5th Global Food Security Conference

9-12 April 2024 | Leuven, Belgium. 5th Global Food Security Conference. Towards equitable, sustainable and resilient food systems

Building on the momentum from the UN Food System Summit and recognizing that the 2030 target year of the Sustainable Development Goals is on the horizon, this 5th Global Food Security Conference will bring together science, business and policy to address this need.

Presentations related to Africa

09/04 Building Ethiopia’s food security resilience to climate change and water supply shortages

09/04 Addressing future food demand in The Gambia: Can increased crop productivity and climate change adaptation close the supply-demand gap?

09/04 Who are drop-out clients? A multi-year assessment of smallholder farmers' investment and repayment behaviors regarding agricultural inputs of a microcredit program in Western Kenya

09/04 Food security challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic review and meta-analysis of gender agricultural productivity gap

09/04 Sub-Saharan Africa’s future cereal self-sufficiency with a doubling population and climate change

09/04 Implementation and scale-up of nutrition-sensitive agriculture in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review of what works, what doesn’t work and why

09/04 The role of home production on nutritional supply in rural Madagascar before and after the COVID-19 outbreak

09/04 Covid-19 and smallholder farmers in South Africa: impacts on food security, psychological well-being, and disaster risk reduction strategies.

10/04 Food system innovation in the informal sector: The case of plastic crates in the tomato value chain in Nigeria

10/04  Diverging food prices in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. A global historical perspective

10/04 “Selling pesticides like biscuits” - Governance challenges of pesticide management in Zambia

10/04 Benchmarking public policies to create healthy food environments in South Africa: National experts’ assessment

10/04 What future for smallholder farms and farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa? Lessons learned from participatory scenario analysis in west, east and southern Africa

11/04 Adapting to the new normal: Challenges and solutions to deliver sustainable food security and nutrition in an era of poly-crisis FAO

11/04 Agricultural policy trade-offs across poverty, food security, and growth outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa: A multicountry economywide microsimulation analysis

11/04 Going with the food flow: Consumer foodsheds in rapidly growing East African cities

11/04 Using the MAPS tool to model the cost and cost-effectiveness of food systems interventions to improve the micronutrient adequacy of diets Ethiopia, Malawi

11/04 Beyond the formal-informal dichotomy: Towards accommodating diverse milk-collection practices in the economic middle of Kenya’s dairy sector

11/04 Biofortification or diversification? Moving toward a food system approach to overcome the controversy

11/04 The influence of home and away-from-home food environments on diets in urban Kenya: A novel gauge of food environment quality

11/04 Knowledge centre for global food and nutrition security and sustainable food systems - building a common understanding, supporting better policymaking The European Commission Knowledge Centre for Global Food and Nutrition Security (KC-FNS) is a one-stop source of curated information on food and nutrition security, and sustainable food systems. It focuses on developing countries. The KC-FNS screens, selects, organises and synthetizes the most recent available knowledge. It contributes to build a common understanding on these challenges, and ultimately to better policymaking. The KC-FNS is organised in nine main topics: SFS, Agroecology, Food Security & Food Crises, Nutrition, Covid-19, Climate Extremes, R&I, Fisheries and Aquaculture, and Mycotoxins. Each topic proposes a scientific brief, a selection of news, publications, online resources, and explains major EU and international actions and initiatives.

11/04 Opportunities and challenges for the design of local spaces, built environments, and landscapes for food system governance: Partnership and knowledge co-production in the Breede Valley Municipality (BVM), Western Cape Province, South Africa

11/04 Ganyu labour: Vicious or virtuous cycle? Investigation into casual labour practices in current day Malawi

11/04 

World Cafes

1. Worldcafé W1: Food Safety and food security - Moderators: Spencer Hanson and Lise Korsten Food safety is a core driver of food security, but how does it link to other pressures acting across the food system? This world café discusses food safety within the broader ‘one food’ concept, where One Health principles are applied to food systems to understand the human health, animal/plant health and environment health issues associated with food. 
2. Worldcafé W2: The future of urban food systems - Moderators: Ramya Ambikapathi and Lisa Marie Hemerijckx This Worldcafe will discuss major urban challenges affecting social, economic and physical food accessibility, including the role of urban governance in the food system and beyond. 
3. Worldcafé W3: Science as an alibi - Moderators: Koen Deconinck and John Ingram As the world is mobilising to transform food systems, we need to reconcile the need for evidence-based decisions with a robust democratic process. This café invites conference participants to share experiences on how science can be used, or abused, in food systems policy.
4. Worldcafé W4: When is small farm size a binding constraint to increasing agricultural productivity?- Moderator: Romina Cavatassi (IFAD, Rome) and Ken Giller (Wageningen University & Research) Recent analyses provide a rather shocking picture of declining farm size in many of the most densely-populated regions of Africa, resulting in median farm sizes less than 1 ha. Why is small farm size a problem? 
5. Worldcafé W5: Managing food demand with social innovations - Moderator: Matthew Kessler This café invites participants to share insights and success stories about social and policy innovations (as distinct from technical solutions) that effectively balance production, consumption and distribution.
   
6. Worldcafé W6: Global – local food systems - Moderators: Goedele Van den Broeck and Charlotte Janssens After decades of globalisation and increasing international agri-food trade, local food systems are nowadays often promoted as more resilient and sustainable. Food sovereignty and strategic autonomy are in the policy spotlight, after major disruptions in global food supply chains in recent years. 
7. Worldcafé W7: Alternative “meats” barriers and opportunities - Matthew Kessler and Julian Baggini - Cultivated meat is increasingly being presented as the inevitable future of animal proteins. 
8. Worldcafé W8: Divided we fall: Has the food systems debate become too polarized? Moderators: Gerard Govers and Julian Baggini We face a situation in which many key actors do not even talk to each other. There is no greater symbol than this than the UK in January every year where the Oxford Farming Conference (representing the mainstream) and the Oxford Real Farming Conference (representing alternatives) meet in parallel, in the same city, but without any dialogue.
9. Worldcafé W9: Governance and institutional structures  - Moderator: Saher Hasnain This world cafe will focus on developing a deeper understanding of the institutional structures that underpin the governance of food systems and the mechanisms required for resilient, sustainable, healthy, equitable, and future-proof transformation pathways.