The Agriculture, Nutrition & Health (ANH) Academy Week is an annual event that brings together the community of researchers, practitioners and policymakers working at the intersection of agriculture, food systems, nutrition and health. It is organised through theInnovative Methods and Metrics for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions (IMMANA) programme.
The overarching goal of the event is to facilitate the sharing and learning of what works and how in strengthening the role of agriculture-food systems in improving nutrition and health outcomes.
In line with IMMANA’s wider mission, the event provides high quality training for researchers in methods and metrics in agriculture-nutrition research through a series of interactive Learning Labs.
Following these labs, the three-day scientific Research Conference provides a platform for showcasing the emerging scientific evidence base needed to guide changes in global agriculture and food systems to feed the world’s population in a way that is both healthy and sustainable.
The 7th Annual Academy Week was held between 20 June and 1 July 2022. This follows six successful ANH Academy Weeks held in Ethiopia (2016), Nepal (2017), Ghana (2018) and India (2019). The last two Academy Weeks (2020 & 2021) were held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. ANH weeks are delivered in partnership with local institutions, and the 2020 and 2021 ANH online weeks were organized in collaboration with Malawi and Pakistan institutions respectively. In keeping with this ethos, ANH 2022 was held in collaboration with the Southern Africa Food Lab and University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
An in-person event was hosted at Stellenbosch University anchored by a keynote address made by Professor Thuli Madonsela and Mr Mervyn Abrahams moderated by Scott Drimie and Busiso Moyo.
A panel discussion followed entitled “CHILDREN AND THE RIGHT TO FOOD & NUTRITION IN SOUTH AFRICA” moderated by Mervyn Abrahams and included Dr Chantell Witten (Centre of Excellence in Food Security, University of the Western Cape), Prof. Anne Marie Thow (University of Sydney, Australia), Yandiswa Mazwana (Masi Creative Hub), Lawrence Mbalati (The Healthy Living Alliance – HEALA) and Marcus Solomon (Children’s Resources Centre – CRC).
Read the provocation for the panel discussion here.
The 2022 event resulted in a number of media articles, including:
Children’s food campaign calls for more hands on deck in enhancing food security