BIFAD, an independent advisory committee to USAID on food and agriculture issues, will convene a public meeting on September 17, Demand-Side Interventions and Approaches for Healthy Diets, to shape the next steps in USAID’s strategic thinking and policy prioritization toward the objective of achieving healthy diets for all. This meeting will address evidence and evidence gaps, areas for additional research, and prioritized approaches and actions for USAID, centered around demand-side interventions and approaches to improve the processing, storage, distribution, sale, purchase, and consumption of safe and nutritious food.
Please find an agenda for the meeting at this link. The meeting included a presentation of key findings and opportunities from a draft evidence review (see below) prepared for BIFAD. Written feedback on the evidence review is welcomed and may be submitted using this public comment form until October 4.
Questions addressed at the meeting included:
- How can USAID work better with communities, national governments and private sector stakeholders to enhance consumer demand for safe and nutritious foods in ways that improve the diets of whole households, including women and children?
- How can demand-focused interventions improve the affordability of healthy diets?
- How can the progress and outcomes of demand-focused interventions be measured and evaluated?
Speakers:
- Opening Remarks - Kathy Spahn, BIFAD; President Emerita, Helen Keller Intl + Patrick Webb, USAID Chief Nutritionist
- Increasing the Demand for Safe and Nutritious Food in USAID Priority Countries through Innovations and Interventions across the Food System - Bianca Carducci, Postdoctoral Scientist at Columbia Climate School
Panel: Catalyzing Demand: Synergizing Public and Market Forces for Nutritious Diets
- Moderator: Saweda Liverpool-Tasie, BIFAD; MSU Foundation Professor, Department of Agriculture, Food and Resource Economics, Michigan State University
- Kefilwe Moalosi AU-NEPAD Nutrition Officer
- Ndidi Nwuneli, President and CEO, ONE Foundation
- Stella Nordhagen, Research Lead, Food Environments and Supply Chains, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN)
- Rolf Klemm, Vice President of Nutrition, Helen Keller Intl
Science Flash Talk: Implications of Demand-side Approaches for
Feed the Future Research
Peter Goldsmith, Director, Feed the Future Soy Innovation Lab, University of
Illinois.
Public Comment Period
Moderator: Marie Boyd, BIFAD; Associate Professor, University of South Carolina
Joseph F. Rice School of Law
The Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS): Creating
Demand for Nutrient-Rich Traditional and Indigenous Crops
Cary Fowler, U.S. Special Envoy for Global Food Security, U.S. Department of State
Panel: USAID Response
- Moderator: Patrick Webb, USAID Chief Nutritionist
- Kristin O’Planick, Market Systems Team Lead, Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security, USAID
- Getinet Ameha, Senior Agriculture Adviser, USAID/Ethiopia
- Megan Kyles, Economic Growth Office Director, USAID/Liberia
Shared resources 
BIFAD (2024) Increasing the Demand for Healthy Diets Evidence on Approaches Across the Food System in Feed the Future Contexts Pre-Published Document Released for Public Comment September 6, 2024. # 54 pp.
- The overarching goal of this research was to assess the available evidence, identify evidence gaps, recommend areas for additional research, and use the existing evidence to develop a prioritized set of opportunities for USAID consideration.
- The research also identifies important areas for USAID’s investment in measurement and evaluation.
- Feed the Future Business Drivers for Food Safety (BD4FS), funded by USAID and implemented by FES, is a multi-country (Senegal, Ethiopia, and Nepal) project that works alongside SMEs, or as they are referred to in the BD4FS project, “growing food businesses” (GFBs) to co-design and implement incentive-based strategies to accelerate the adoption of food safety practices in local food systems.
- BD4FS has developed a series of strategies and methodologies – also referred to as “tools” – for business-level assistance in food programs and for raising consumer awareness about food safety.
BD4FS (2023) Capital Mobilization for Senegalese Growing FoodBusinesses pp. 8
- To better understand barriers to financing and to learn where opportunities and synergies exist for food businesses and investors, BD4FS undertook a financial landscape assessment in Senegal in 20212 .
- This assessment identified several underlying factors that limit investment in GFBs. For one, many investors find investing in the perishable food sector too risky and have concerns that loans will not be repaid.
- More than half of the global population consumes inadequate levels of several micronutrients essential to health, including calcium, iron, and vitamins C and E, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).
- It is the first study to provide global estimates of inadequate consumption of 15 micronutrients critical to human health.
- The study was published in The Lancet Global Health on August 29. Micronutrient deficiencies are one of the most common forms of malnutrition globally, and each deficiency carries its own health consequences, from adverse pregnancy outcomes, to blindness, to increased susceptibility to infectious diseases. See article: Billions worldwide consume inadequate levels of micronutrients critical to human health
The Lancet (2024) Lancet Planetary Health–Earth Commission report on Earth-system boundaries, translations, and transformations
- The paper is a 62-page “thought experiment” by an international team of 65 natural and social scientists that seeks to map out how the world’s 7.9 billion people could remain within safe planetary boundaries while accessing necessary levels of food, water, energy, shelter and transport. It then projects how this may change by 2050, when the population is likely to be 9.7 billion people.
- Published in the Lancet Planetary Health journal on 11 September 2024, the paper first sets a justice “floor” of basic daily living standards – defined as 2,500 calories of food, 100 litres of water, and 0.7kWh of electricity, along with a living area of 15 sq metres and annual transportation of 4,500km (2,800 miles).
- Then they calculated how much space there was between this and a safety “ceiling” – which was defined by planetary boundaries – that estimated how much humanity can push the climate, ecosystems, nutrients and phosphorus and water sources without destabilising the Earth’s systems.
Businesses. 208 pp.
- Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the agriculture and food sector in Africa, which is projected to exceed a trillion dollars by 2030.
- This book is the first practical primer to equip and support entrepreneurs in Africa through the process of starting and growing successful and resilient agriculture and food businesses that will transform the continent.
- Through the use of case studies and practical guidance, the book reveals how entrepreneurs can leverage technology and innovation to leapfrog and adapt to climate change, ensuring that Africa can feed itself and even the world.
- SMEs are at the frontline when it comes to supplying food to low-income groups and have the capacity to drive change in food consumption patterns at a rapid pace – e.g., SMEs are found to provide 70% of food to low-income populations in Africa.
- They therefore have enormous potential to improve the diets and health of consumers on a global scale through incorporating nutrition into their business models and practices, in turn improving the availability and accessibility of healthy nutritious foods for consumers in their local markets.
Related:
16 September 2024. The contribution of KOKO Plus® to Universal health coverage (UHC). The Ghana Nutrition Improvement Project was launched in 2009 by the Ajinomoto Group to help solve the pressing issue of malnutrition in the country. In particular, the core project partners aim to improve the nutritional outcomes of an estimated 200,000 children aged 6-24 months by 2017 by providing a supplement named “KOKO Plus”.
With support of JICA/Ajinamoto, NEC Africa is increasing the capacity of health care workers to "Visualize" and utilize data to promote mothers behavior change.
"Japan has long been focusing on cooperation in maternal and child healthcare. (...) Japan is now incorporating ICT and other advanced technologies from the private sector. (...) JICA [combines] health examinations and nutritional guidance for mothers and children utilizing Japanese ICT [for] the dissemination of (...) nutritional supplements."
Related:
- Mandresy Randriamiharisoa, Director General, Nutrizaza, Madagascar
- Siny Samba, Director General, Le Lionceau, Senegal
Upcoming:
7 - 11 October 2024. The 9th Africa Nutrition Conference (ANC 2024/ANEC IX)- The African Nutrition Society (ANS) and the Ghana Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics(GAND) are organizing the 9th edition of the Africa Nutrition Conference (ANC2024 / ANEC IX).
- Theme: “FOOD AND NUTRITION IN A CHANGING WORLD: Implications for nutrition security and health in Africa”
- Venue: University of Cape Coast – North Campus, Cape Coast, Ghana
Opportunity:
Pivotal Ventures (of billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates)
- will launch a call in the autumn to global organisations
- $250 million
- to be awarded through an open call, with Lever for Change to identify organizations working to improve women’s mental and physical health worldwide.ations focused on women’s mental and physical health
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