Compact2025 News in Brief: October 16, 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.

UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children report explores the changing face of malnutrition

For the first time in 20 years, UNICEF’s flagship report examines the issue of children, food, and nutrition, providing a fresh perspective on a rapidly evolving challenge. It finds that despite progress in the past two decades, one third of children under age 5 are malnourished and two thirds are at risk of malnutrition and hidden hunger because of the poor quality of their diets.

Global Hunger Index 2019

The progress made in the global fight against hunger is severely endangered, and the situation has even worsened in some regions. This is the conclusion to be drawn from the 2019 Global Hunger Index: The Challenge of Hunger and Climate Change, which calculates the nutrition situation in 117 countries and was launched on October 15 by Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide.

FAO report examines food loss and waste

FAO’s State of Food and Agriculture 2019 finds that globally around 14 percent of the world's food is lost after harvesting and before reaching the retail level, including through on-farm activities, storage, and transportation. The report provides insights into how much food is lost at different stages of the food supply chain, calls for informed decisions for an effective reduction, and offers new ways to measure progress.

Global Report on Food Crises mid-year update

The first-ever mid-year update to the Global Report on Food Crises provides a revised look at the severity of current global food crises in terms of numbers of acutely food-insecure people and whether situations are improving, deteriorating, or stable. Findings include that Yemen continues to be the world’s largest food insecurity crisis, the situation in Ethiopia has deteriorated, and situations in northern Nigeria and South Sudan have slightly improved.

Asian Development Bank reports reduced stunting for Asia and the Pacific

The prevalence of stunting in children below the age of 5 years has fallen in 26 of 30 Asian Development Bank member economies since 2000. The ADB report Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2019 presents a comprehensive set of economic, financial, social, environmental, and SDG indicators for the organization’s regional members. It is also accompanied this year by an interactive Key Indicators Database .

Ethiopian children living close to markets with diverse products have slightly more diverse diets

A study in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics finds that children in rural Ethiopia who live close to markets that sell more non-staple food groups have slightly more diverse diets. The associations are similar in magnitude to those describing the relationship between dietary diversity and household production diversity; and for some food groups, notably dairy, household and community production of that food is especially important.

Estimating nutrition progress in India by applying the Lives Saved Tool

A study in Health Policy and Planning uses the Lives Saved Tool (LiST) to model the impact of scaling up health programs in India between 2006 and 2016 and compares estimates to observed changes. Results suggest that the tool provides plausibly accurate aggregate projections over periods as long as a decade, though it may be less reliable at subnational levels.

World Food Day 2019

On October 16, events around the world will mark World Food Day and highlight the importance of healthy diets for a zero hunger world.

Winners of My Food, Our Future video contest announced

Congratulations to the winners of IFPRI’s My Food, Our Future video competition! The contest called on young people in two different age categories to submit a creative short film with their ideas and solutions to help ensure global access to healthy, diverse, and affordable diets.

Committee on World Food Security’s 46^th session

The 46^th session of the Committee on World Food Security takes place October 14–18 in Rome, Italy, and will feature sessions on topics including the Sustainable Development Goals, food systems and nutrition, and multi-stakeholder partnerships. IFPRI is co-organizing with partners several side events that will complement the main agenda:

2019 Borlaug Dialogue on food security, conflict, and development

From October 16–18, the 2019 Borlaug Dialogue International Symposium will be convened in Des Moines, Iowa. Its theme “Pax Agricultura: Peace Through Agriculture” addresses the increasingly intersectional issues of food security, conflict, and development.

Big Data in Agriculture convention 2019

The annual convention of the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture takes place October 16–18 in Hyderabad, India. The event will focus on the theme “Trust: Humans, Machines, and Ecosystems,” and explore how trust—be it in institutions, firms, communities, or technologies—will be necessary to capture the potential of innovative solutions for food security.

Incorporating prevention into community-based management of acute malnutrition

IFPRI researchers synthesize the findings from two studies assessing the impact of preventative interventions on the incidence and prevalence of acute malnutrition in Burkina Faso and Mali. They report in their blog post that the interventions increased acute malnutrition screening coverage by an impressive 20 to 40 percentage points. However, this had no effect on treatment coverage, suggesting that there are still barriers preventing children from being referred to, enrolled in, and treated by community-based programs.

The Power of Nutrition Inc. names its first President in the US

The Power of Nutrition announced that Keith Hansen will serve as the inaugural president for The Power of Nutrition (USA), Inc. Hansen is a prominent global health systems expert and expected to play a key role as The Power of Nutrition expands its presence, most notably in the lead-up to the Nutrition for Growth Summit in Japan in 2020.

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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