National Food and Nutrition Security Policy (NFNSP).

The Seychelles Food and Nutrition Security Policy (NFNSP) is specially developed to align and strengthen the country’s capacity and ability to deliver on its food and nutrition security objectives and targets in a manner that ensures efficiency and sustainability in resource use, able institutions and human capacity and resilience in the face of internal and external shocks as well as progressive change in key parameters such as population size. The National Food and Nutrition Security Policy is an essential and integral part of the Seychelles Government/WHO strategy "Health for All". Food Security and Nutrition policies are necessary to ensure that the population has access to adequate, safe and healthy foods and to maintain optimal nutritional status of the population. It is therefore pivotal that Seychelles has its own food and nutrition policy, which reflects the local culture and economic climate.
The Overall Goal and Objectives of the NFNSP are: Recognizing present and future opportunities and challenges with the goal to guaranteeing the right to safe, healthy and adequate food at all times and to satisfy the nutritional needs for optimal health for all persons. Specifically, the policy aims to: 1. ensure food security for all, through efficient and effective agricultural production, sustainable fisheries and balanced by importation of healthy and nutritious food; 2. improve and optimize the nutritional status, health and wellbeing of all; 3. strengthen and align institutional resilience and capacity to effectively and appropriately respond to changes and shocks in food and nutrition security needs including an adequate and responsive knowledge and science base. The policy will enable the Government to provide leadership with regard to: i) ensuring programme and investment interventions; ii) ensuring coordination, coherence and comprehensiveness in strategies and programmes on food and nutritional security iii) strengthening resilience and capability within internal systems to anticipate and respond to internal and external shocks and changes in the food systems, including weather and climate change extremes, price volatility, etc… iv) strengthening accountability in food and nutrition security support and facilitation systems including inclusive decision making and reinforcement of collective responsibility among the various players and stakeholders.
Addressing food and nutrition security is inherently multi-sectoral, dealing with complex and not necessarily aligned interfaces. It is therefore, understandable that a large number of Acts, policies and strategies, all of which impact directly or indirectly on food and nutrition security, must be carefully considered in the translation and implementation of this policy. Other salient objectives of the policy to enhance food and nutrition security are to reduce foreign exchange leakage, enhance farm income, improve livelihoods and create national wealth for investment in other sectors, such as mariculture, optimize the use of scarce national resources such as land, labour, capital, technology, management, enhancing the agriculture sector’s contribution to job creation and the development and implementation of a dynamic, sustained and determined awareness campaign on the benefits of healthy eating and wellbeing. Given the land restrictions, agriculture will be forced to become more intensive, and increase productivity through adopting, adapting and developing new and efficient technologies.
The NFNSP has a broad scope, thereby supporting the articulation of a comprehensive and integrated inter-sectorial and inter-disciplinary agenda. It covers all key aspects of food and nutrition including articulating the correlations and linkages between advances on food and nutrition, economic growth and poverty eradication. The overall national development plan provides the overarching scope and framework for the NFNSP. To ensure national food and nutrition security, the policy will take necessary actions among other the following issues: revitalization of the agriculture sector and industry including market and trade incentives; efficient management and diversification of the artisanal and semi-industrial fisheries; facilitation of necessary education and public awareness on healthy eating; support and facilitate appropriate food safety net interventions; promote locally produced food; clearly define the risk sharing role of government in partnerships with food producers/ago-processors; etc.