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No areas of divergence.

A. The big issue with Blended Finance is that the large asset owners are not fully involved and do not have their investment policy in place to invest in such BF schemes. Agri - Food BF scheme requires long term illiquid investments which are not aligned with their liquidity ratio. We do need to involve institutional investors at the creation of the BF structure to integrate their constraints are still missing the large financial asset owners… with new regulations, banks will have more difficulties to finance long tenor projects, especially with a high transition costs. Blended finance is me... Lire la suiterely a transitional “product”; it needs to exit as an asset that can be traded between asset owners. Some companies are developing 'fund-of-fund' structures as well as 'liquidity guarantees' to crowd in institutional investor capital. Perhaps these can be among a suite of solutions that taps into sources that remain as of yet difficult to reach B. We do need to create platform for Blended structures, not only finance, where we can mutualize costs, data, technical assistance, promoting alternative models than the existing supply chains. This can include sharing TA around metrics. C. Replicating deals proves to be complicated. At farm level: we are working towards standardized loan products for our rural clients, that facilitate the transformation of their production method, while using risk sharing with AGRi3 as impact investor. D. As Loan products need to be tailor made to gather for smallholder farmers, market, credit access are key. As such, maybe technology will definitely help to reduce (monitoring, execution) costs (geo data, etc). Technology will also be a key driver for sustainable efficient food production. Connecting final consumer to farmer using tech could double the profit of farmer. Lire moins

5. How do we ensure that investable opportunities provide ambitious SDG impact? A. One of the challenges to which the participants referred the most was about science based and certificated metrics. Currently, it is very difficult to use common metrics to measure progress and some contributions of individual projects to common goals, which makes not possible their use at a high level. The ideal state that was mentioned included climate adaptation/resilience risk analysis into ESG approaches and financial risk approaches. One of the examples to reach this ideal state was the KPI directory for t... Lire la suitehe sustainable land-use finance done by UNEP, this to exemplify how indicators can be harmonized and how to start using some metrics that could be applied to investment. Another intervention was about the importance of creating an interdisciplinary cross-cutting multi ministry approach, in order to get better metrics (what is wanted to be achieved), but also a better joint work between ministries from different countries, since currently, their work is quite fragmented. B. Also, a need for simplification to finance in the agricultural sector was one challenge that participants mentioned: many organizations do not want to invest in the sector as it is not only complicated and fragmented but also has many risks. I.e. less legal costs, standard GHG’s, biodiversity matrixes, etc. Also, make a split between blended finance and off-takers blended finance., working towards blended finance 2.0, whilst also addressing securitsation. Also, it was mentioned that sharing portfolio performance data across financial, social and environmental outcomes in emerging markets, can provide a benchmark for investors on real investment opportunities and risks. Some climate policy initiatives were also mentioned, as well as the global innovation Lab for climate finance, which seeks to develop blended finance for mitigation and adaptation. This example was highlighted as an effective way to know what type of work could be better. In this case, for example, some models have been shown as useful to bring some capital market players into investment in agriculture. The ideal state would be to coordinate with industry/national advisory boards to develop and adopt generally-accepted climate/natural capital accounting and valuation methodologies; climate-related financial risk disclosures. C. Furthermore, regarding implementation and real impact on the ground, the importance of mobilizing different stakeholders according to the sectors (including governments, financial institutions and investors) and value chains was expressed, so that, common goals can be achieved through joint work. Technical assistance needs to be done local and on the ground, in cooperation with local financial institutions. This comes close to the importance of political coherence to which several referred. Through this, it will be possible not only to reach farmers with solutions that adapt to their needs but also to be able to project positive impacts on communities in a more concrete way. D. Tapping into communities, participants talked about the importance of considering the needs of the communities with which the work is done. For example, in Africa, one of the participants stated that there is still no success story that can be replicated, and yet there are still many barriers to project implementation such as lack of technical knowledge from farmers. For this reason, it was suggested to develop joint efforts to create a success story in Africa that becomes a role model and continues to advance and scale regional and globally. Lire moins

4. How do we ensure that investable opportunities provide a sufficient business case? A. The Earth should no longer be ignored as a stakeholder within decision making and include the benefits of an investment to the planet as a return. Valuation of ecosystem services provided by the Earth can enable us to put the Earth as a stakeholder on the negotiating table. Factoring in climate risk within business operations can help create the business case for climate action. From a bank's perspective, commitment from the top level is needed to implement such a strategy and to integrate blended finance,... Lire la suite where governments also play an important role. We have to realize that there is a strong economic drive, especially in poor regions, to damage the nature because out of lack of finance, lack of resources and knowledge. Providing finance to those rural areas would help, together with technical assistance. B. We need blended finance to transition to a better reality and create a food system that produces sufficient and healthy foods. Firstly, the incentives for farmers need to be upped and re-aligned. For this, banks need to take into account that different types of farmers have different interests. Lowering interest rates is not the only way, especially where interest rates are already low. Banks and investors should focus their energy on terms and conditions, including the length of the tenor, to truly appeal to farmer needs, and correlate these loans with targets on sustainability. Without a business case, there is no viable sustainability in there. - Secondly, the package of solutions to farmers may be too difficult to adopt. Solutions do not come as silver bullets, but as a package. There is a need to assess if these solutions are not too difficult for the famer to adapt to local environments, by using applied research and testing together with agricultural innovation and putting knowledge in hands of farmers. - Thirdly, in order to get these solutions to scale, we have to tailor blueprints which might require more work. Ideally, we would want blueprints at scale, noting that there are local realities for implementation. Sufficient investments needed in the 5 key drivers of change, like the Sustainable Rice Platform, noting local differences, to stimulate uptake and scale. Aggregators should take up the role to enable farmers to really uptake technology within the supply chain. C. Blended finance is an instrument, a means to an end, which should become more mainstream. However, there is also a big role to play for unblended finance which needs to be repurposed and refocused. Supply chain players need to interact differently with (new) players in their value chain by getting out of silos, even within organizations by including finance teams and getting conversation within mainstream. It is essential to have intercompany as well as intracompany collaboration. Moreover, a market-based approach is needed, working with existing lenders to make more efficient use of subsidies. Smaller deals, reduce approach and long-term capital is key. In the group there was willingness to work collaboratively, especially working to bring together different pools of capital with different objectives (social, environmental, economic) for greater impact. D. Right now, sufficient business case is limited by a focus on economic growth only, e.g. focus on non-eco friendly transactions as opposed to eco-friendly transactions, as well as the absence of sufficient demand for sustainable products and services. Financial institutions should have clear objectives to advance sustainability in addition to profitability, which can help efforts at the regional/national level to shift business models to more sustainable pathways. The private sector should also have a well-defined purpose for the public benefit in their goal. Lire moins

3. How can the so-called innovation ecosystems (e.g. NGO’s, UN agencies, social enterprises, international financial institutions, research organizations) efforts to scale? A. To overcome the lack of bankable projects, we discussed that science and innovation can be used for de-risking blended finance structures and delivering efficient, effective and transformative technical assistance at a pre-investment stage. This is needed to prioritize deal flow to help investors understand the risks and implement those strategies needed in terms of adaptation. To ensure impact at scale, specialized pe... Lire la suiteople need support and work closely with the local ecosystem to create trust and get them to take the last mile, such as financial intermediaries, regional and local banks. Those are the ones supporting small-scale farmers and have trust within. This requires simplified tools to measure and assist on local scale. What is measured gets done; for which ways to measure natural capital and ecosystem benefits must be standardized to overcome the challenge of true pricing and reaching scale. We need to find simple measures for the different facets that are very context specific to examine the kinds of impacts achieved and measurements that have been adopted. B. In order to address the lack of evidence on the environmental and social impact of different blended instruments, different actors, such as the CGIAR Commission, should leverage evidence of the impact of different investment models on sustainable agricultural intensification. Research by SAFIN/Convergence should call to action to donors to focus more resources around four types of blended models that are designed to combine scale of financial mobilization and scale of development impact. Agreement among donors to streamline requirements for concessional capital to be used in blended structures in the sector and/or to use concessional capital more catalytically (more early stage, more high-risk tolerant uses). Financial institutions must structure properly from the very beginning on to avoid wrong incentives. C. There is a need to demystify markets of financial product offerings and bring more transparency to navigate the cluster offerings in the blended finance market. This can be achieved by blending actors in the innovation ecosystem by not only formal partnership arrangements in the set-up of blended structures but also, and most important, narratives and other tools to bridge expectations, languages, understandings and ways of working. Alignment between actors is crucial in overcoming the lack of shared understanding about the main financial gaps and the lack of consensus around the best fit between type of blended solution and specific uses or market situations. In order to be able to optimize the use of finance, it is essential we fix markets and the unstructured, fragmented value chains. The structures and products are too complex for investment opportunities and require process simplification and mainstreaming the sharing of information. D. Between a variety of stakeholders, there is a sheer magnitude of capacity gaps, both financial and non-financial. It is essential to build up capacity at the institutional level to ensure investment possibilities and opportunities are identified and lead to the kind of transformative impact that is needed. Institutional innovation, particularly around inclusive governance of blended finance transactions, needs to focus not only on the “hard” side of science but also on social and governance issues. Lire moins

2. What do value chain actors (farmers, processors, traders, off-takers) need to create sufficient investable opportunities? A. We discussed the importance of a whole chain approach that is pointed at access to markets. If you achieve access to markets, then access to finance will probably follow as they are deeply interrelated. As the sector is too differentiated, we should not hope to achieve access to finance for individuals. A way to make value chains more efficient is to cut out actors and identify champions of the value chain by private sector and financial institutions. We need to gathe... Lire la suiter attention around business and investment opportunities, showcase these and access to finance will improve along the rest of the value chain. B. There still however remains the need to de-risk, which is urgently experience by all players. As agriculture investment is typically long-term and there is a gap in yields and the sustainable transition, farmers should be support by adjusting finance services and solutions to smaller farmers and SMEs so that they can invest in the translation as economic actors. In this respect, there is a lack of finance from (local) banks to finance agriculture as the required long-term investments are currently not possible for financial institutions. De-risking can increase bankable projects together with innovative financial solutions that make transactions possible. Finance should be seen as part of the solution and not of the problem, and should be at the forefront of dialogues. In addition, we must provide better risk profiling metrics, which are specific on the one hand and general (global level) on other hand. C. An issue we discussed is inequality resulting from the digital divide. Technology is very important for value chain traceability and transparency, thus influencing investment decisions along the chain. These technology solutions are in place, a lot of good examples we heard in our group about technology driving, better investment also for smallholder farmers, but there is still an issue of digital divide. In order to reduce inequality, we need to support smallholder farmers with the digital for financial markets, which can improve investment. - Another message to reduce inequality is blended multi stakeholder partnerships, not only blended finance. Acknowledging all players as partners, from farmers to consumers, including the midstream players, and blending them is absolutely crucial for alignment around ambitious sustainability goals. This brings us to another challenge, the huge lack of knowledge about the value chain functions, which entails knowledge on who the actors really are, understanding the role of farmers as economic actors at whatever scale they are operating and making sure that they can get a fair value for their work. D. We discussed that the food system Summit is an important starting point to understand the true nature of the challenge and agree on what it is to do no harm with investment. Clarifying, what is the stick and what is the carrot? This question is necessary to make sure that we repurpose agricultural subsidies and connect the stick and carrot approach. An example provided by this group is to incentivize blended finance for sustainable and deforestation free agriculture by governments. Hereby, off-takers and large corporates have a crucial role to send a demand signal for sustainable and deforestation free commodities. Moving forward, the Summit is just the beginning and after which we need to listen to the finance lever and work together to combine stick and carrot. Lire moins

1. Building blended finance at scale; how can we step up public - private financial commitments to unleash more capital? A. The discussion focused a lot around the topic of incentives. - Incentives within commercial and development Banks: it can be a challenge to convince people in a bank to take on and see through the blended finance from beginning to end because it's usually outside the business-as-usual type of transactions and it requires more time and more effort. And so, this effort has to be worth it. There's a couple of ways how incentives can help motivate staff to take those deals on... Lire la suite. One is integrating KPIs that can make it worthwhile for the staff, from a personal perspective, for example to be promoted. But it can also be super helpful to witness another colleague successfully closing a deal and being rewarded and recognized for it within the bank. And so, one success story can lead to another, as peers are motivated to do similar things to also get the same recognition. - Incentives for corporates: it would be ideal if the shareholders would also evaluate the corporates according to criteria that are more aligned with sustainability. So, currently a lot of the ways how corporates are being evaluated centers around how much of their volume of Source Products is third-party, verified or certified. But that does not always include all things that this corporate is doing. For example, if it's providing technical assistance to the investors and trying to improve practices of farming for example, this would simply be missed in this type of evaluation and so trying to work on the ESG evaluation criteria of corporates would also provide better incentives to work towards Blended Finance to scale up sustainable food and agriculture - Incentives for the farmers. If there's no client demand from the corporate side or from the farm side, even if we can get commitments and more blended finance, it simply won't work. So, the farmer and the corporate would need to see how a better food system can also benefit them. B. We also discussed the importance of de-risking mechanisms such as portfolio guarantees and (long-term) off-take agreements. The off-take agreements are particularly relevant if you want to secure cash flows, which for smallholder farmers is a very important aspect. C. Then, we focused on addressing systemic barriers. The problem is that we're not paying the true price of food. So, neither the water cost or the carbon cost or the deforestation that we cause when we go to the supermarket. If we paid the true cost of food, that would unlock and direct public and private finance towards sustainable production at much larger scale. So, this is a thing for governments to regulate. In that sense, the EU taxonomy can be helpful, as well as new climate laws. D. Another important solution is an open letter from both public and private finance stakeholders in the lead-up to the food system Summit to basically unite behind an ambitious vision and commitment. Lire moins

1. Main limiting factors (a) lack of incentives for the private sector to invest in sustainable food production (b) lack of knowledge/common understanding of innovative blended finance mechanisms by all actors involved, including which type of solution works best in specific situations, how the risk sharing works and what is the return on investment; (c) difficulty in building an investment pipeline, especially when this entails reaching out to the smallholder farmers (d) investment risks are perceived higher than for BAU (e) lack of data, metrics and standardization (e.g. for measuring impact... Lire la suites) limit transparency on the environmental and social impact of blended finance instruments, product structuring and bankability (f) disconnection between actors within the production supply chain, between production and financial actors, between different pools of capital, and between different donors 2. Ways to address these limiting factors CREATING INCENTIVES: (1) Work towards a price of food that reflects the true social and environmental costs of production (2) Transition to a more encompassing definition of “economic return” in business cases to consider the long-term and the internalization of hidden costs to natural capital (3) Stakeholders and investors to increase pressure on food corporates reduce risks related to unsustainable production and create incentives for farmers (4) Investors to reward corporate investing in capacity building and technical assistance of farmers (5) Reduce investment barriers/incentivize farmers, e.g. by lowering certification costs for smallholders, approving longer-term loans linked to sustainability targets, lowering interest rates (6) Financial institutions to have top management-endorsed sustainability objectives and to create incentives for staff to get this type of deals off the ground (7) Governments to work across ministries to reach common goals in different sectors, to create an enabling environment for investments, and to redirect public finance support towards food systems that add instead of subtracting value through hidden costs ADDRESSING LACK OF KNOWLEDGE: (1) Incubate business models and scale-up successful experiences through technical assistance, with emphasis on the youth and on innovation, and with a geographical focus (2) Technical assistance to farmers (e.g. to analyze markets for sustainable produce, to adopt agricultural innovation and adapt it to local circumstances, to prepare a business plan to access finance, to optimize returns over 5-7 years instead of short term) (3) Technical assistance to investment officers BUILDING AN INVESTMENT PIPELINE: (1) Create more investment funds with a transformative potential (2) Develop small-size ticket financing solutions for smaller farmers, distinguish between blended finance for the farmers and for off-takers (3) Build relationships between farmers and local financial actors (4) Simplify structures and process of blended finance instruments to attract more investment opportunities/standardize contracts (5) Increase MDBs support when projects are not bankable (6) Advance innovation on institutional aspects for participatory planning of investments that can then be financed through blended solutions (7) Include investors in the blended finance mechanism’s board room, to assure that projects in the pipeline are attractive to them ADDRESSING INVESTMENT RISKS: (1) Allow farmer cooperatives/communities to receive financing to lower risks and costs (2) Direct more public and private funding towards science-based innovation to de-risk investments (3) Step-up innovation around risk mitigation & sharing solutions (e.g. climate finance lab, blended finance pilots) (4) Develop tools for climate and biodiversity risk assessment tailored to investment officers of local / regional banks MEASURING IMPACT, TRANSPARENCY, AND TRACEABILITY: (1) Low-cost digitization solutions to allow data gathering and increase transparency (2) Address the digital divide, by supporting farmers to access and use digital solutions (3) Work towards standardization of impact measurement, building on KPIs being developed by the research and innovation ecosystem, e.g. avoided emissions, water productivity, etc., but considering that measuring impact can be very costly as it may require specialized people (4) Aim for a standard impact matrix that is science-based and can be certified (5) Rely on local organizations to measure baselines and impact (after providing technical assistance) CONNECTING ACTORS: (1) Work towards a shared ambition level to push sustainable food systems to the top of the agenda (2) Build partnerships to build trust and guarantee the availability of operating loans (3) Address the fragmentation of the value chain, by mapping and addressing all actors in the value chain and make sure that all these economic agents, can reap the benefits of their investments in sustainable food production (4) Develop common narratives for all stakeholders to bridge expectations, institutional cultures and mindsets (5) Improve successful matching between investors and producers, by mapping the different sources of finance around food (6) Connect donors to work on common requirements for concessional capital in the food sector to maximize the catalytic role of concessional capital and development impacts (7) Connect farmers with tech partners to scale up agritech adoption, with aggregators encouraging farmers to adopt technology (8) Intracompany and intercompany collaboration to make the use of blended finance mainstream among corporates. 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LEVER OF CHANGE “Finance” and its links with ACTION TRACKS #1, 3, and 4: the focus of the Dialogue was on ways to scale-up blended finance (i.e. combining development finance and philanthropic funds with private sector capital) as an enabler for transitional investments needed to produce food more efficiently and sustainably to (1) feed an increasing population with changing diets, (2) achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (‘SDGs’) and (3) meet the 1.5°C ambition of the Paris Agreement. Investment opportunities in sustainable food systems are limited by three key market failures (... Lire la suitelock ins) including (1) the lack of a deep pipeline of bankable projects; (2) high (perceived) investment risk, and lack of primary data/information asymmetries; (3) lack of efficient connection between investment needs of farmers and producing companies and different pools of capital (e.g. DFI’s, banks, pension funds, insurance capital). These market failures are exacerbated by a severe funding gap and a strict regulatory framework. One of the solutions to these failures is blended finance, which on the one hand enables governments to use limited public money to crowd in a much larger scale of private finance, and on the other hand allows corporates and financiers to have some costs and risks partly covered by public finance, boosting their investment appetite in sustainable food production solutions. This dialogue aimed to integrate the viewpoints of different types of stakeholders around blended finance mechanisms. The role that blended finance can have in the food system transformation was analysed and new ways of collaboration were discussed to truly accelerate tangible action towards the UN FSS in New York in September and beyond. Lire moins

There were no strong areas of divergence but there was clear recognition of the potential trade-offs between affordability and other economic, social and environmental issues. In particular it was recognised that affordability should not be achieved at the expense of poor social conditions (low wages, low remuneration to producers), poor environmental conditions (excessive land clearance, over-use of chemical inputs, intensive animal production), or adverse economic conditions (trade protectionism). Digitalisation - there was divergence on the issue of digitalisation. While some participants w... Lire la suiteelcomed the opportunities for digital technology to create more efficient food systems, other participants considered that digitalisation could widen the inequality gap. There was consensus that we must ensure that digitalisation is inclusive of smallholders. Some potential game-changing innovations identified included e.g. digital communications for market prices. Systems - Ensuring Resilient Systems are critical for food, health, social protection etc. However, a potential trade-off was identified between designing ‘very lean’ systems, and having systems that are efficient but also have capacity to flex, adapt and respond in a time of crisis. Lire moins

What Actions can be used to improve Affordability? Corinna Hawkes presented five propositions about the nature of the affordability problem, and potential solutions emerging in the Action Track 1 process of the Food Systems Summit. Problem 1 is low and variable incomes of poor households: rational management of such incomes drives households to choose staples and cheap, often less healthy options. Potential solutions include women-led enterprise for neglected crops, nutritious social safety nets and school food programmes. Problem 2 is that nutritious foods that people want to eat are more exp... Lire la suiteensive. Potential solutions include investment in infrastructure for nutritious foods and expansion of food at work actions. Problem 3 is that there may be low-cost nutritious foods available which are perceived as having low value,( e.g. millets). Potential game-changing solutions include developing an innovation platform for SME manufacturers of convenient nutritious foods. Problem 4 is the perception that nutritious foods are more costly when they may not be. A potential solution is public awareness campaigns with commercial knowhow. Problem 5 is the wide availability of appealing “ultra-processed” sugary drinks and snacks, fried street foods, oils and sugar, which people are willing to pay for even when they may be more expensive than more nutritious alternatives. Potential solutions include clearly defining “unhealthy food”, a package of food environment policies, and disincentives for unhealthy food marketing. Bringing these game-changing solutions together to achieve systems change will achieve greater collective impact. This involves changing the “rules of the game” to provide an environment which enables a nutritious food economy. Lire moins

There was a general consensus surrounding the issues of women’s empowerment and nutrition, however the approaches to address these did differ. Some could argue that using women’s empowerment as a method to improve households or child malnutrition, as successful as that has been in the past, could also lead to the over burden of women and in some cases and ignore the needs of the induvial women themselves. There was also discussion on the nutrition-livelihoods pathway, on whether better nutrition leads to improved livelihoods, the discussion offered that there was a positive relationship be... Lire la suitetween improved nutrition and livelihoods outcomes, however the opposite is not always true, that improved livelihoods lead to better nutrition. There was a note of the amount of research that is available to back these statements. Lire moins

Examples from Liberia, Niger, Malawi and Zambia Case studies conducted by different NGOs using the Cost of the Diet methodology highlighted some of the affordability issues in different contexts. A study undertaken in Liberia by Concern Worldwide in three livelihood zones found that most poor and very poor households would need to spend more than 100% of their annual income to achieve a nutritious diet. The price of fish has a significant impact on affordability. Seasonal price fluctuations, currency depreciation/import dependency and production constraints also influence affordability. Potent... Lire la suiteial solutions include a focus on community-level food demonstrations, home-garden production, nutrition-sensitive aquaculture and snail-rearing, promoting recipes incorporating nutritious local foods, and increased use of micronutrient powders. Save the Children (UK) pioneered the Cost of Diet and Household Economy approaches. SCF presented recent work in Malawi and Niger combining both approaches to explore the impact of covid-19 on diet affordability. The likely causes of impact are restricted movement, curfews, market disruptions, disruption of livelihoods, border closures, and food price increases. In Niger (Zinder District) grains comprised about 50% of the cost of a nutritious diet. Prices and affordability increased in January-February 2021 compared with the previous year: in February 2021 the affordability of a nutritious diet was 129% of the income of very poor households. In Malawi’s Chilwa Lake Zone the cost of a nutritious diet was 250% above average incomes of very poor households. The second wave of covid 19 was contributing to a worsening of affordability and increased malnutrition in both countries. SHA presented findings of work on affordability by Self Help Africa in their Local Development Programme implemented in two remote Districts of the Northern Province of Zambia, with high prevalent stunting rates (about 50%). The cost of an energy-only diet was estimated at 58% of average income, but the minimum cost of a nutritious diet was 14 – 18 times more expensive than the energy-only diet –far out of reach of most households. Factors influencing affordability included limited availability of vegetables in the cold season, the high cost of sources of Vitamin B12 (mostly animal-source foods), poor infrastructure and remote location, and food preferences - millet is considered a food of poor people although it is a better sources of micronutrients than maize. Lire moins

Discussion Panel There was extreme interest in exploring the reasons that women’s empowerment did not correlate with household’s food security indicators. The evidence shown from the research in Tigray illustrated why the WENI is important, often induvial women’s health and nutrition is overlooked when programmes focus on women as a route to improve childhood nutrition. Again, there was interest in all speakers in this group towards adaption current practices to other contexts. Throughout the webinar the discussion both from the panellist’s and the audience was used to share resources ... Lire la suitefrom the speakers and the attendees. The presentations from Ethiopia, Niger and Tanzania showed that there are complex issues when addressing nutrition and the first step is to identify the main driver factors of malnutrition. The speaker from GOAL Global based in Niger showed innovative methods to addressing malnutrition through mass awareness by using digital technologies to spread information. Reaching communities that were further away from the sample site. All presentations added the conclusion that both separately women’s empowerment and nutrition are determined by a multitude of driving factors. What was proven to be even more complex is trying to promote both increased women’s empowerment and improved nutrition in a multi-disciplinary manner. Lire moins

Building back better from COVID-19 - Irish Development Organisations Role in building back better. - Building Back Better from COVID-19: 2021 presents a window of opportunity for ‘transformational change’ towards reaching the SDGs. In doing this we must ensure that we reach the furthest behind first, and take a ‘food systems approach’. Policy responses to COVID-19 must also be gender sensitive if we are to ‘build back better’. One tool identified is the Gender Action Learning System (GALS) which is a practical guide for transforming gender and unequal power relations in value chain... Lire la suites. - Inequality is a key consideration in building back better from COVID-19. For example, IFPRI research from Ethiopia demonstrates that the poorest households were disproportionately affected by the income and nutritional impacts of COVID-19 compared to Middle and Higher Income Households. - Irish development organisations have a role to play in building back better. In particular there is a need to support resilient systems, emphasise local and collaborative approaches and ensure the voices of the marginalised are heard through inclusive and democratic processes. Donors can support this role through flexible financing, for example, Irish Aid flexible funding was effective in enabling development partners such as Trocaire and Concern to respond to the immediate impacts of COVID-19. - On tackling malnutrition, we must look at all aspects of the food systems, including WASH, Health, social protection and livelihoods; this came out strongly from IFPRI and IDS research. - Social protection systems have been adaptive to COVID-19, and safeguarded the most vulnerable. Positive examples shared were the PSNP Ethiopia, Cash Safety-net Transfers in Haiti and Bangladesh (Concern). Advocacy and oversight of social protection systems is also necessary to ensure government transfers are sufficient to allow beneficiaries access a Minimum Expenditure Basket (Concern programme in Kenya). In the longer term, countries need to be supported to develop shock responsive social protection systems - In order to understand food economies in food insecure environments, it’s important to know how households meet their food needs. Tools identified were the Household Hunger Scale(UCC), and The Livelihood based Coping Strategy Index (LbCSI) which uses ‘coping strategies’ as an indicator for stress regarding access to food (Trocaire). Lire moins

Evidence and Responses from Irish and International Development Partners The results of UCC’s research ‘Women’s Economic and Nutritional Empowerment: Gergera Watershed Project, Tigray, Ethiopia.’ were presented. The study was conducted by applying the commonly used Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (AWEAI) and the WENI along with a series of food security, diet and health metrics. The objective of the research was to illustrate the complexity in measuring women’s empowerment and the links to nutrition. Goal Global has created the UNITLIFE project aimed at connect... Lire la suiteing women’s empowerment to undernutrition prevention and treatment in Niger. The project aims at sustainably contributing to stunting reduction through agriculture market systems and social behaviour changes. The three main expected outcomes are: improved production and availability of healthy foods, improved women’s empowerment for child nutrition and wellbeing and improved health-seeking behaviours, nutritional practices, and community well-being. The project recognises that this area requires taking a multi-disciplinary approach to achieve the outcomes by working within the food, agriculture, health, and sociology sectors. COUNSENUTH’s project ‘Lishe Dodoma’ is a community-based gender driven nutrition programme in Chemba District, Dodoma Region in Tanzania. The key programme delivery approaches are stakeholder’s engagement, Transformative Reflective Leadership Approach (TRLA) and Village Health and Nutrition Days (VHND). TRLA is an approach which actively engages influential community leaders and whole communities in a participatory way to comprehend existing gender disparities and empowers them to address these for improved nutrition. Chemba is a strong patriarchal society, empowerment of women without active involvement of men is impossible. Maureen Muketha contributed her Food System Summit Action Track 1 Leadership Team’s ‘Game Changer’ solution. This entails a need to increase the availability of safe and nutritious food, making food more affordable and reducing inequities in food access. It focuses on promoting women-led enterprises to grow and sell nutritious but neglected crops. It aims to support women currently facing poverty and inequality to create small enterprises, generating economic empowerment and agency in decision-making in producing, eating, and selling nutritious foods. It may also encourage leadership programmes for innovators at the community level. Lire moins

The Challenge How can nutritious diets be affordable for all? What is the current situation? Anna Herforth presented findings from her recent global overview study. Using the World Bank’s 2017 International Comparison Program (ICP) dataset, the study estimated that 3 billion people globally can’t afford to purchase the least-cost form of healthy diets recommended by national governments. On average it costs $3.68 per day to meet dietary recommendations (which differ by country): healthy diets cost far more than the international poverty line of $1.90 per day. World Bank data estimate that ... Lire la suitethe poorest people in Low Income countries spend an average of 63% of income on food. Based on comparing the cost of diet with 63% of incomes, 1.3 billion people in South Asia, 829 million in Sub-Saharan Africa and 556 million in E. and SE Asia can’t afford a healthy diet. More diverse diets cost more: staples and oils comprise just 16% of the cost of a healthy diet, but fruit and veg cost 40% and protein foods plus dairy comprise 44%. Therefore low-income consumers find it impossible to achieve healthy diets based on current cost structures. What can we conclude from this analysis? First, there are implications for poverty lines: these are clearly set too low and need to be adjusted to allow for the cost of a nutritious diet. Second, agriculture and rural development programmes need to prioritise reducing the cost of vegetables and fruits, and protein-rich foods including dairy, in ways which improve livelihoods and the environment. Third, social protection programmes need to be re-designed to have a stronger focus on nutrition, possibly including assistance for home-based production of nutritious foods. Lire moins

How to Link Women's Empowerment and Nutrition: the Women's Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI) The Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI) was developed by Narayanan et al., (2019) to contribute to a shift in thinking about empowerment in the context of women’s nutrition. The index bridges the missing link between empowerment and individual women’s nutrition and health. The WENI introduces the concept of nutritional empowerment as a method to identify barriers to increased nutrition for women. It encompasses the basis of both empowerment and drivers of nutrition to expand on hous... Lire la suiteehold nutrition but also examines the causes of female malnutrition. It measures women’s knowledge, resources, agency and achievements in food, health, fertility, and institutional support. There was discussion on the adaptability of the WENI, and how it may be used within the food system in different agricultural setting (arid-semi-arid areas), the WENI was developed with interchangeable indicators to allow for this, and the initial research was validated in different geographical and agricultural settings within the food system. There was interest of how the WENI could be used, participants discussed the role of the WENI index as a tool to use before project design and programme development. One of the main advantages of WENI is that it evaluates the most important factors in an area and could be used to identify the main priorities of a project sample. It will highlight the domains in which women need the most attention or the least. The index can be also used as a diagnostic tool to understand the needs of a community better. It can also be used as an outcome measure. The main role of the WENI is to capture underlining structural factors impacts women’s nutritional empowerment. The complexity of women’s empowerment was illustrated through the discussion, with certain domains of empowerment signifying a positive contribution to empowerment or in some cases negative. For example, the index can show that working women achieve empowerment by gaining access to income, however in other cases, women who work are disempowered due to their working conditions. One of the main outcomes of this webinar is the development of a networking grant proposal to continued discussion and potential for connection and collaboration between speakers and their organisations. Lire moins