Explore Official Dialogue Feedback

There is an urgent need to increase the number and effectiveness of agriculture innovation hubs and research centers across the nation. Upscale irrigation facilities by utilizing available water bodies or constructing of new ones, new technologies need to be used in drawing and conserving water for agriculture purposes. Governments need to make informed decisions in the promotion and adoption of research which improves seed and animal varieties. Ensure that stress tolerant and high yielding crop varieties and stress tolerant animal breeds are developed if agriculture is to be sustainable. Adop... Read moret modern housing and road infrastructure adapted for climate change as a way of reducing shocks and hazards which may affect farmers in a disaster. Governments need to use a spectrum of policies from voluntary to mandatory which include laws, acts or statutes in ensuring that people have physical and economic access to nutritious foods. Enforcement of such policies is crucial in achieving a healthy and sustainable food system that benefits all. Incentives/disincentives such as taxes and subsidies need to be put in place as a way of promoting the consumption of nutritious diets. Consistency in policies around the whole food systems is also key in promoting, protecting and supporting the consumption of nutritious foods by the general populace. Read less

Local investments in strengthening social protection delivery systems including shock responsiveness and livelihood opportunities for the poor and vulnerable groups’ remains very low. Disaster Risk Reduction Committees remain underfunded and even in natural disasters they fail to effectively respond and assist victims because they do not have adequate resources. It was argued that DRR committees in many parts of the country do not need much resources because disasters are not a common phenomenon in the country instead the country needs to invest in early warning systems so that victims are e... Read morevacuated early and response teams are equipped ahead of time. Focus of sustainable food systems in the country is mainly focusing on foods that are perceived by many people as modern. There is need to shift the focus to traditional and even genetically modified foods so that the agriculture sector will be able to meet demand. However, socio-cultural and economic factors also play a role on how foods are perceived there is need to continuously educate the populace on the need to consume nutritious diets. Read less

• There was some divergence among participants about how ambitious the guidelines should be. Some felt that they should aim for consensus-building that doesn't imply radical changes. Others emphasised the urgency of dietary transitions and the need for stronger messaging given the short timeframes remaining to bring diets in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, climate commitments and agenda on noncommunicable disease. Overall, however, there was consensus that prioritising plants and reducing intake of animal-sourced and highly-processed products are essential messages, supported by... Read more abundant and conclusive evidence, that everyone can agree on. • One of our ‘implementation’ groups highlighted the potential of plant-based meat alternatives (analogues) to reduce reliance on animal-sourced foods, with continual innovation and research pointing to significant health and environmental sustainability benefits. However, a participant from another group raised concerns that some of these products may still have a significant carbon footprint and lack a good nutrition profile. Work will be required to ensure transparency in this space to allow consumers to make informed choices. Despite some variance of views on this rapidly-evolving sector, there was unanimity that the scientific consensus supports dietary patterns that emphasise whole and minimally-processed plant foods. • There was a degree of variance expressed regarding the evidence that should inform dietary guidelines. There was overall confidence in the existing evidence review process in Australia (a thorough and wide-ranging review that seeks to avoid industry influence), but a couple of participants raised the need for reform. In particular: – Current methods for assessing strength of evidence prioritise the contribution of randomised controlled trials, but it is impossible to conduct long-term trials with diet; nor are these suitable for assessing sustainability impacts. The strength of evidence rating methodology proposed by the True Health Initiative known as HEALM (Hierarchies of Evidence Applied to Lifestyle Medicine) was proposed as an important step in the right direction. – There was also the suggestion that current approaches to evidence reflect a limited philosophy, and that the interrelationships between dietary patterns, human nutrition and planetary health need to be reconceptualised, with evolutionary theory and ecology playing a much more central role. This echoed the introductory talks that highlighted the importance of new mental models that learn from Indigenous wisdom. Our second keynote speaker, Prof Boyd Swinburn, outlined the nascent Mana Kai policy in Aotearoa New Zealand that draws on Māori concepts around the social and environmental aspects of food, and how these are interrelated. The third keynote speaker, Dr Sandro Demaio, also pointed to Aboriginal Australians as being the original founders of the concept of planetary health. Read less

OVERVIEW: Doctors For Nutrition convened a Dialogue focusing on dietary guidelines as a lever for attaining a healthier, more sustainable and equitable food system. We (doctorsfornutrition.org) are an independent Australian health-promotion charity working to bring a 'nutrition-first' approach to mainstream medicine highlighting the benefits of whole food plant-based dietary patterns. With dietary guidelines being one of the solution areas identified under the Action Track on sustainable consumption, and the Australian Dietary Guidelines (ADGs) review process underway, our Dialogue brought tog... Read moreether a range of local and international stakeholders to consider key issues. As well as supporting the shift to sustainable consumption patterns (Action Track 2), fit-for-purpose ADGs have a key role in ensuring access to safe and nutritious food for all (Action Track 1). They should also support nature-positive production, equitable livelihoods and building resilience to food system vulnerabilities (Action Tracks 3, 4 and 5). By considering Australia as an example of a high-income country with the health and sustainability problems typical of a Western dietary pattern, this dialogue has broader implications in countries with similar consumption patterns. CONTEXT: Dietary patterns in Australia are typical of high-income countries: high in animal-derived and processed foods and low in whole plant foods. These patterns are increasingly being taken up in low and middle-income countries (referred to as the ‘nutrition transition’) and are contributing to multiple crises globally: high rates of noncommunicable disease, climate change and environmental degradation, pandemic risk and antimicrobial resistance and impacts falling disproportionately on the most vulnerable populations. In Australia we are facing a number of pressing issues. • We have the highest per-capita greenhouse gas emissions among the G20 countries, and have recently scored equal-last out of 66 countries in efforts to include human health concerns in our climate commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement. At the same time, our food system is highly vulnerable to climate change and land degradation, and the impacts of unsustainable consumption constitute an escalating health crisis in their own right. • Severe dietary inequities exist, indicative of a wider suite of health inequities, whereby Indigenous and remote communities and those in lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to have poor diet quality and related health issues such as overweight and obesity. These same communities are also the most vulnerable to the ecological determinants of health. • Per capita meat consumption is around triple the global average, more than 90% of adults have an inadequate daily intake of fruit and vegetables and well over half the household food budget is spent on discretionary items. ROLE OF DIETARY GUIDELINES • ADGs serve as a basis for the development of nutrition policies and programs and are activated in different sectors (e.g. health, education and agriculture) and settings such as schools, workplaces, hospitals and institutions. Their recommendations must incorporate socioeconomic, cultural and environmental dimensions of sustainability as key components of a healthy diet. • As highlighted by the EAT Lancet Commission, there is an urgent imperative to move populations towards consuming largely plant-based diets. This is particularly salient in high-income countries, with Australia a leading example where current imbalanced diets are contributing to multiple urgent crises as highlighted above. • ADGs are an opportunity to set out evidence-based recommendations to guide the population to healthy and sustainable eating patterns which would, if successfully implemented, play a significant role in reversing the growing prevalence of diet-related disease within our community, advancing towards the SDGs and meet our ethic responsibility to redress our historic and continuing contribution to the overshoot of planetary boundaries. • Dietary guidelines are an informational tool; therefore awareness and a supportive suite of policies is essential to advance towards better adherence. Read less

Well-designed dietary guidelines based on the best available evidence, free from industry influence, have significant potential to influence improved diets. They are an example of a ‘triple-duty action’ that could address multiple aspects of the Global Syndemic which the Lancet (led by Dialogue keynote speaker Prof Boyd Swinburn) has defined as the interrelated global health challenges of obesity, undernutrition and climate change. The onus is on high-income countries such as Australia to make radical shifts in diet. This requires improvements not only to the content of our current dietary... Read more guidelines but also to their implementation, which in turn necessitates urgent changes to the broader policy context. Dietary guidelines are an aspect of governance that can contribute to equitable access to good nutrition. Both within Australia and globally, the most disadvantaged populations have the poorest diet quality and are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and other facets of environmental degradation. In high-income countries, where protein and calorie excess is the norm, shifts to plant foods correlate consistently and robustly with higher overall diet quality. These same shifts are not only desirable in terms of planetary health – which underpins all human health – but have been highlighted as a non-negotiable prerequisite to remaining below the 1.5°c warming threshold set by the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, and securing a safe operating space for humanity. Without these shifts, especially in the highest-consuming nations, the Sustainable Development Goals will inevitably be undermined. Main findings / proposals: • The scope of evidence informing dietary guidelines must include sustainability and equity issues so that the resulting recommendations align with these goals. The development of guidelines must incorporate these concerns from the outset, and integrate them into their advice, so they are not simply a subsequent ‘overlay’. • Ensure the headline messaging is widely disseminated to reflect the scientific consensus that Australian diets need to significantly increase the ratio of plant-based and minimally processed foods to animal-sourced and highly processed foods. • Guidelines development must be culturally responsive, reflecting diverse dietary patterns and cultural wisdom about the relationships between food, health and planet. In particular, there is scope to learn from Indigenous ways of knowing, including the multiple dimensions of health, including their cultural determinants. • Industry interests must not have a seat at the table in the development of dietary guidelines or any other aspects of nutrition and public health policy. Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), which oversees the ADGs review, distinguishes between financial and other interests, such that industry-funded published literature is not excluded. Caution and transparency must be exercised in this regard, recognising that profit motives of harmful interests require vigilance and strong governance. • However well-evidenced and designed, dietary guidelines are ultimately an informational instrument. This means they need to be backed up by a supportive policy environment. As such: – The ADGs should be used to underpin nutrition education, healthy food policies and sustainable agriculture. A national food policy, currently lacking in Australia, is recommended as an adjunct to the guidelines. – Policy coherence is essential so that ​​the dietary guidelines are not undermined by policies, regulations and programs in other sectors such as primary production or food service, retail and marketing that increase the prevalence of unhealthy and unsustainable foods. – Coordination across government, at all levels, has a key role in supporting an enabling environment for dietary shift. Sector leaders have a key role but industry efforts must not be left to chance: many voluntary efforts need to be further incentivised and codified. – The dietary guidelines need to be supported by an effective implementation plan including education for health professionals, school students and the public: social marketing has a key role. – Monitoring and evaluation is essential to measure progress towards implementation and drive targeted action to identify and fill the identified gaps, leaving nobody behind. Read less

SUSTAINABILITY Building on the context and definitions outlined in the introductory talks, this breakout group discussed the question: “What do truly sustainable Australian Dietary Guidelines look like?”. The key findings were: • Sustainability considerations must be incorporated into dietary guidelines in a meaningful way. This means drawing on the best available evidence to inform the recommendations that they make. • In the last revision to Australia’s guidelines, a discussion on sustainability was relegated to an appendix after industry pushback. Therefore it is crucial that the ... Read moreNHMRC upholds its commitment to independence, transparency and management of conflicts of interest by resisting industry influence; in parallel, the public health and consumer communities have a key role in calling for the inclusion of sustainability considerations within the revised recommendations. • Dietary guidelines should draw on best practice from around the world, using case studies such as Canada (whose plate no longer includes dairy and encourages plant-sources of protein in preference to animal sources), Finland (who have sought to align their guidelines with the Lancet’s Planetary Health Diet) and several others such as Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Qatar, China and Brazil. Common characteristics among these guidelines are their emphasis on eating more plant foods, reducing animal foods, not exceeding energy requirements and avoiding energy-dense, nutrient-poor, ultra-processed products. • Equity is a key aspect of sustainability. As such, dietary guidelines and associated policies must be developed with a view to redressing food inequities, by focusing on access to nutritious, culturally-acceptable food and implementing a program of effective measuring and monitoring of how dietary patterns compare to recommended patterns among socio-economic and cultural groups. • A package and plan for dissemination of dietary guidelines is required. This includes funding and materials for health professionals (e.g. webinars, videos, other education) and social marketing to ensure the key messages reach the public. Those messages must include practical food literacy and cooking skills. • Efforts at public persuasion must be informed by understanding of the factors that drive food choices, which include pre-existing beliefs, social circles, local environmental and cultural factors, affordability, convenience and taste preferences that can stem from exposures from an early age (starting in the womb). • Healthy and sustainable nutrition must be widely taught across the health professions so that awareness is far greater and patients are provided with a ‘nutrition first’ approach to disease prevention and treatment. A thorough understanding of the ADGs should be a fundamental requirement. • Proposed introducing a Lancet Countdown Indicator that monitors and measures progress towards implementation of national Dietary Guidelines. Food+Planet (foodandplanet.org) for example are developing indicators to measure the key dimensions of sustainable diets globally. This kind of initiative has great potential as a tool for both informing and monitoring guidelines. Read less

IMPLEMENTATION BARRIERS The science is clear on what constitutes a healthy and sustainable diet, but even the best guidelines cannot achieve their goals without effective implementation. This breakout group discussed the question: “What are the existing barriers to implementation and how can we overcome them?” The key findings were: • Complex factors beyond personal decision-making have a strong influence on dietary patterns. Participants identified influences in the following key domains: – vested interests (industry profit) – the food environment – tradition, expectation, social ... Read moreand family norms and pressures – communication and public understanding (including the influence of media, social media, marketing and messaging by public bodies) • Dietary guidelines have an important role as part of a wider process of food system transformation that is urgently needed. The guidelines can be a catalyst for change, as many sectors access them. If the guidelines consider the impacts of diet on the Sustainable Development Goals, it is more likely that other government portfolios start engaging with them as a lever. • Several specific proposals related to informing, up-skilling and enabling the public to become aware of and adopt the recommendations in our revised guidelines: – Barrier: It is not clear who the audience is for the current Australian Dietary Guidelines, and many people do not know about them. The overall messaging needs to be much clearer. Proposed solution: Clear recommendations could be as simple as: eat more foods from plants and less processed foods. – Barrier: Practical skills are currently lacking. There are certain foods that some people don’t eat because they don’t know how to prepare them, e.g. legumes. Proposed solution: Guidance on how to cook healthy food at home is needed. Brazil’s guidelines are a good example, which include food skills and literacy in their remit. – Barrier: unhealthy diets are socially acceptable and generally unquestioned. Proposed solution: Part of the communication around the guidelines needs to de-normalise that way the majority of the population are eating. A key policy lever is limiting TV and digital marketing of unhealthy food to children (as Chile has done). • The dominant framing of dietary guidelines is on personal responsibility, leaving food choices in the hands of individuals. However, dietary habits are influenced by multiple factors from age and gender to education, income and health status, food environments, culture and nutritional and cooking knowledge. There must be a reframing to recognise that policy and business bear key responsibility for system transformation rather than the individual ‘consumer’. This means: – Dietary guidelines must be reflected throughout food and nutrition policy at all levels of government. – Healthy and nutritious meals should be showcased in settings such as educational and other public institutions, and promoted across the private sector, e.g. in workplaces and across food service outlets (noted that, in Brazil, many restaurants offer plant-predominant home-style buffet meals sold by weight that are healthy, convenient and affordable). – Official public messaging must be consistent, so that dietary guidelines are the key reference document and not contradicted by other instruments (policy coherence). – Educational curricula must incorporate the evidence and recommendations set by dietary guidelines. This requires delivery by appropriately qualified staff. – Media and social media have a key role and responsibility to promote healthy and sustainable diets. Popular TV series such as Masterchef could be encouraged to showcase healthy plant-based and/or plant-rich dishes. Read less

FRESH IDEAS This breakout group discussed the question: “What fresh ideas can we consider to drive multi-sectoral implementation?” The intent of this group was to explore best practice and innovative ideas to achieve significantly increased adherence to dietary guidelines. The key findings were: • Financial policy instruments and pricing mechanisms have a key role in incentivising dietary shift: – E.g. subsidies for healthy plant foods, taxation and removal of subsidies for harmful products (the concept of ‘true cost accounting’). Such measures seek to internalise negative external... Read moreities rather than outsourcing them such that the community, the environment, the healthcare system and future generations pay the price. – A focus on affordability and accessibility: for example via redirected subsidies that bring down the price of fresh produce. Such policies should take into account the long term healthcare savings for government and institutions. – Proactive financial and practical assistance to help farmers transition to more sustainable crops/products. • Alignment with and implementation of dietary guidelines across multiple sectors is essential: Participants highlighted a wide range of opportunities across sectors such as schools and child care; the health sector; food marketing; the local built environment; food assistance programs; agricultural and trade policy. Within this, several points were highlighted: – Multi-sectoral progress requires government action to set policy and regulations, provide guidance and lead by example, e.g. through public sector procurement and catering policies. – At minimum, all relevant sector policy should ensure alignment with dietary guidelines in preference to industry-led / voluntary schemes. Sector leaders can also take steps independently to innovate and implement best practice, for example R&D into meat and dairy alternatives with demonstrated health and sustainability advantages. – Ensuring clear and easy to understand front-of-pack labelling to help guide both healthy and sustainable food purchasing: there is an opportunity to extend, strengthen and potentially mandate existing schemes. – Prompt steps should be taken to align catering, curricula, procurement and other programs with dietary guidelines within hospitals, schools, universities, workplaces and other institutions. • Communication and messaging has a crucial role in supporting dietary guidelines implementation. Among key ideas, participants emphasised: – Messaging and supporting programmes should reflect what we know about behaviour change; for example encouraging people to make small but meaningful changes such as one plant-based meal a day ensures that the shift is perceived as achievable and worth trying. Efforts tailored to specific audiences’ needs are also key. – There are some prevalent misconceptions around meat consumption being fundamental to masculinity and the Australian way: it is essential to challenge this. – Social marketing is a key opportunity and increasingly important to help popularise evidence-based messaging in the face of media noise and efforts by vested interests to sow confusion and unscientific messaging. Micro-influencers, celebrities, chefs and athletes can help change social norms and ‘speak to’ diverse audiences. Read less

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Pacific Islander people’s voices and Traditional Knowledges are often missing from, or go unnoticed in, decision making processes that profoundly impact their own communities. This top-down approach can result in solutions that are not fit for purpose and not appropriate for specific communities and cultural contexts. Therefore, this Dialogue had three major focal points: (i) to understand and explore community experiences of food and water systems; (ii) to highlight community identified priorities, strengths and solutions in shifting to healthy and ... Read moresustainable consumption patterns (Action Track 2); and (iii) to examine links between community priorities, strengths and solutions, and government responsibility, engagement and action. Read less

Based on consultations with key stakeholders, information from case studies included within this report and our research and advocacy expertise, we believe: • Organisers of multilateral summits should ensure First Nations voices are represented at all levels and in all aspects of governance structures from the earliest stages of summit conception. • Organisers of multilateral summits should recognise the diversity of global Traditional Knowledges and unheard voices and embed flexibility in engagement mechanisms to ensure these are captured. • Organisers of multilateral summits should ens... Read moreure discussions of food systems include consideration of water systems as a default. • Health systems should recognise climate change and its impacts on human health in policy and practice and take responsibility for reducing their own climate footprint. • Governments should design food policy through a process of communityled policy development that recognises Traditional Knowledges and includes engagement with community leaders and Elders, and shared planning and decision making. • Governments should adopt a systems approach to developing policy, recognising the relationships and reciprocal links between food and water systems, the burden of non-communicable disease, climate change and equity. • Governments should support consumer demand for sustainable, fresh and healthy foods, and implement policies to ensure these foods are easily accessible, available and affordable. • Researchers should monitor the effectiveness of policies that aim to improve food and water systems and develop the evidence base on the impacts of implementation on equity, climate change and the disease burden. Read less

Discussions with community stakeholders and experts have led to the development of case studies and Summit feedback. From those, three key food and water security challenges were identified. TOPIC 1: A shift from traditional diets has compromised food security. For millennia, the diets of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were rich in local flora and fauna, particularly native fruit, vegetables and lean animal proteins. The colonisation of Australia and the dispossession of and forced removal from Country caused a ‘nutrition transition’ away from traditional diets and disruptio... Read moren to food and water systems, resulting in ongoing food insecurity. Forced rations replaced traditional diets and included large quantities of refined grains and processed foods containing high levels of salt, saturated fat and added sugars, which has had ongoing detrimental impacts on health. Communities were prevented from accessing traditional food and water sources on Country, exacerbating hunger and food insecurity. Pacific Island nations include a wide range of cultures and practices. However, they share similarities in that they all have relatively small populations, are in remote locations, have high costs associated with transport and communications, and have varying levels of infrastructure. They also share a reliance on subsistence agriculture, and tourism, agriculture and fishing are key sources of income and support for their economies. Traditional diets of Pacific Islander communities have been also disrupted by colonisation and dispossession, resulting in food insecurity. Extreme weather events have further exacerbated this issue in the Pacific, where the subsequent provision of unhealthy food aid after extreme weather events, including white rice and tinned meats, is relied on to prevent hunger. In these settings, urban migration increases, as local food production and productivity decreases the viability of subsistence farming. This again prevents communities from accessing traditional food sources and limits the ability to grow food. With more people migrating to urban centres and changes in traditional jobs, gender-related roles and responsibilities are changing,8 which has subsequent impacts on diet and health. In Fiji, for example, more women are now in the formal workforce, yet they maintain responsibility for the bulk of the care work for their families. The need to balance paid and unpaid work is increasing the reliance on convenience foods, which are often cheap but ultra-processed and lacking nutrition. Across the Pacific, women continue to play key roles in agriculture and fisheries sectors; however, they tend to be undervalued and underrepresented actors in agriculture and fisheries development and decision-making. This underrepresentation means that typically unheard voices in crucial industries go ignored, exacerbating inequalities. Read less

Discussions with community stakeholders and experts have led to the development of case studies and Summit feedback. From those, three key food and water security challenges were identified. TOPIC 2: High salinity groundwater has compromised the quality of drinking water and food security. The degradation of inland rivers over time, due to drought and government mismanagement, has had increasingly devastating effects on food and water security and the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Communities such as Walgett in New South Wales, Australia, have had t... Read moreo rely on groundwater for drinking and food production. The salinity of this water is almost double that recommended in the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines – which are based on palatability not health – and 15 times more than the amount recommended for people with high blood pressure. These unacceptably high levels of sodium can lead to dehydration and increased purchasing of soft drinks, further impacting community health. The salinity of the water in Walgett has resulted in reduced agricultural yield and destruction of soil structure within the local community garden, increasing the community’s reliance on purchasing packaged, processed foods or takeaway foods that are more expensive and less healthy. Extreme weather events linked to climate change, such as tropical cyclones and rising sea levels, are contributing to increased soil salinity and contaminated drinking water in Pacific Island coastal communities. This is further exacerbated by long droughts, which make the soil less able to absorb rain, resulting in declining agricultural yields. Extreme weather events also destroy produce and farming resources, making subsistence farming untenable for local communities. Climate change is also limiting the productivity of local fishers and, therefore, increasing reliance on imported foods and food aid. It is estimated that 75% of coastal fisheries will not meet their food security needs by 2030 due to a forecasted 50% growth in population and limited productivity of coastal fisheries as a result of climate change. Read less

Discussions with community stakeholders and experts have led to the development of case studies and Summit feedback. From those, three key food and water security challenges were identified. TOPIC 3: Community-led solutions. Creating resilient food and water systems will have the co-benefit of contributing to a reduced NCD burden. Approaches to achieving this rely on community-identified strengths and solutions and building and strengthening community capacity and skills. Community-led programs can be effective at improving food and water security, nutrition and health; they can help reverse t... Read morehe trend of worsening diets and increasing chronic diseases. The most effective programs adopt a multi-strategy, multi-sector approach that includes both securing and sustaining the supply of local healthy foods and access to safe drinking water. They also include Traditional Knowledges and cultural practices passed down through millennia. Governments need to work with communities rather than perpetuating a top-down approach, ensuring involvement of community leaders, shared planning and decision-making, and appropriate evaluation procedures to guarantee that community-identified food and water system challenges are responded to and community needs are met. Government responses must also respect Traditional Knowledges and ensure they are included in food and water policy. Read less

This report reflects the perspectives of specific communities on barriers to reform and community-led solutions for food and water systems. It is important to remember that while there are similar experiences around food and water systems, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and Pacific Islander peoples are diverse in cultures and practices and, therefore, should not be homogenised in approaches to solutions. It should not be taken to represent all perspectives from all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Pacific Islander peoples and communities. Rather, this report is based on... Read more our experiences and community feedback of what it takes to build successful collaborations. We hope this learning will be useful for Summit organisers and others, and can help to inform the design of future Summits. Read less

Key themes emerging from the dialogue indicates that from a building resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stress (Action Track 5) perspective, in Bangladesh the focus needs to be on two main drivers of stress, shocks and vulnerabilities: (1) nature driven shocks, stress and vulnerabilities, primarily originating from climate change, but possibly also linked to earthquakes or similar events, (2) economic and human driven shocks, which may originate from pandemics (e.g. COVID-19), other economy shocks (e.g. the 2008 global financial crisis) or manmade conflicts (e.g. the Rohingya crisis). O... Read moref these two types of shocks, the first one can disrupt the entire food system by affecting the agricultural production and increasing salinity of land. On the other hand, the economic and human driven shocks may interrupt gains achieved by the country in domains of food security and nutrition, increase poverty and inequality, and jeopardize people’s access to food. These two drivers jointly pose the greatest threat to Bangladesh’s effort in building a resilient food system. While taking part in the dialogue, the participants also have pointed out that the mechanisms to address these vulnerabilities, shocks and stresses can be organized along three key sectors that are likely to address both the nature driven and economic and human driven shocks. These three response areas are: • The social protection system which is covering close to 40% of the population in Bangladesh, • The agriculture sector that is employing close to 50% of the population mainly in rural areas, • The Industrial sector employing 20-30% of the population including part of the informal sector mainly in urbanized areas. Across all sectors adaptation, response and preparedness mechanisms needs to be nutrition sensitive and gender responsive. The GoB should play the leadership role while designing and implementing actions in line with national programming and planning while ensuring complementarity to government budgeting. Moreover, greater involvement of and investment by the private sector actors need to be ensured with a focus on increasing diversity, including biodiversity, of production and consumption. Read less

Social safety nets: i. Continue making government social safety nets more nutrition and gender sensitive. In this regard, it is important to emphasize on fully implementing the National Social Security Strategy (NSSS) which has adopted a life-cycle approach to address the need of people at every stage of their lives. The emphasis on making the safety nets more nutrition and gender sensitive will allow the country to ensure access to nutritious food at an affordable rate for the poor whose livelihood strategies have been disrupted either by climate related shocks or due to COVID-19 crisis. ii. ... Read moreIntroduce ways to be more responsive to an increasingly mobile population, anticipating increasing mobility of vulnerable groups driven by economic as well as environmental events. For this, the GoB can try to transfer cash to the potential beneficiaries by utilizing mobile financial technology. Important to note that at the union level, the government has the necessary infrastructure (e.g. Union Digital Centres or UDCs) to facilitate this transformation. iii. Strengthen data management to track vulnerable populations and individuals to allow rapid response in times of stress and sudden-onset shocks and allow the provision of complementary packages across sectors including health, G2P and food assistance. iv. Explore ways to integrate private sector, including local shops and producers, in social safety nets, linking them to smallholder farmers and food producers, transformers and aggregators, to ensure diversity of diets. Read less

In the Agriculture sector and rural communities: i. Modernization of agriculture production including post-harvest management of crops through use of adapted technologies. ii. Institutionalize national capacities to respond to and recover from shocks through building on existing systems (e.g., early warning) and introduction of new and innovative approaches (e.g. anticipatory actions, insurance schemes). iii. Rework and strengthen existing emergency food stock system including involvement of private sector and using food procurement systems as buffer mechanisms to ensure markets for vulnerable... Read more smallholder farmers iv. Adaptation of crops and cropping systems to salination along costal belt in southern Bangladesh; strengthen and utilize existing natural biodiversity to identify most suited crops v. Special focus on identified climate hotspots and plans to manage, mitigate, and adapt to climate stress and shocks in accordance with government plans. For that, detailed vulnerability mapping, heavy investment in disaster risk reduction and innovation of insurance mechanisms and targeted subsidies are required. Read less

In the Industrial sector and urban communities: i. Expand coverage of safety nets to target vulnerable urban populations, introducing mechanisms which allow mobility and migration between urban and rural areas ii. Increase involvement of industrial sectors in the safety net coverage for the families of their current and former employees, e.g., through special food and credit related schemes to support affordability of nutritious diets. iii. Establishing of Public-Private Partnerships to use market mechanisms to respond to shocks and emergencies while through pre-arrangements reducing the volat... Read moreility of food markets post-disaster, also combining the strengths of government and private sector logistics and infrastructure capacity for the public interest. iv. Food industry to focus on production of nutritious and safe food, reducing food waste during production and post-harvest losses and establishing effective, efficient, and fair public and commercial distribution mechanisms. Read less

National Dialogues on Action Track 5: Build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stress have taken place in more than 130 countries. In Bangladesh, the virtual Independent National Dialogue on the Action Track 5 was held on 2nd of June 2021. The dialogue was conducted under the leadership of the National UNFSS Dialogue Convener, Additional Secretary at Ministry of Food, Mr. Khaja Abdul Hannan with support from the World Food Programme (WFP), UN Anchor for Action Track 5, and International Center for Climate Change and Development (ICCAD), technical lead for Action Track 5. The keynote spe... Read moreech was given by the Director of ICCAD, Professor Saleemul Huq, and the synthesis of the panel discussion was done by Professor Shamsul Alem, Senior Secretary at the Economic Division, Planning Commission, and Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman, Executive Chairman at Power Participation Research Centre. The dialogue was structured around a panel discussion building on three major themes related to building resilience to ensure food security and access to nutritious food in the Bangladeshi context. The themes of the panel discussion and panel members are outlined below: Panel Discussion 1: Food Systems and Resilience This panel was chaired by Dr Mosammat Nazmanara Khanum, Honourable Secretary, Ministry of Food. The discussants included Mr. Robert Simpson, Country Representative FAO Bangladesh and Ms. Farah Kabir, Country Director, Action Aid Bangladesh participated. The panel discussion was guided by the three following questions: i. What are the priority investment areas for Bangladesh to address the multiple risks of climate change and natural disasters? ii. How can local production and consumption be incentivized to protect nutrition and environment? iii. What can be learned from the current pandemic which clearly has been a major shock for Bangladesh, in identifying the vulnerabilities in the food systems to shock, and how food systems can be made more resilient? Panel Discussion 2: Universal Access to Food to build Resilience The Universal Access to Food to Build Resilience panel was chaired by Mr, Md Sayedul Islam, Honourable Secretary, Ministry of Women and Children. The discussants included Mr. Rezaul Karim, Head of Programme, World Food Program and Mr. Md Rafiqul Islam, Deputy Secretary General, Bangladesh Red Crescent Society. The panel discussion was guided by the three following questions: i. How can food systems be made more nutrition sensitive, thus ensuring that meals not only address hunger but also meet all requirements for healthy growth and living? ii. What are the key lessons from the response to the pandemic that can be used to ensure sustained access to nutritious diets even in times of shocks? iii. How can Government work with the private sector to protect the right to food? Panel Discussion 3: Climate Resilient Development Pathways The panel discussion was chaired by Mr. Md Mohsin, Honourable Secretary, Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief. The discussants included Dr Mahbuba Nasreen, Director and Professor, Institute of Disaster Management and Vulnerability Studies, Dhaka University and Mr. Khurshid Alam, Assistant Resident Representative, UNDP. The panel discussion was guided by the three following questions: i. What are the key steps for enhancing resilience of those affected by climate change? ii. What are the three main impediments to integrated approaches for climate change adaptation and how can these be addressed? iii. What would be the three strategic directions for the private sector to transform food systems for climate resilient development? Read less

Food production is about transforming the society, beyond feeding the society Some of the ideas in transforming the society beyond feeding the society is as follows: 1. Developing community-based agriculture that leverage on local biodiversity. 2. Developing opportunities for indigenous communities, including on being part of the organic food production. 3. Building an ecosystem with incentives to foster multi-stakeholder effort. 4. Urban farming as a solution for the urban poor to obtain some nutritious food items, requiring policy action and civil society movement. 5. Movements such as agroe... Read morecology, which takes into account the whole ecosystem of diversity, human and social values. Read less