SHiFT: Catalyzing Food Systems Transformation

Published 22/01/2024. Sustainable Healthy Diets is the only CGIAR Initiative with the main goal of ensuring sustainable healthy diets for all through food systems transformation.

The International Food Policy Research Institute and the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT lead SHiFT in close collaboration with Wageningen University and Research and with contributions from the International Potato Center. 

SHiFT combines high-quality nutritional and social science research capacity with development partnerships to generate innovative, robust solutions that contribute to healthier, more sustainable dietary choices and consumption of sustainable healthy diets. It builds on CGIAR’s track record of agricultural research for development, including ten years of work on food systems and nutrition under the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH).

This Initiative will work in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Vietnam in the first phase, followed by India, Benin, Senegal, Guatemala and Honduras.

Proposed 3-year outcomes include:

1. Stakeholders initiate implementation of at least two solutions (innovations or policies) to increase the demand for sustainable healthy diets and/or improve the ability of MSMEs and the informal sector to deliver sustainable nutritious foods in three target countries.
2. Stakeholders initiate implementation of at least two solutions (innovations or policies) to tackle gender and youth equality and social inclusion in food systems in three target countries.
3. Stakeholders show a significant increase in their ability to engage in governance and political economy issues and/or to navigate trade-offs in food systems transformation in three target countries.Stakeholders improve the design and implementation of the national roadmap towards food systems transformation for sustainable healthy diets in three target countries.

Related:

November 28-29, 2023, the CGIAR Research Initiative on Sustainable Healthy Diets through Food Systems Transformation (SHiFT) held its first research partner meeting to share research findings, evaluate progress, and set goals for the future.

• The hybrid meeting was based in three locations—Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Hanoi, Viet Nam; and Wageningen, Netherlands.
• Researchers Marion Herens and Brenda Shenute Namugumya from SHiFT’s Work Package 5 on Catalyzing Food Systems Transformation (WP5) presented the activities and key accomplishments in 2023.

WP5 has three major objectives: 

1. Engage in national multistakeholder consultative processes to develop and support food systems transformation; 
2.  monitor and document food systems transformation in the target countries; and 
3. develop capacity to engage in, support, and monitor food systems transformation toward sustainable healthy diets.

Representatives from six national partners from Ethiopia and Viet Nam provided an opportunity for SHiFT researchers to hear more about the countries’ food systems agendas and how their priorities are quickly evolving.

To advance their work on capacity building, WP5 researchers plan to tailor their capacity-strengthening approaches for their Strategic Partners, based on the capabilities prioritized by each partner. They will also provide one-on-one coaching to strengthen the Strategic Partners’ capabilities to support transformative change and extend their capacity assessment to relevant platforms.