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IFPRI at the UN Food Systems Pre-Summit:
Johan Swinnen, IFPRI’s Director General, and Jemimah Njuki, IFPRI’s Director for Africa and UNFSS Gender Lever Custodian, attended the UN Food Systems Pre-Summit in Rome last month. During the three-day event, they represented IFPRI at a range of official and affiliate sessions, and connected with food systems stakeholders from around the world!
Swinnen participated in sessions about partnerships and research for the 2030 agenda, the hidden costs of food systems transformation, and a new consensus for smallholder farmers. As a co-convener of the UNFSS Finance Lever, Swinnen also moderated a session on how to scale finance for sustainable food systems. Njuki led a session on gender equality and women’s empowerment in food systems, and participated in discussions on gender transformative approaches for sustainable food, and women’s nutrition, economic empowerment, and leadership.
You can click here for more details on IFPRI’s participation in the Pre-Summit, and here to stay up to date with all our UNFSS-related activities!
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Crisis for Nutrition: A new paper with contributions from IFPRI’s Derek Headey, Marie Ruel, and David Laborde lays out how the pandemic will likely exacerbate maternal and child undernutrition and child mortality in LMICs. After developing three scenarios for 2020–2022, they estimated that an additional $1.2 billion per year towards scaling up nutrition interventions would be needed to mitigate the adverse effects. (Read Article)
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A Healthy Inheritance: Using nationally representative data for India on mothers and their children, Samuel Scott and colleagues found that women who participated in India’s Mid-Day Meal scheme in primary school went on to have children who show improved linear growth. This is the first study providing evidence that the health benefits of free school meals are intergenerational. (Read Article)
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Generational Differences: In Kyrgyzstan, young and older children exposed to reductions in predicted household income showed declines in health and nutrition, while instances of overweight and obesity decreased among adults. Katrina Kosec and Jie Song discuss their findings in a new paper. (Read Article)
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Maize Management: Adam Komarek, Arkadeep Bandyopadhyay, Jawoo Koo, et al. studied the effects of maize leaf stripping on crop-livestock systems in Northern Ghana. They identified associated trade-offs and synergies, and highlighted the importance of examining the implications of crop management changes beyond the field. (Read Article)
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Urban Health Suffers Amid Pandemic: COVID-19 has negatively affected maternal and child health and nutrition service provision and utilization for urban dwellers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, according to Phuong Hong Nguyen and colleagues. Further investments in healthcare systems are needed to mitigate the ongoing impacts. (Read Article)
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COVID School Closures Leave Students Hungry:
In Nigeria, abrupt nationwide school closures beginning in March 2020 left more than 9 million students without regular school meals. This disruption to school feeding services has exacerbated food insecurity for households with primary school children, increasing the probability that a household skipped a meal in the last 30 days by 9 percentage points. Poorer households and households with single mothers have been particularly hard hit. Kibrom Abay and Mulubrhan Amare report in our latest COVID-19 blog post. ( Read Blog)
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IFPRI at the UNFSS Science Days: IFPRI made a splash at the UNFSS Science Days side events, and many of the highlights are captured on our blog! Click to catch up on discussions about the promise of the commons for sustainable and equitable food systems (blog), reforming agricultural policies to support food systems transformation (blog), and how groundwater can play a key role in transforming Africa’s food systems (blog). IFPRI also streamed a CGIAR side event on COVID-19, food systems, and One Health in an urbanizing world.
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Mapping Innovation: Which food system innovations have proven effective for healthier, more sustainable diets? Our blog post by Els Lecoutere, Marrit van den Berg, and Alan de Brauw presents three types of innovations that show potential, and debuts a new interactive evidence map based on findings from 150 relevant studies. (Read Blog)
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T20 Talks: At the T20 Forum on Climate Change in May, IFPRI’s Director General Johan Swinnen joined representatives from across the global food system to explore options for building a green future and making food systems more resilient after the pandemic. Our blog post by Swati Malhorta shares highlights from their discussion. (Read Blog or Read the Matera Declaration)
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Time to Reframe: Researchers have proposed a new concept for measuring women’s empowerment: “time-use agency.” Jessica Heckert et al. explain how their new approach could bridge the research gap on the link between time poverty and empowerment, and outline the next steps for implementing this concept in the field. (Read Blog)
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AAEA Awards Ceremony: On August 2nd, IFPRI researchers received two prestigious awards from the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA). Johan Swinnen was awarded the Quality of Communications Award for IFPRI’s communications around the book “COVID-19 and Global Food Security,” edited by Johan Swinnen and John McDermott. In addition, Will Martin was named a 2021 AAEA Fellow—the association’s highest honor—for his contributions to the field of agricultural and applied economics. ( Read the Press Release)
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New CGIAR Portfolio: CGIAR has announced an exciting new research and innovation prospectus to help radically realign food, land, and water systems during this climate crisis. The portfolio, which currently consists of 33 Initiatives, sets out the future focus of a more integrated and impactful One CGIAR. ( Learn More)
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 Gender inequalities are both a cause and an outcome of unsustainable food systems and unjust food access, consumption, and production; as food systems transform, they must do so in ways that are just and equitable, and in which women and girls are meaningfully engaged and benefit from these transformations,” – Jemimah Njuki, Director for Africa at IFPRI and Custodian of the UNFSS Gender Lever. (Event)
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Empowering smallholders through innovation will make food systems more equitable, sustainable, and resilient,” – Johan Swinnen, Director General, IFPRI. (Event)
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Science can bridge the gap between sustainability and profitability to support the transformation of food systems,” – Deissy Martinez-Baron, Regional Coordinator for CCAFS, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. (Event)
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Groundwater is a key resource for climate resilience, environmental protection and improving the socio-economic conditions of [Africa’s] populace,” – Moshood Tijani, African Ministers’ Council on Water. (Event)
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Our food systems are facing challenges we have never seen before that require rapid transformation of our policy; just marginal improvement is not good enough,” – Shenggen Fan, Chair professor, College of Economics Management at China Agricultural University. (Event)
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We need to adopt a systems focus so that we can look at the overall economic challenges in urban and peri-urban settings,” – Silvia Alonso Alvarez, Senior Scientist Epidemiologist, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). (Event)
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“Hunger and Unrest”: Joseph Glauber was quoted in a Financial Times article about how hunger has played a role in many conflicts around the world. “It’s the spark that lights the fire,” he said, citing significant events in northern Africa and Mexico.
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