This convening paper summarises the contents and outcomes of a meeting series jointly organised by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). The initiative aimed to foster exchange between policy advisors from both organisations who provide policy advice to governments on topics related to food systems transformation and governance.
The FTF EatSafe activity sought to improve food safety in traditional markets, adopting a systems approach and a focus on consumer demand. Traditional markets in LMICs are complex spaces at the core of food systems. Traditionally neglected, they are now recognized as key food environments where most people in LMICs procure their food, and where consumer demand meets supply chains.
Feed the Future's Evidence and Action Towards Safe Nutritious Food (EatSafe) aimed to increase consumer demand for safe, nutritious foods in traditional food markets in Nigeria and Ethiopia. This document details recommended approaches for implementing activities aimed at enhancing food safety in traditional markets through demand-driven behavior change, drawing on insights and lessons learned from EatSafe’s activities in these countries.
Improving food safety in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in the traditional markets where most consumers shop, is crucial for advancing nutrition, health, and other development goals. Feed the Future’s (FTF) Evidence and Action Towards Safe, Nutritious Food (FTF EatSafe) activity aimed to stimulate and leverage consumer demand for safer food to drive improvements in food safety in traditional markets.
Feed the Future’s EatSafe: Evidence and Action Towards Safe, Nutritious Food (FTF EatSafe) aimed to boost consumer demand for safe, nutritious foods in traditional markets in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), specifically Nigeria and Ethiopia. Utilizing a two-phased approach, FTF EatSafe's Phase I combined global evidence with local situational analyses to understand the context, and Phase II involved designing, testing, and implementing interventions to empower consumers.
Insights from formative research guided the development of interventions, including the Vendor Training Initiative in Hawassa, Ethiopia. The Vendor Training Initiative, piloted in the Aroge Gebeya market in Hawassa
Political economy dynamics—that is, conflicts and trade-offs across different interest groups that play an important role in the food system—permeate many decisions about food systems policy and implementation. Development practitioners working in the food systems space—inclusive of agriculture, nutrition, and environmental policies—need to be aware of these dynamics to be able to support policy advocacy, development, and implementation.
Environmental factors impact human health and nutrition through various pathways, and these impacts can be felt disproportionately by already vulnerable groups like women and children.
As a follow-on to the core report ‘The Case for Investment in Nutritious Food Value Chains: An Opportunity for Gender Impact’, GAIN and SAGANA are publishing the nine case studies showcasing the business and impact case for gender-smart nutrition investments.
While improved nutrition is central to achieving many development goals, investment in nutrition currently falls far short of what is needed. One group of actors that could potentially help address this is development finance institutions (DFIs): specialised financial organisations that promote sustainable development by providing capital, usually for private-sector-led projects. DFIs seem like promising actors to support nutrition: they are already active in low- and middle-income countries, invest in adjacent sectors like agriculture, and have large financial resources. However, to date DFIs have not been very active in investing in nutrition-supporting businesses and funds. This paper seeks to understand the barriers to investment in nutrition-related projects and develop concrete solutions to unlock funding through a mapping of DFIs’ approaches combined with in-depth interviews with several DFI representatives.
ACT4FOOD was launched as a global youth-led movement to transform food systems, with a pledge to encourage millions of young people to create sustainable food systems and more opportunistically to get involved in the UNFSS and to bring their demands to the decision-making table.
