FG launches Sub-National food systems Dashboard

The Federal Government has launched Nigeria’s own Sub-National Food Systems Dashboard to eradicate all forms of challenges confronting food security across the country.

Launching the platform in Abuja, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi explained that the initiative was one of the eight cardinal objectives of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration aimed at ending food crises in the country.


“We have already developed a food system profile for some states, and this will be instrumental in our advocacy efforts to engage key decision makers in the transformation of Nigeria’s food system. As we finalize the national food system dashboard, it will also provide a map of emerging business opportunities and potential areas for investment in food system transformation.” he said.

He said, the federal government adopted two key indicators from the dashboard to measure progress in the implementation, and they include the cost and affordability of health diets and diet polity.

Giving an overview of the Dashboard, the country Director of a non governmental organisation, GAIN Foundation, Dr Michael Ojo who facilitated the platform said the initiative focused on diagnosis to solve food shortages, unaffordability, and other problems in the food system value chain.

“Policy makers for making evidence based policies, which are needed in transforming the food system in the country. We already know that the government has priorities for food security, nutrition security and has declared a state of emergency on this, so this is critical evidence-based policy for transforming the food system.”

In a panel discussion on the use of the Dashboard, an associate professor of human nutrition, University of Ibadan, Dr Folake Samuel said the launch was a sequel to the global food systems platform and sought to provide solutions to the World food crises, which include a lack of adequate information data for all the stakeholders.