LAUNCH: 2017 Global Food Policy Report

23 March 2017. Washington, United States. LAUNCH: 2017 Global Food Policy Report. The world is rapidly urbanizing. How does this affect hunger and malnutrition? The International Food Policy Research Institute’s 2017 Global Food Policy Report takes an in-depth look at the challenges and opportunities of urbanization for food security and nutrition.

• Full report IFPRI. 2017. 2017 Global Food Policy Report. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. 148 pages
• 2017 GFPR Fact Sheet
• Map and data widget

Critical questions addressed in this Report include:

• What do we know about the impacts of urbanization on hunger and nutrition? 
  
• What are our greatest research and data needs for better policy making that will ensure food security and improve diets for growing urban populations? 
• How can we better connect rural smallholders to urban food consumers to ensure that smallholders and urban residents benefit from expanding urban food markets? 
• What role do informal markets play in feeding cities, and how can they be better governed to
  
  increase urban food security? 

Speakers:

• Shenggen Fan, Director General, IFPRI
• Louise Fresco, President, Wageningen University and Research Center
• Danielle Resnick, Senior Research Fellow, Development Strategies and Governance Division, IFPRI
• Vimlendra Sharan, Director, Liaison office for North America of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

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Announcement:

31 March 2017. Geneva Launch Global Food Policy Report of IFPRI 
The world is rapidly urbanizing. How does this affect hunger and malnutrition? See: Registration

Speakers: 

• Samuel Gayi, Head, Special Unit on Commodities, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 
• Shenggen Fan, Director General, IFPRI 
• Gerda Verburg, United Nations Assistant Secretary General and Coordinator of the SUN Movement 
• Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) 

Announcement:

24 May 2017. Brussels, Belgium. To further expose and explore the massively under-estimated burden of foodborne disease and its likely causes, the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) will host a workshop on Better Targeting Food Safety Investments in Low and Middle Income Countries.

The event will provide updates on recent evidence on the burden of foodborne disease in low and

middle income countries (LMICs) as well as a review of food safety interventions and opportunities to discuss promising solutions. The event program will focus first on the vastly under-estimated burden of foodborne disease in LMICs and its likely causes. The program will then take a closer look at successes in and unintended consequences of small-scale food safety interventions and explore options for developing widespread solutions for foodborne disease in LMICs.

Related:
23/03 Bioversity Food and nutrition are moving to the city

James Garrett, Bioversity International Senior Research Fellow who contributed to the book, explains that one in three stunted children now lives in a city. That proportion is likely to increase. In addition, overweight and obesity are also concentrated in urban areas. As the report notes, the burden of malnutrition in all its forms is shifting from rural areas to cities, and so we need to ensure that our efforts now and in the future respond to this new reality.

One reason poor people don’t go to supermarkets, even when they can, is that supermarkets are seen as places for the rich to shop. As some poor people told our researcher Jessica Raneri, wealthier people dress up to go shopping in supermarkets, which in turn makes the poor feel uncomfortable and out of place. At traditional markets it is perfectly acceptable to go in casual clothes and even pajamas are not an uncommon sight in the early morning before people start their work day.

To address these challenges, Bioversity International and partners*, working together with six cities,

have developed a transformational and innovative proposal that will consider how food is produced, including the diversity of crops; where it is produced, including alternative uses for the land and access to markets; and the ways in which the food that is produced and eaten affects human health and the environment.