Nourishing Food Pathways

Nourishing Food Systems Pathways strengthens government-led food system policy design, alignment and, delivery.

Pathways

Nourishing Food Pathways is an ambitious programme that seeks to accelerate progress towards The Sustainable Development Goals (particularly SDG2) by supporting inclusive and coherent food systems transformation in ten countries.

This programme builds on work conducted during the UN Food Systems Summit, aiming to support and strengthen the design and delivery of national food systems transformation pathways. We will work with over one hundred partners across the 10 countries to deliver this programmes.

  1. Increase access to safe, nutritious food in an environmentally sustainable way.
  2. Strengthen in-country support systems to continue to develop and to deliver their national food systems transformation pathways.
  3. Provide inspiration and guidance to other countries and stakeholders as pathways are developed and implemented.

There are six workstreams that aim to achieve this.

Policy Coherence

Workstream 1: Policy Coherence

This workstream is foundational and focuses on supporting governments to strengthen policy alignment and implementation across sectors towards food system goals.

GAIN is directly involved in planning work with lead ministries working on food system pathways. It will involve intensive, daily work under national government-led structures, together with government policy units and national think tanks and universities to develop, refine and implement the national pathways.

To support this process, we are developing a diagnostic tool to help stakeholders identify where there is food system-related policy incoherence between government agencies or ministries as potential entry points for alignment (where this is appropriate, desirable and feasible).

Voice of Youth and Women

Workstream 2: Voice of youth, local governance and women

Youth, those working in the informal food sector and local-city governments need a greater voice to reshape the food systems that affect them. Women and girls are a key cross-section of this group.

This workstream focuses on including unheard voices in food system pathway development and implementation specifically youth and local stakeholders. Through girls’ youth groups, participatory action research will be conducted to better understand their experiences and priorities. Leveraging local leadership, traditional market committees and local governments will be supported to co-design inclusive governance mechanisms thatrecognises their interests and improves agency in the pathway design and implementation process.

Market Access for Low-Income Earners

Workstream 3: Market Access for Low-Income Earners

Here, we focus on ensuring low-income consumers can access markets within their food systems and leverage local food culture to shift consumer preferences towards nutritious and safe foods.

Social protection programmes will be designed to tackle gender inequalities, such as poverty and domestic work burden, while improving the nutrition sensitivity of these programmes. Active, empowered cross-sector coalitions with a strong consumer viewpoint will also enable and prepare countries to deploy food culture interventions for improved nutrition.

Private Sector Finance

Workstream 4: Private Sector Finance

This workstream focuses on aligning and increasing private sector finance for food system transformation. It will involve four incentive pathways to support healthy diet goals within country food system pathways.

Firstly, We will work with businesses of all sizes to direct their investments to evidence-based actions to reduce hunger – through the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge.

Second, we will work to develop evidence based costed pathways towards healthier diets that the private sector can invest in.

Third, we will work to create incentives for businesses of all sizes to direct more of their investments to evidence-based actions that improve access to healthier diets, including the incorporation of nutrition considerations into Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards.

Lastly, we will work with Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), seeking to create mechanisms that attracts private sector investment towards small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) that can contribute to improved nutrition.

Nutrition and Environment

Workstream 5: Nutrition and Environment

The focus here is on connecting nutrition and environmental agendas within food system pathways, at a practical level, by looking for actions and business models that generate and support nutrition-environment synergies.

This will entail making plant sources of protein and micronutrients, such as legumes, fruits and vegetables, more accessible and desirable as well as exploring ways of maximising the nutritional impact of animal-sourced food production, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

Evidence, Assessing and Learning

Workstream 6: Evidence, Assessing and Learning

The last stream of work focuses on assessing progress towards food systems transformation and documenting learning from the pathway development and implementation process.

Qualitative and quantitative approaches will be used to help us identify what food systems transformation looks like and how we know when it is happening. The development of subnational Food System Dashboards will support evidence-based food system policymaking, while Nutrition Connect will support knowledge mobilisation focused on public-private engagement in food systems. Lastly, the annual Countdown to 2030 Report will track the performance of key food system indicators for all countries to promote accountability in food systems.

By supporting the development and implementation of food system pathways, through including unheard voices, aligning policy, boosting and aligning private sector finance, connecting nutrition and environmental agendas, and identifying food system transformation, the Pathways programme aims to inspire all stakeholders in the food system to act so as to guide people and planet towards a brighter future.

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Nourishing Food Pathways is innovative in how it works - seven leading development agencies have participated actively in its design, fund its work, and collaborate with GAIN to review and assess process during implementation.