Public Sector Research Priorities for Food Security and Nutrition
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Priorities for Public Sector Research on Food Security and Nutrition, Review 2 by Shawn Baker, Helen Keller International on 11 April 2013 in Dublin, Ireland.
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Public Sector Research Priorities for Food Security and Nutrition
- 1. Review: Priorities for Public Sector Research on Food Security and Nutrition Food Security Futures Research Priorities for the 21st Century April 11-12, 2013 Dublin, Ireland Reviewer: Shawn K. Baker Vice-President, Regional Director for Africa Helen Keller International
- 2. Perspective Pragmatic practitioner Deploying multiple evidence- based solutions to undernutrition Programs implemented through partnerships Strongly focused on sub-Saharan Africa
- 3. Context: •Investments in agriculture and food security dwarf those in direct nutrition – incremental improvements meaningful •CAADP emphasizes nutrition – yet plans weak •More countries joining Scaling-Up Nutrition •Hunger for guidance on nutrition-sensitive agriculture
- 4. Measurement Research: •HIV: “Know your epidemic, know your response” •Measuring nutrition is cumbersome: - Micronutrient status - Anthropometrics - Food consumption - Nutrient content - Agricultural statistics •Better data will drive better programs and better accountability
- 5. Evaluation Research: •Nutrition usually afterthought in design of agriculture programs •Evaluation design has not considered impact pathways to deliver nutrition results •Design and implement evaluations appropriate to agriculture interventions
- 6. Women-Centered Agriculture: •In Africa, women account for 70% of labor for agricultural and 80% for food processing •Public sector agriculture systems seldom have mandate or capacity to serve small-holder women farmers
- 7. Capacity Building: The Orphan Intervention •SUN: “Human and institutional capacity in nutrition is very weak in many countries, thus limiting the pace of scaling up” •Research on capacity- building policies and methods
- 8. Industrial Food Fortification •An essential component of agricultural and food policy •Research: - Coverage by geographic and socio-economic groups - Adequacy of nutrients - Value-added of other food vehicles - Compliance by importers
- 9. Some Thoughts on Roles: •More purposeful partnering of researchers and program implementers •Leverage civil society organization knowledge of women-centered programming to re-align public sector •Better harness private sector experience and expertise: •Measurement technologies and methods •Capacity-building methods •Technology diffusion
- 10. Next Steps: •Effectively deploy what we do know works •Strong focus on women- centered agriculture •Invest in better measurement methods, better evaluations, better data collection and use •Invest in capacity to deliver
Notas do Editor
- Good afternoon. I would like to thank the organizers for the invitation to review this paper, and to thank the authors for all of the efforts to put this important paper together. Before I start my comments, I thought it would be useful that I be forthright about the perspective from which I reviewed this paper. I am a public health nutrition practitioner, and very pragmatic. I am not tied to any single intervention but try to deploy a package of evidence-based solutions. Helen Keller International works through partners, so a point of view of the needs of partners. Strongly influenced by experience in sub-Saharan Africa.
- The authors do acknowledge the constraints in capacity. Globally it has been recognized since at least 1978 that low capacity in nutrition was a barrier to scaling-up. The Scaling Up Nutrition is the latest to recognize this constraint. I think that there has to be a more specific research agenda to assess what capacity-building policies and methods are most effective, and can be scaled-up – and how investments in capacity-building translate into improved nutrition outcomes. There is a perception that “capacity building “ is a black hole, and this is the sort of evidence that will leverage investment in capacity building.
- I was pleased to see discussion of industrial (or in the authors’ words “commercial”) food fortification. Even though industrial food fortification is positioned within CAADP – my impression is that the agricultural sector does not embrace food fortification as an essential component of agriculture and food policy. There has been a lot of progress in industrial food fortification in recent years, but there are important areas of research to continue to improve programs, including on the coverage by geographic and socio-economic groups, the adequacy of nutrients, the value-added of other food vehicles and how to best ensure compliance by importers.
- The organizers requested that we give some thought to relative roles of different agencies. In our experience partnering with research institutions like IFPRI and UC Davis has been a powerful way to get implementers to frame issues in research terms and get researchers to apply research in a program implementation environment. I think more purposeful partnering of implementers and researchers should be encouraged. In general there is a wealth of knowledge of how to serve small-holder women farmers in the non-governmental sector, and we should leverage this to build public sector capacity. I think we are under-utilizing private sector experience and capacity – for example in research and development of new measurement technologies and methods, methods for capacity building and strategies for technology diffusion.
- Most challenging in the instructions from the organizers, for me, was a request to suggest some “next steps”. My first next step is a bit contradictory to my opening statement – there is a lot we do not know about what works to make agriculture have better impacts on nutrition, but there are some things we do know, and are discussed in this paper, and we should effectively deploy these interventions. I was at a review workshop of agricultural investments of a major donor in Africa in December – and I was struck that there was virtually no investment in industrial fortification or biofortification, and very little in homestead food production – interventions for which there is strong to medium evidence. As you will have gathered, I think one of the quickest wins is to really build a strong focus on women-centered agriculture. I am a staunch believer in improving the evidence base and using that evidence base to drive policies and programs. And finally, none of this can happen if we do not invest in the capacity to deliver – and I will repeat my call to invest in this neglected area. I would again like to thank the organizers and the authors and I look forward to our discussions.