Compact2025 News in Brief: January 9, 2019

Food security and nutrition trends in Europe and Central Asia

FAO finds in its “Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition: Europe and Central Asia 2018” that the prevalence of food insecurity in the region is lower than the world average. However, the decreasing trend has stagnated since 2014 in some sub-regions, and their growing levels of overweight and obesity are cause for serious concern.

Put rural girls front and center to achieve SDGs

The report “Girls Leading: From Rural Economies to Global Solutions” from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs—chaired by Compact2025 Leadership Council member Catherine Bertini— recommends seven specific actions to empower rural girls, including improving data collection about rural adolescent girls, boosting secondary school enrollment, and preparing girls to be stakeholders in agriculture and natural resource management.

Nutrition—not just calories—will be the key food security challenge

A study in Nature Sustainability finds that the greatest food security challenge in 2050 will be providing nutritious diets rather than adequate calories. Research priorities and policies should emphasize nutritional quality by increasing availability and affordability of nutrient-dense foods and improving dietary diversity.

Training can increase nutrition-sensitive farming

Intensive agricultural training can increase adoption of nutrition-sensitive agricultural technologies—such as biofortified crops—finds a study by researchers from the University of Goettingen and University of Nairobi.

Food security vs. nutrition outcomes in South Asia

Despite improvement, political commitment is still tilted towards food security and leaders must work across sectors from national to community levels to address malnutrition finds a review by IFPRI researchers that looked into enabling environments and governance to drive nutrition outcomes in South Asia.

Gender analysis needed in nutrition programming

In a technical paper the Sustainable Nutrition for All project calls on policymakers and governments to use an intra-household lens to understand gender dynamics within nutrition programming.

Key nutrition and water linkages in the SDGs

A CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land, and Ecosystems paper describes the key water-nutrition linkages reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals. It identifies knowledge gaps in these linkages and provides policy recommendations.