Compact2025 News in Brief: September 4, 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.

WHO member states adopt strategic plan to reduce malnutrition in Africa

The World Health Organization adopted a strategic plan to reduce the double burden of malnutrition in Africa at its 69th Regional Committee meeting for the African Region. The plan aims to strengthen evidence-based policies and national capacity and contains clear targets to be achieved by 2025. Priority interventions include reinforcing legislation and food safety standards, using fiscal measures to incentivize healthy food choices, and integrating essential nutrition actions in health service delivery platforms.

Food security projected to improve in 76 low- and middle-income countries by 2029

The annual International Food Security Assessment 2019-2029 by USDA’s Economic Research Service estimates that the share of food-insecure people in 76 low- and middle-income countries will fall from 19.3 percent in 2019 to 9.2 percent in 2029. However, some regions will face greater challenges than others—Africa South of the Sahara, while expected to improve, is still projected to have 22.5 percent of its population classified as food insecure.

Hunger, nutrition, and precipitation

A study in Population and Environment finds an association between precipitation shocks and household hunger in both Ghana and Bangladesh, as well as an association between higher rainfall and worse child nutrition in Ghana.

Water quality and subsidies

Two new World Bank reports investigate key issues related to water. Quality Unknown: The Invisible Water Crisis finds that a lack of clean water limits economic growth by one-third. It calls for immediate global, national, and local-level attention to water quality dangers that face both developed and developing countries. Doing More with Less: Smarter Subsidies for Water Supply and Sanitation concludes that water and sanitation subsidies are disproportionately benefitting the better-off and offers proposals for making public resources work even harder for the poor.

Commercialization of smallholder agriculture and farm household nutrition

Commercialization of smallholder agriculture in Kenya significantly improves food security and dietary quality, contributes to higher incomes and increased nutrients from purchased foods, and does not reduce the consumption of nutrients from own‐produced foods. The authors of an article in the Journal of Agricultural Economics conclude that enhancing market access is important not only for rural economic growth, but also for making smallholder agriculture more nutrition‐sensitive.

The role of information diffusion and social norms in nutrition interventions

A study in the Journal of Nutrition examines how mothers’ social networks, diffusion of information, and social norms link receipt of intervention messages and infant and young child feeding practices in Bangladesh. The authors conclude that diffusion of information through social networks—reinforced by positive social norms for messages promoted over time—will contribute to positive changes in infant and young child feeding practices.

Economic evaluation of multisectoral actions for health and nutrition

The Agriculture, Nutrition, and Health Academy has launched a technical brief that focuses on the challenge of measuring and comparing health improvements from programs and policies affecting agricultural production, farmers’ livelihoods, and the food environment of urban and rural households.

Community strategies to reduce child undernutrition in eastern India

An evaluation of two community strategies to reduce undernutrition among children under 3 years in rural eastern India—published in BMC Public Health—found reductions in child wasting and underweight in areas that held Participatory Learning and Action meetings with women’s groups followed by home visits. Areas that had crèches for children aged 6 months to 3 years combined with monthly Participatory Learning and Action meetings and home visits experienced reductions in child wasting, undernutrition, and stunting.

African Green Revolution Forum 2019: Digital transformation and sustainable food systems

The African Green Revolution Forum is taking place in Accra, Ghana, September 3–6. The event will focus on the theme “Grow Digital: Leveraging Digital Transformation to Drive Sustainable Food Systems in Africa.” IFPRI researchers will participate in several sessions on topics related to evidence-based leadership and data systems, enabling environments for digitalization, policy and regulatory reforms that encourage evidence gathering, and scaling up e-commerce.

Impacts of cash transfers on preventing malnutrition in Yemen

On September 5, IFPRI and the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institution, and Markets will host a policy seminar on the results of an impact evaluation of Yemen’s Cash for Nutrition program. The event will review the findings on the combination of cash transfers with nutritional education provided by the Yemen Social Fund for Development and its positive impacts on key measures of child and maternal nutrition.

Webinar: Implementation science for nutrition programming in Nepal

The Society for Implementation Science in Nutrition is hosting a webinar on September 16, sharing implementation science experiences and lessons learned from the Suaahara II program in Nepal.

Rethinking the food system to tackle climate change

In light of the UN climate change report on food and land, a blog post by Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers and IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan explores how rethinking the food system will be critical in the fight to tackle climate change. They highlight changes that must take place at every level in developing and developed countries to build a better global food system.

Bridge Spark Fund request for proposals

The Bridge Collaborative is seeking pre-proposals for the Bridge Spark Fund until October 4. The Fund will grant four US$150,000 awards to advance testing of solutions that benefit people and nature, including on the theme of “Transforming the global food system for health and sustainability.”

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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