The Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute (CFNI), was established in 1967 to forge a regional approach to solving the nutrition problems of the people of the Caribbean.
This was precipitated by the socio-economic conditions in the Commonwealth Caribbean in the 1930s, 1940s and the 1950s, which negatively affected the food, nutrition and health of large sections of the population.
CFNI is a specialised centre of the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO), and serves a total population of about six million, a third of whom live in Jamaica.
The goal of CFNI is to attain household food security and achieve optimal nutritional status for all the people of the Caribbean.
This is achieved through a number of activities namely: planning, promotion and dissemination, human resource development and surveillance and research.
PLANNING
Under the heading of planning, the institute is involved in among other things - needs assessment, developing food and nutrition strategies and developing food and nutrition policies and plans of action.
Promotion and dissemination
Promotion and dissemination constitutes one of the main functions of CFNI's technical cooperation programme. Strategies within this function include information and education using diverse media targeted at diverse groups, both technical and lay, social marketing and communication, behaviour change interventions and training of change agents in promotional skills.
Specific programme activities include:
Developing regional and national dietary guidelines.
Promoting health lifestyles in institutions and the community.
Producing nutrition-related publications.
Producing radio and television nutrition programmes.
Formulating and promoting standards for optimal young child feeding.
Organising competitions and awards to exemplify best practices in nutrition.
Human Resource Development
CFNI exists, in part, to assist countries through Technical Corporation to effectively manage public health nutrition-related issues. CFNI, as a regional agency, strives to bridge the existing gap in the availability of trained human resource in nutrition and dietetics in the region by building in-country human resource capacity.
They do this through in-country training, distance education, curriculum development and evaluation, research capacity development, collaboration with other institutions and the offering of internships and short-term work experience.
Surveillance
CFNI utilises nutritional surveillance and research as two important tools in the development of effective and efficient strategies to improve health and quality of life of the peoples of the Caribbean.
Appropriate nutritional surveillance and research is driven by current imperatives inclusive of health risks, health reforms, globalisation, vulnerability, disasters, poverty and inequity.
Activities associated with this included training, development of specialised software and strengthening of surveillance systems.
Research
Research at CFNI is guided by the need to provide evidence-based information to more effectively prevent and manage the major food and nutrition problems in the region.
To this end, the institute rigorously pursues qualitative and quantitative research on nutrition-related diseases in a number of areas, including:
Research to develop protocols and guidelines for dietary management of diseases;
Formative research; and
Research on behaviour change.
The fundamental purpose of CFNI is to improve the food and nutrition situation in its member countries through service, education and training, information dissemination, co-ordination and research, each of which is carried out in collaboration with member governments.
The institute is located on the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies.
Source: CFNI website: www.cfni.paho.org.
