Think Your Job Is Tough?

Boitshepo Giyose Discusses Food and Africa

Story by Kathleen McFadden

The next time you open your mouth to gripe about your job, take a moment to consider the challenges that Boitshepo “Bibi” Giyose faces every day and you might not be so quick to complain.

Giyose, a 1989 Appalachian State University grad, is the senior food and nutrition security advisor for the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development, and she coordinates nutrition activities and provides policy direction for the African continent.

Think about that job description for a moment. The African continent—that’s 53 countries, 11,668,545 square miles and approximately 14 percent of the world’s population. Estimates of the number of languages spoken on the continent range from 2,000 to 3,000, with possibly as many as 8,000 dialects.

Daunting enough? There’s more.

In addition to dealing with the sheer geographic challenge of her job, Giyose liaises with the United Nations and other aid agencies. She also struggles with a lack of understanding at all levels of the role nutrition plays in economic and personal development, a shortage of strategic thinking and trained administrators to implement food security and nutrition programs, insufficient financial resources, a wide variation in climatic conditions, research that doesn’t fit the African context, an increase in diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes and people dying of malnutrition.

She is the only nutritionist in the system and travels three weeks of every month. Oh, and in her spare time, she writes a nutrition column—“Food for the Soul”—for the newspaper.

Giyose took a break from her demanding job to return to her alma mater last week to receive the Appalachian Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award and to share her knowledge and experiences in two presentations on campus.

Giyose was born and raised in Botswana and credits her grandmother, who died last year at age 96, with instilling in her a love of food, experimentation and science. Giyose’s grandmother was a creative cook. “We always had food,” she said, and her grandmother was also an innovator, founding the village’s primary school and clinic. “I got my strength, character, determination and outlook for her, Giyose said.

Giyose knew from an early age that she wanted to specialize in food and nutrition, even though her university advisors urged her to pursue medicine or law. A scholarship program brought her to Appalachian where she earned a bachelor of science degree in food and nutrition with a concentration in general dietetics from the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences. She later earned a master’s degree in international nutrition from Cornell University.

In her current position, two of Giyose’s principal objectives are to bridge the divide between the agriculture and health sectors and to see a focus on nutrition implemented at the highest policy levels. “I would like to see the continent run, not walk, to recognize the central role nutrition plays in development,” she said. “Nutrition is not a panacea. If you get it right, other things fall into place. Nutrition can play a life-saving role and is a sound economic approach, a sound medical approach.”

While Africa has a strong agricultural tradition, she said, it’s a tradition of subsistence-level food production and the continent does not have enough people at the strategic level to impart the skills to move beyond that level.

“If you can improve production at the local level,” she said, “it would solve half the problems of food security.” For Giyose, food security means availability, safety, access and utilization, a concept that includes the key role of a nutritionally balanced diet.

“If Africa set itself up to trade within Africa, things would change positively and significantly,” she said. “I’ve never understood the benefit of growing cash crops instead of basic food crops. The balance hasn’t happened at a satisfactory level.”

Giyose continued, “My dream is that sooner rather than later, Africa can find itself with the right crops. Why grow something not indigenous so we can send it to Europe? It doesn’t make sense, and the policy needs to be revised to reflect that.”

Some African countries are taking steps in that direction, organizing regional food production and distribution networks. But more needs to be done, she said.

Another problem is that research conducted in Africa does not benefit the continent, Giyose maintained, because the research does not lead to the implementation of programs and solutions. “We don’t hold the researchers accountable,” she said, “and there’s nothing toward development and implementation, and that really pains me. I’m not saying stop the research, but it has to focus on development and not just be for glossy publications. I’m not against advancing the body of knowledge, but it has to bear on local solutions. I’m not going to eat research. My people aren’t going to eat research. They need food.”

Giyose continued, “There has to be a more deliberate and robust way for Africa to craft answers—practical, indigenous answers for ourselves. That’s not to say external aid is not useful, but if you’re sitting on the coals, you feel the pain most and can come up with the best solutions.” To that end, “I would like to see more African leaders saying to aid agencies, ‘This is what we need. How can you help us?’” she said.

But who is going to say that? Brain drain is a significant problem. “The brightest of the crop are leaving Africa left, right and center,” she said. “I wish Africa could match the remuneration packages [that other countries offer] and then we wouldn’t have to waste a lot of money on outside consultants who don’t know what they are doing.”

So why did this accomplished, capable and extraordinary woman return to Africa?

“I went back because I believe in Africa. I know one day Africa will do better. If I don’t contribute to the process, I will have failed the continent and will not do myself justice. It was my mission to come and study and go back to do something for my people.”

The future lies largely in the children, she believes. “On the ground, kids are the key. I have such a passion for kids. At the policy level, I would like to see budgetary allocations for nutrition from in utero. We can lose them there. If nutrition is taken care of early enough, it solves a lot of problems. The cliché, ‘They are the future leaders,’ is true, but they can only be leaders if you give them the tools.”