Compact2025 News in Brief: May 15, 2019

To accelerate progress to end hunger and undernutrition around the world, the News in Brief informs partners on emerging research and innovation, developments in global, regional, and national policies and programs, and timely news and events. Please feel free to share any feedback at IFPRI-Compact2025@cgiar.org. Find the latest developments in Compact2025 here.

EU supports UN global initiative to address root causes of rural gender inequalities

The EU will allocate 5 million euros to finance a four-year program of FAO, IFAD, and WFP to address the root causes of rural gender inequalities including discriminatory gender norms and behaviors and unequal power relations. This joint initiative on Gender-Transformative Approaches will strengthen efforts to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.

Unprecedented decline in global biodiversity

Around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction reports the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems will undermine progress towards 80% of the assessed targets of the Sustainable Development Goals—including those related to ending hunger and poverty. IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan reflects on why transforming food systems will be critical to maintain biodiversity for planetary and human health in an IFPRI blog post that first appeared on the Thomson Reuters Foundation News site.

Responding to conflict: “Cash plus” has positive nutritional impacts

An IFPRI policy brief shows that cash transfers combined with nutritional education can have significant positive impacts on maternal and child nutrition in a conflict setting. Evidence from an impact evaluation of Yemen’s Cash for Nutrition program shows that “cash plus” had positive impacts on maternal and child dietary diversity, children’s height and weight measures, and fewer children being diagnosed with moderate or severe acute malnutrition.

Global review of food-based dietary guidelines

A review of national food-based dietary guidelines in 90 countries finds that some of the World Health Organization’s recommendations appear nearly universally, such as consuming a variety of foods and limiting sugar, fat, and salt. Guidelines on dairy, red meat, fats and oils, and nuts are more variable. The authors suggest to consider environmental sustainability and increased attention to sociocultural factors as future frontiers for the development of these types of guidelines.

Food security interventions: Identifying and locating major bottlenecks

An article in World Development outlines a typology to help design and improve spatial targeting of food and nutrition security interventions by identifying and locating major food security bottlenecks. The proposed approach can be adjusted to fit the conditions of most developing countries.

Urban food systems for better diets, nutrition, and health

On May 17, IFPRI will host a special event presenting the Institute’s new research program on Urban Food Systems for Better Diets, Nutrition, and Health. Invited guests will share experiences and provide examples of ongoing initiatives, policies, and partnerships that are successfully tackling issues of urban diets, nutrition, and health among the urban poor.

Empowering women in agricultural development projects is worth the investment

An IFPRI blog post responds to a recent article in Inside Philanthropy that questioned whether empowering women improves development outcomes such as reducing hunger. Evidence indicates that empowering women does improve economic growth and well-being. The blog post calls for the development community to innovate, test, and evaluate new ways to empower women in agriculture, and beyond.

2019 GFPR launches in Ethiopia and Rwanda

Ethiopia and Rwanda—two Compact2025 focal countries—recently launched the 2019 Global Food Policy Report. During events in Addis Ababa and Kigali, participants discussed key issues for rural areas and the opportunities for rural transformation and revitalization. The Rwanda launch event featured a keynote address by H.E. Édouard Ngirente, Prime Minister of Rwanda and Compact2025 Leadership Council member.

Arun Baral appointed CEO of HarvestPlus

HarvestPlus announced that Arun Baral will be the global program’s next chief executive officer (CEO). He succeeds founder and World Food Prize recipient Howarth “Howdy” Bouis, who is retiring. Baral currently serves as chief financial officer at HarvestPlus and will become CEO on July 1, 2019.

G20 Agriculture Ministers urged to transform food systems for people and planet

In an address to the G20 Agriculture Ministers on May 11, IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan called on members to take urgent action to transform food systems for human and planetary health including: 1) shifting agricultural priorities from producing high quantities of staple foods to producing healthy food sustainably; 2) using a food-systems approach to reduce food losses and waste; and 3) giving direction to new and potentially transformative technologies for food systems.

Highlights from this and past Compact2025 News in Briefs, along with other key resources, can be found at the Compact2025 Knowledge & Innovation Hub resources page.

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