The conflict in Ukraine is having widespread deleterious impacts on the economies and food systems of many low- and middle-income countries. Rising prices for food, fuel, and fertilizer have raised pressing concerns about food security and poverty. To better understand the risks in specific countries, IFPRI researchers have modeled the impacts of prices of the fuel, fertilizer, and food price shocks on GDP, employment, poverty, hunger, and diet quality in 19 countries in Africa and Asia, and examined the relative cost effectiveness of different policy interventions.

African smallholders face many risks and uncertainty in the face of climate change and other shocks. Economic, health and environmental crises exacerbate resilience; take for example the COVID-19 pandemic and the escalating food and fertilizer prices resulting from the conflict in Ukraine. The unavailability and nearly four-fold price increase of fertilizer will affect food production and prices in Africa.

During the pandemic’s first year, a global task force of food safety experts was created using a “train the trainer” approach to provide risk mitigation outreach for the food system workforce in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, Nepal, and Senegal. Through live, online office hours and downloadable, translated resources, the team countered misinformation and shared best practices to keep food businesses open. The global food system continues to face challenges from conflict, climate change, and other disruptions.

Unhealthy diets are a critical global concern, but current dietary assessment methods are costly and challenging to implement. Mobile-phone-based interventions show some promise for improving nutrition data collection and dietary quality, especially for adolescents in low- and middle-income countries.

The 2022 Global Food Policy Report, IFPRI’s flagship report, highlights the urgency of accelerating innovation, reforming policies, resetting market incentives, and increasing financing for sustainable food systems transformation. It sets forth a broad range of policy options for accelerated action by policymakers as well as international forums for policy and investment decision-making.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)’s Africa Regional Office is organizing the Africa discussion of its flagship report, the 2022 Global Food Policy Report (2022 GFPR) on Climate Change & Food Systems, which will be held on June 1st at 12:30-2.00 PM GMT.

Irrigation has contributed to increased food production, lower food prices, higher rural employment, and overall agricultural and economic growth. It has been a key component of agricultural intensification and transformation in Asia and has the potential to take on the same role in Sub-Saharan Africa.

On Tuesday, May 17th, 2022, on the ILRI Campus in Nairobi, Kenya, the National Policies and Strategies for Food, Land and Water Systems Transformation (NPS) Initiative will hold its launch event. NPS is a new One CGIAR initiative that has been co-created with national and international partners with the main objectives of building policy coherence, responding to crises, and integrating policy tools at national and subnational levels in six countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The African Natural Resources Centre, in collaboration with the Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department, will host a webinar on 10 May 2022 to present the findings of a study on "The Future of Marine Fisheries in the African Blue Economy: Challenges and Opportunities".

Le Programme d'accélération de l'adaptation en Afrique organise un webinaire intitulé : « Technologies numériques intelligentes face au climat pour l'agriculture et la sécurité alimentaire (CSDAT) : Nouvelles frontières pour le système alimentaire » le mardi 12 avril 2022, de 9h à 10h30 (GMT).