortified crops, while a social platform was launched to share opportunities,
experiences and address issues around biofortification within the Advocates. As
a result of these efforts, biofortification was included in three key national policies,
strategies/plans of actions with resource allocation, and investments, over USD3 million were raised for
biofortification. The Federal Government of Nigeria and some external
governments became committed to biofortification programs while biofortified
crops were mainstreamed in at least two national programs in Nigeria.
Biofortified crops were included in the Home-Grown School Feeding Program of
two states. The use of Advocates proved to be a resultful strategy in the biofortification scaling up model
of BNFB as the advocates, upon being trained, looked out within their sectors
and disciplines to mainstream biofortification into their programs. They gave
timely information on potential opportunities to follow up with in influencing
favorable policies; they mobilized resources nationally, regionally and locally; they
facilitated wider coverage of biofortification within a short time. However,
the influence of the Advocates was limited to their number and locations; thus, for a quick win in Nigeria, there is a need to raise advocates in all the 36 states of the
country while giving equal priority to national and state level advocacy. As a lesson, to engender adoption of biofortification,
participation/leveraging on existing programs in advocacy works faster and
easier than starting afresh in Nigeria.