OSU Sponsors a project to improve food security in the Horn of Africa

Friday, September 30, 2011

A group of journalists, farmers, community leaders and policymakers from Kenya and Uganda are in Oklahoma for the next few weeks.

The project, sponsored by the OSU Department of Agricultural Education, Communications and Leadership, is part of a U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs grant.  OSU developed the grant “to improve the prospects of ensuring food security in Kenya and Uganda,” said Dwayne Cartmell, project co-director.

The project goal is to impact food security and insufficiency through four phases of a citizen-exchange program among Kenyan and Ugandan community leaders, media professionals and policymakers as well as their U.S. counterparts. These individuals are the project’s food security fellows.

The group’s five-week visit in the United States is the third phase of this project.  The individuals from the two African countries are participating  in internships with counterparts across the state and on the OSU campus.  

For example, Esther Nakkazi, a journalist from Uganda, is interning with OSU Communications. In the office she will see how the university communicates with the campus and general public and will interact with the staff to help further her knowledge of communications in a  university setting.

“I am very excited about this opportunity,” Nakkazi said.   “This gives me a chance to have a hands-on experience with how work gets done in the U.S.”

Nakkazi added she learned a lot about communications and the United States in the classroom and now she’s getting a first-hand look at how information gets disseminated in another country.

“I hope to use this knowledge to improve food security among communities in Uganda and throughout Africa through my writing,” she said.      

The first phase occurred in April and consisted of six Kenyans and six Ugandans spending four weeks in Oklahoma and one week in Washington, D.C.  

During their stay in Oklahoma, the first group of food security fellows received rigorous professional development training in the areas of food production, education/advocacy, food security/sufficiency, nutrition and rural vitality, Cartmell said.  They also participated in a 10-day internship that matched their professional interests and goals.

After hosting the group, the second phase in the grant involved OSU faculty members and collaborators traveling to the two countries.

While the rest of Oklahoma suffered through multiple days of 100-degree heat during the summer, 15 OSU faculty members and collaborators spent two weeks in Kenya and Uganda addressing food security issues in the Horn of Africa.

The Horn of Africa, which includes Kenya, is experiencing one of its worst droughts in recent decades. The call for humanitarian assistance, including food aid, is being sounded around the globe. According to USAID’s fact sheet, the number of people requiring assistance in the affected countries was approaching 13 million.   

“The advantages of traveling to the African countries are two-fold,” Cartmell said.  “It provides the U.S. collaborators first-hand experiences with political, media, commerce and educational issues faced by Kenya and Uganda as well as helps to build capacity for future collaborations.”

The fourth and final stage of the project will be similar to stage two, with teams from OSU traveling to Kenya and Uganda. Cartmell said this provides international experiences for additional graduate students and project collaborators. The fourth stage is scheduled to occur in spring 2012.