Download or read book Leveraging food systems to reduce poverty and malnutrition written by Raza, A and Soares, F. and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2020-12-18 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even though substantial progress has been achieved worldwide in reducing both poverty and malnutrition, much is yet to be done. There are signs that the progress made in both dimensions has stalled in recent years. Poor-quality diets have become a major driver for overweight and obesity and associated non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases, and some types of cancers. Conflict and climate vulnerability have been identified as major obstacles to reaching Sustainable Development Goal targets related to malnutrition by 2030. In 2019, economic downturns and slowdowns hindered efforts even further. More recently, the COVID-19 crisis has imposed even harsher conditions to countries.Poverty and malnutrition are inevitably linked, and therefore addressing one can help address the other. Given that most of the world’s extremely poor people and stunted children live primarily in rural areas and rely mostly on agriculture, the agriculture and food systems approach can offer an opportunity to reduce both poverty and malnutrition. The food systems approach places equal emphasis on both the supply and demand dimensions that are critical for ensuring healthier diets and better nutrition for poor and vulnerable groups.This special issue of Policy in Focus is dedicated to answering a crucial question: How can a food systems approach be used to design and implement policies and investments that reach those most vulnerable to poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and suboptimal diets? We hope that the contributions contained in this volume, by leading academics and development practitioners, exploring the linkages between nutrition, food systems, and poverty, can help stakeholders and policymakers make inroads towards the promotion of food and nutrition security and the reduction of rural poverty.

Download or read book Food Policy for Developing Countries written by Per Pinstrup-Andersen and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-15 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite technological advances in agriculture, nearly a billion people around the world still suffer from hunger and poor nutrition while a billion are overweight or obese. This imbalance highlights the need not only to focus on food production but also to implement successful food policies. In this new textbook intended to be used with the three volumes of Case Studies in Food Policy for Developing Countries (also from Cornell), the 2001 World Food Prize laureate Per Pinstrup-Andersen and his colleague Derrill D. Watson II analyze international food policies and discuss how such policies can and must address the many complex challenges that lie ahead in view of continued poverty, globalization, climate change, food price volatility, natural resource degradation, demographic and dietary transitions, and increasing interests in local and organic food production. Food Policy for Developing Countries offers a "social entrepreneurship" approach to food policy analysis. Calling on a wide variety of disciplines including economics, nutrition, sociology, anthropology, environmental science, medicine, and geography, the authors show how all elements in the food system function together.

Download or read book Nutrition sensitive social protection programs within food systems written by Olney, Deanna K. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Investments in social assistance programs (SAPs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are increasing. As investments increase, the objectives of these programs are expanding from focusing on reducing poverty to addressing other social issues such as improving diets and nutrition. At the same time, there is increasing interest in addressing all forms of malnutrition within the framework of food systems. Given the intersections between SAPs and food systems, we reviewed the effectiveness of SAPs (agriculture asset transfers, cash transfers, in-kind transfers, vouchers, public works and school meals programs) for reducing all forms of malnutrition across the lifecycle within a food systems framework. As several programs included multiple treatment arms, each representing a unique program design, we used study arm as the unit of analysis and assessed the proportion of study arms with positive or negative program impacts on diet and nutrition outcomes among men, women and children. The majority of the studies included in this review were from evaluations of agriculture asset, cash and in-kind transfer programs. There was clear evidence of positive impacts on women’s and children’s diet-related outcomes. Very few studies assessed program impact on women’s nutritional status outcomes. However, there was some evidence of impacts on increasing body mass index and hemoglobin concentration (Hb) with in-kind transfer programs. Among children, several study arms across the agriculture asset, cash and in-kind transfer programs found positive impacts on increasing height-for-age Z-score (33%-45% of study arms) and weight-for-height Z-score (33%-50% of study arms) and decreasing the prevalence of wasting (43%-60% of study arms). Cash and in-kind transfer programs also found positive effects on reducing stunting prevalence in 33% and 45% of study arms, respectively. Lastly, a few study arms assessed program impact on increasing Hb with some evidence of positive impacts in in-kind and school feeding programs. There was a paucity of relevant evidence of the effectiveness of voucher and public works programs on diet and nutrition outcomes, for men’s outcomes and on micronutrient status. Several challenges remain in understanding the potential for SAPs to improve diet and nutrition outcomes within food systems including the heterogeneity of program and evaluation designs, populations targeted by the programs and included in evaluations and indicators used to assess impact. Addressing these challenges in future evaluations is important for informing program and policy actions to improve the effectiveness of SAPs within food systems for improving diet and nutrition outcomes across the lifecycle.

Download or read book A guidance note to enhance nutrition sensitivity in Global Environment Facility investments and programming written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2023-08-11 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the aim of enhancing nutrition sensitivity in Global Environment Facility (GEF) investments and programming, this guidance note is based on a review of 12 purposively selected GEF-6 and GEF-7 projects within the FAO portfolio identified as having the potential to be nutrition-sensitive. Following an agrifood systems approach, the guidance note provides a list of potential opportunities for action that could be considered in GEF project design to ensure nutrition gains are achieved as co-benefits alongside the formally set global environmental benefit (GEB) targets. The note is the result of the collaboration between the Food and Nutrition Division of FAO and the FAO OCB-GEF Coordination Unit.

Download or read book The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions. The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report puts a spotlight on diet quality as a critical link between food security and nutrition. Meeting SDG 2 targets will only be possible if people have enough food to eat and if what they are eating is nutritious and affordable. The report also introduces new analysis of the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. It presents valuations of the health and climate-change costs associated with current food consumption patterns, as well as the potential cost savings if food consumption patterns were to shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report then concludes with a discussion of the policies and strategies to transform food systems to ensure affordable healthy diets, as part of the required efforts to end both hunger and all forms of malnutrition.

Download or read book Food system innovations for healthier diets in low and middle income countries written by de Brauw, Alan and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Malnutrition in all its forms is a major challenge everywhere in the world, and particularly in low and middle income countries. To reduce malnutrition, innovations in food systems are needed to both provide sufficient options for consumers to obtain diets with adequate nutritional value, and to help consumers make conscious and unconscious choices to choose healthier diets. A potential solution to this challenge is food systems innovations designed to lead to healthier diets. In this paper, we lay out a multidisciplinary framework for both identifying and analyzing innovations in food systems that can lead to improvements in the choices available to consumers and their diets from a health perspective. The framework identifies entry points for the design of potential food systems innovations, highlighting potential synergies, feedback, and tradeoffs within the food system. The paper concludes by providing examples of potential innovations and describes future research that can be developed to support the role of food systems in providing healthier diets.

Download or read book Global Food Systems Diets and Nutrition written by Jessica Fanzo and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-06-05 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ensuring optimal diets and nutrition for the global population is a grand challenge fraught with many contentious issues. To achieve food security for all and protect health, we need functional, equitable, and sustainable food systems. Food systems are highly complex networks of individuals and institutions that depend on governance and policy leadership. This book explains how interconnected food systems and policies affect diets and nutrition in high-, middle-, and low-income countries. In tandem with food policy, food systems determine the availability, affordability, and nutritional quality of the food supply, which influences the diets that people are willing and able to consume. Readers will become familiar with both domestic and international food policy processes and actors, and they will be able to critically analyze and debate how policy and science affect diet and nutrition outcomes.

Download or read book The Fight Against Hunger and Malnutrition written by David E. Sahn and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advances in science and policy during the past 50 years have prevented the predicted widespread food shortages as the world's population soared. Malnutrition, however, remains prevalent. This book details strategies and practical approaches designed to alleviate hunger and malnutrition in a new era where technological change, markets, patterns of governance, and social programs have an increasingly global dimension. More specifically, this book addresses a range of considerations including the role of small farmers in a world where the global reach of multinational corporations have enormous control from the farm to local markets and the grocery store; misgivings and misperceptions about genetically modified foods; the increasing competition of food and energy sectors for agricultural output; the importance of micronutrient deficiencies and chronic disease related to obesity, which often coexists in the same communities as hunger; and issues of sustainability of the food and agricultural system in an period when there is increasing concerns over global warming and environmental degradation. Currently there is also more emphasis on evidence-based policymaking, which has raised the standard of proof for evaluating the impact of micro-level interventions that have traditionally been so widely embraced and are now under increased scrutiny. It is in this context that this book provides practical advice on programs that can effectively target those at greatest risk of malnutrition and guidance on policies to promote a healthy and sustainable food and agricultural system. Overlaying all of these challenges is the book's emphasis on both identifying data and information needs for decision-making, and practical considerations for better understanding the domestic and international political and social constraints that need to be addressed when trying to translate scientific knowledge and information into practice.

Download or read book Social analysis for inclusive agrifood investments written by Christensen, I. and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2023-12-12 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than a decade has passed since the publication of the series entitled Social Analysis of Agriculture and Rural Investment Projects, which comprises three complementary manuals – the Manager’s, Practitioner’s and Field guides. During this time, conflict, climate change and economic downturns have been driving up poverty, hunger, and socioeconomic inequalities, reducing the resilience of agrifood systems. In response, the FAO Investment Centre has updated the Social Analysis guides to address the evolving and volatile rural transformation context, providing programme managers, practitioners and field workers with a set of enhanced tools for the design, implementation and evaluation of inclusive investments in agrifood systems. Today’s investments must prioritize more demand-driven, people-centred, culturally sensitive and locally owned sustainable approaches, with increased attention to reducing gender and other inequalities. Operationalizing these principles contributes to FAO’s and financing agencies’ objectives of ending poverty, improving food security and nutrition, and reducing inequalities. The goal of the updated guides is to support investments that contribute to inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, aligned with the outcomes of the UN Food Systems Summit, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the core principle of leaving no one behind. This publication is part of the Investment Toolkits series under the FAO Investment Centre's Knowledge for Investment (K4I) series. The contents of this publication have been turned into three e-leaning courses, which are accessible for free through the FAO E-learning Academy.

Download or read book Transforming Food Systems for a Rising India written by Prabhu Pingali and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2019-05-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book examines the interactions between India’s economic development, agricultural production, and nutrition through the lens of a “Food Systems Approach (FSA).” The Indian growth story is a paradoxical one. Despite economic progress over the past two decades, regional inequality, food insecurity and malnutrition problems persist. Simultaneously, recent trends in obesity along with micro-nutrient deficiency portend to a future public health crisis. This book explores various challenges and opportunities to achieve a nutrition-secure future through diversified production systems, improved health and hygiene environment and greater individual capability to access a balanced diet contributing to an increase in overall productivity. The authors bring together the latest data and scientific evidence from the country to map out the current state of food systems and nutrition outcomes. They place India within the context of other developing country experiences and highlight India’s status as an outlier in terms of the persistence of high levels of stunting while following global trends in obesity. This book discusses the policy and institutional interventions needed for promoting a nutrition-sensitive food system and the multi-sectoral strategies needed for simultaneously addressing the triple burden of malnutrition in India.

Download or read book Nutrition and Health in a Developing World written by Saskia de Pee and published by Humana Press. This book was released on 2017-02-13 with total page 827 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This third edition reviews the epidemiology, policies, programs and outcome indicators that are used to determine improvements in nutrition and health that lead to development. This greatly expanded third edition provides policy makers, nutritionists, students, scientists, and professionals with the most recent and up-to-date knowledge regarding major health and nutritional problems in developing countries. Policies and programs that address the social and economic determinants of nutrition and health are now gaining in importance as methods to improve the status of the most vulnerable people in the world. This volume provides the most current research and strategies so that policy makers, program managers, researchers and students have knowledge and resources that they can use to advance methods for improving the public’s health and the development of nations. The third edition of Nutrition and Health in Developing Countries takes on a new context where the word “developing” is now a verb and not an adjective.

Download or read book FAO framework on rural extreme poverty written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2019-05-01 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, about 783 million people live in extreme poverty. Extreme poverty is primarily a rural phenomenon, with 80 percent of the extreme poor living in rural areas, across greatly diverse rural landscapes. Despite great progress in poverty reduction, the standard of living of the poorest of the poor has remained almost unchanged in the past 35 years, signaling that a huge gap in policy making and programmatic approaches are leaving them behind. FAO has established a Corporate Framework on Rural Extreme Poverty to orient and bring to bear the relevant work of the Organization towards reaching Target 1.1 of the SDGs. Eliminating extreme poverty is directly linked to eliminating hunger (SDG 2), as well as other SDGs. When the extreme poor have means to a better life, they no longer suffer from hunger and can invest in a better future for their families and communities. The Framework reinforces the application of other Corporate Frameworks, particularly those related to gender equality, social protection, sustaining peace, and migration. This makes the Framework applicable to many areas of FAO’s work, accelerating efforts to eliminate extreme poverty in rural areas. The Framework identifies four key areas to reach the rural extreme poor: ensuring food security and nutrition, promoting economic inclusion, fostering environmentally sustainable and resilient livelihoods and preventing and protecting the extreme poor against risks and shocks. To ensure its ability to eradicate rural extreme poverty, the Framework establishes the following five deliverables: 1. Better align the areas of FAO’s mandate into global and national actions to eradicate extreme poverty. 2. Increased capacity to reach the extreme poor by undertaking poverty analysis 3. Develop dedicated and integrated approaches for the rural extreme poor. 4. Ensure that FAO’s actions do not create poverty. 5. Account for FAO’s contribution to SDG 1, and in particular, to Target 1.1.

Download or read book Food Security and Nutrition written by Charis M. Galanakis and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2020-11-02 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food and nutrition security - identified via availability, access, utilization, and stability - and transitions to sustainable food systems are major discourses in the agro-food arena, as many countries today experience different forms of malnutrition simultaneously, such as child undernutrition, anemia among women, and adult obesity. Meanwhile, the triple burden of malnutrition (undernutrition, overnutrition, and micronutrient deficiency) is still widespread. Food Security and Nutrition explores integrated, context-specific approaches to food security challenges, emphasizing nutrition security as an integral component and addressing the implications of food content to food and nutrition security policies. Providing insight into these challenges through agricultural, policy, nutritional, geographic and sustainability lenses, Food Security and Nutrition is a valuable reference for food scientists and nutrition researchers working in food supply, food security, and nutrition security, and policy makers, investors, and other decision-makers seeking to address food insecurity around the world. Addresses nutrition security as part of the overall challenge of food security Explores contributing factors that impact both food and nutrition security Presents insights into effective policy development and implementation

Download or read book Building a More Sustainable Resilient Equitable and Nourishing Food System written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by . This book was released on 2021-07-03 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On July 22-23, 2020, the Food Forum of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a virtual workshop that explored the integration of the health, societal, economic, and environmental effects and future needs of the food system. The main objective of the 1.5-day workshop was to understand how to achieve a more sustainable, resilient, equitable, and nourishing food system. Workshop sessions examined three main dimensions of the food system: vulnerabilities, resiliency, and transformation. The workshop included discussions on global change, access to health and food, resiliency in complex dynamic systems and resiliency for the future, and consumption- and production-oriented strategies that could transform the food system. This publication highlights the presentation and discussion of the workshop.

Download or read book Making Better Policies for Food Systems written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-11 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food systems around the world face a triple challenge: providing food security and nutrition for a growing global population; supporting livelihoods for those working along the food supply chain; and contributing to environmental sustainability. Better policies hold tremendous promise for making progress in these domains.

Download or read book The State of the World s Forests 2018 written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2018-07-06 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly three years ago, world leaders agreed to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the central framework for guiding development policies throughout the world. This edition of The State of the World’s Forests is aimed at enhancing our understanding of how forests and their sustainable management contribute to achieving several of the SDGs. Time is running out for the world’s forests: we need to work across sectors, bring stakeholders together, and take urgent action. The State of the World’s Forests 2018 identifies actions that can be taken to increase the contributions of forests and trees that are necessary to accelerate progress towards the SDGs. It is now critical that steps be taken to work more effectively with the private sector, and the informal forest sector must be transformed in order to bring broader economic, social and environmental benefits. Seventy years ago, when FAO completed its first assessment of the world’s forest resources, the major concern was whether there would be enough timber to supply global demand; now we recognize the greater global relevance of our forests and trees. For the first time, The State of the World’s Forests 2018 provides an assessment of the contribution of forests and trees to our landscapes and livelihoods. The purpose of this publication is to provide a much wider audience with an understanding of why forests and trees matter for people, the planet and posterity.

Download or read book Evaluation of the project Developing capacity for strengthening food security and nutrition in selected countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caucasus and Central Asian countries are strongly committed to promoting food security and nutrition among their populations. Although good progress has been made by most countries in the region, food insecurity and malnutrition remain relatively high and greater efforts are needed to address their root causes. Moreover, wide gaps in terms of income, food security and nutrition, and access to social services have caused substantial migration from rural areas to neighbouring countries. The FAO project on developing capacity for strengthening food security and nutrition in selected countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia aims to promote cross-sectoral collaboration between agriculture, health, education and social protection sectors by carrying out six pilot projects in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. These pilots build capacities at field and governmental level and provide an evidence base to build political commitment and coherence for the development of policies, legislations and programmes at the country, regional and global levels. The evaluation concluded that overall the project has been successful. The building of operational capacity among stakeholders and beneficiaries is processing well through the ongoing pilots, while high-level coordination and policy dialogue, and the contribution to global policy processes and frameworks need more time to materialize. The evaluation makes a number of recommendations to further enhance project design, implementation, monitoring and sustainability, and proposes a second phase of at least 1-2 years to consolidate and expand achievements.