The global burden of malnutrition, poor mental health, depression, and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) continues to grow, contributing significantly to mortality and poor health, reduced productivity, and economic stagnation. With over 60% of the population engaged in the workforce and spending more than half of their adult lives at work, the workplace offers a strategic platform to address these challenges. One important aspect of worker wellbeing is nutrition, which fuels the body, improves cognitive and immune function, and reduces sick days and NCD risk.
Clear measures of progress on food system transformation can provide decision-makers with the visibility to course-correct to realise desired impacts and can help ensure accountability. To this end, there is a need to develop, test, and validate novel methods and metrics for assessing food systems transformation. To ensure that such work is grounded in local food system stakeholders’ needs, GAIN consulted national stakeholders across four Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan) to identify priority indicator gaps for monitoring food systems transformation. These consultations drew from an analysis of each country’s food system transformation pathway, existing indicators, and the results from similar stakeholder workshops in Africa. National stakeholder workshops were held with diverse participants in three of the countries, while stakeholder interviews were used in India.
Across all countries, some similar themes emerged, such as sustainable and climate-smart agriculture, small and medium-sized enterprises, food safety and quality, consumption behaviour, policy alignment, and food system governance. There was a strong focus on policy actions, sustainability, and resilience as crosscutting themes. Women and youth were mentioned as groups requiring particular attention in metrics development, including the wage disparities between men and women, inclusion of women and youth in decision-making process, and youth access to finance and agri-business. The results from the workshops will be used to inform GAIN’s future work in developing metrics and methods to understand and help countries track their food systems transformation.
South Asia continues to face an enduring burden of malnutrition in all its forms—undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and a steady increase in overweight and obesity and non-communicable diseases. Over 1 billion people in South Asia cannot afford a healthy diet. While many promising solutions have emerged, translating them into sustained, large-scale impact remains a challenge.
Although there is a strong evidence base on effective interventions to improve nutrition outcomes, evidence of their implementation and scale‑up in real‑world settings remains inconsistent. Success depends not only on having proven solutions but also on systems, leadership, sustainable financing, and accountability mechanisms to support widespread delivery.
As the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development nears and as South Asia navigates the challenges of climate change, food system disruptions, and economic instability, the need for effective, scalable, and sustainable nutrition action has never been more urgent.
The French Society of Nutrition (SFN), the French Federation of Nutrition (FFN), the Federation of European Nutrition Societies (FENS), and the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS)—and under the high patronage of Mr. Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic—is holding the 23rd International Congress of Nutrition, between 24 and 29 August 2025 at the Palais des Congrès, Pris, France.
Food system transformation (FST) is fundamental to human progress. Feeding and nourishing the world. Creating jobs and reducing poverty. Managing the environment. Avoiding catastrophic climate change. Building resilience to shocks. These are the building blocks of human and planetary wellbeing.
Since the lead-up to the UNFSS, we have been supporting countries to draw up pathways to better food systems, and to begin walking the talk. But many constraints still hinder progress, and reforms are sorely needed.
That’s why we have worked with governments to develop and implement a series of practical tools to strengthen policy decision making processes and capacities. These are tools created to give users a hand over major, common barriers. They are also designed to align with or to support ongoing national processes, such as monitoring plans, or indeed continental and transnational ambitions, including the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), and the seven aspirations of Agenda 2063 which call for a more prosperous, integrated, democratic, peaceful, pan- African, people-driven, and influential Africa by 2033.
The tools collected here can be instrumental: in diagnosing food systems to identify critical gaps and untapped opportunities; in shaping nimble action plans in line with national priorities; in identifying much-needed policy reforms to ensure sectors act alongside each other, rather than against; and in providing new ways to effectively navigate political, financial, and technical impediments. Barriers have stood in the path of meaningful progress for too long – we must break through them.
N3F’s 2024 Nutrition Impact: Expanding Access to Nutritious Foods Across Sub-Saharan Africa
The Nutritious Foods Financing Facility (N3F) released its first impact report, underscoring a strong selection of impactful investees enhancing nutrition across Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2023, the N3F portfolio collectively produced or facilitated access to over 647 million servings of nutritious food products, reaching an estimated 3 million end-consumers, the majority of whom are low- and middle-income households.
