Several development agencies have begun to
design or redesign their programs to beter tap these links. For instance, Feed the Future, the United States’ multibillion-dollar global hun- ger and food security initiative, explicitly seeks to accelerate inclusive agriculture sector growth and improve nutritional status through sustain- able country-owned development programs. Te United Kingdom Department for International Development has substantially scaled up its sup- port for nutrition programming and research and is including agriculture, food, and nutrition security research as part of its program in South Asia. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the New Partnership for
Africa’s Development and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition signed an agreement to develop a five-year joint program to fully integrate nutrition security into the Comprehensive Africa Agricul- ture Development Program (CAADP) framework. Representatives from the ministries of agricul- ture, nutrition, and health and other counterparts from 17 West African countries came together at a CAADP workshop in Dakar in November 2011 to examine how nutrition can be integrated into national agricultural development plans, with spe- cial atention to addressing country-specific nutri- tion problems. In October 2011 President Yoweri Museveni launched the Uganda Nutrition Action Plan (2011–2016), developed by the Uganda National Planning Authority in collaboration with several ministries, with a strong message to the public on what foods to grow to avoid malnutri- tion. Malawi organized a groundbreaking national conference in September 2011 that brought together policymakers and planners in the agriculture, nutri- tion, and health sectors to coordinate and integrate their activities to help agriculture in Malawi contrib- ute to the health and nutrition of the population. In late 2010 a road map was produced for the Scal-
ing Up Nutrition (SUN) movement—a broad part- nership of international and donor organizations.2 Te movement gathered considerable momentum during 2011 when the road map began to be trans- lated into action. By January 2012, 24 high-burden countries had commited to the SUN movement and begun seting nutrition goals and targets. More than 100 organizations around the world have endorsed
BOX 7 IFPRI’s 2020 Conference: T
Tracking the Outcomes Robert Paarlberg, Wellesley College and Harvard University
he 2011 “”Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health” Conference, organized by IFPRI and its 2020 Vision
Initiative, had significant useful effects on participants, in addi- tion to informing global discourse and potential new initiatives. Conferees learned how to advance an integrated approach to agriculture, nutrition, and health more effectively in their respec- tive workplaces. While most conferees arrived already believing the sectors should be viewed and managed jointly rather than in isola- tion, their attendance strengthened these opinions—as shown by pre- and post-conference surveys. Conferees gained valuable new information and connected to a wider set of cross-sector networks. The 2020 Conference also produced measurable impacts on
public and professional discourse. Between October 2010 and May 2011, the international journalists invited to the conference wrote 33 stories about the conference, and 25 other media stories were published in English, French, and German. Significant institutional reporting on the conference included 22 stories presented in vari- ous donor and stakeholder outlets. This media coverage helped increase the visibility of conference themes. Google searches at regular intervals revealed a significant uptick in the Internet pres- ence of the conference’s central theme; the average number of retrieved web pages containing the phrase “linking agriculture, nutrition, and health” increased from about 9,300 in the precon- ference period to more than 13,500 in the post-conference period. Finally, surveys and interviews revealed that this New Delhi
conference inspired or supported a range of important initiatives, including follow-on meetings and consultation; efforts to contact government decisionmakers on agriculture, nutrition, and health issues; new initiatives by donors; and even some provisional pro- grammatic and institutional change. One immediate, tangible impact was a decision by the Canadian International Development Agency to give an additional US$6–10 million grant to the HarvestPlus proj- ect on biofortification. In addition the conference further strength- ened the agriculture, nutrition, and health themes in the new CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health, an international initiative to create a network of educational insti- tutions working in the areas of agriculture, nutrition, and health. China’s State Food and Nutrition Consultation Committee vowed to create a food safety and nutrition development institute as well. The durability and extent of such changes during the longer
term will depend in part on whether IFPRI commits resources to sustained leadership in the areas of agriculture, nutrition, and health outreach and policy research.1
AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND HEALTH 57
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