October eNews

The path to prosperity begins with women and nutrition

A new narrative for the agricultural development sector has emerged: it is simply not enough to feed the world; if people are to be prosperous, they must have access to and eat nutritious food. According to the Global Nutrition Report 795 million people are hungry and 1.9 billion people are overweight or obese. In Africa alone, over- and under-nutrition currently affects 1 in 4 people.

As today marks the 6^th annual African Food and Nutrition Security Day (AFNSD), there is yet another opportunity to check on progress against financial commitments pledged at the Nutrition for Growth Summit, raise awareness of the progress to-date and highlight barriers that still need to be overcome. The AFNSD thereby concludes a month dedicated to eradicating hunger and poverty by honouring the 2015 World Food Prize Laureate Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, “Making a Difference in Food Security and Nutrition” at the 42^nd Plenary Session of the Committee on World Food Security and promoting the role of women and youth in African agriculture at the 2015 African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF).

During the World Food Prize I chaired a session about conservation agriculture (CA), with Howard G. Buffet, Kofi Boa and Alejandro Lopez Moriena. Particularly in the context of climate change and soil degradation, more food must be produced in a sustainable fashion. CA, which includes the use of no-till, cover crops, and crop rotations, offers one potential solution to this challenge. According to my fellow panellists, CA can be practiced on virtually any size farm operation or environment. Yield levels are as good, or better than, those achieved under conventional farming, but there is the added benefit of improving soil fertility. You can watch the discussion here.

The 2015 World Food Prize was awarded to Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairperson of BRAC, in part due to his work in the social and economic empowerment of women to engage in productive employment, generate incomes as contribute to improved household nutrition. This year’s AGRF also focused on bringing markets to life for women and youth for them to have better access to finance and opportunities tailored to meet their needs. Notably, Montpellier Panel Member, Ousmane Badiane, along with Eric Kaduru, was awarded the Yara Prize for his pivotal role in shaping the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) agenda from concept development to implementation creating a platform for driving change and measuring impact in the field of food and nutrition security in Africa.

Empowering women to make informed decisions about what to grow, eat and prepare was also central to the side event jointly hosted at the CFS by my team at Agriculture for Impact, the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, FANRPAN and the John Kufuor Foundation. Exploring the connections between climate change, food security and nutrition, Montpellier Panel members Tom Arnold and David Radcliffe discussed the need to use land intelligently - simply producing more staple crops may bring short-term relief from hunger, but it will not end malnutrition and it will not improve the resilience of agriculture systems in the face of climate change. Crucially, women have to be engaged as a solution to these challenges, and FANRPAN’s Simbarashe Sibanda shared recent insights from the ATONU programme that seeks to integrate nutrition interventions and objectives into agricultural investments. You can read more about the discussion here.

Looking ahead to December, I have the pleasure of welcoming Montpellier Panel member, the Honourable Professor Ruth K. Oniang'o, for a lecture at Imperial College London on the morning of December 4^th to explore the linkages between climate change and malnutrition.

Last but not least, I will chair a session at the Chatham House ‘Sustainable Food Future’ conference titled ‘Mobilizing Food Research, Development and Finance’ in London on December 7^th and 8^th. Please register your place to attend if you have not done so already.

Yours ever,