When we launched GAIN’s new Environment Strategy internally in March 2021, it quickly became clear that protecting the planet is a cause that carries huge significance for GAIN staff, for a whole host of different reasons. Some colleagues took inspiration from the natural beauty of the world around them, from the stunning savannahs of Tanzania and rolling highlands of Kenya through to the incredible diversity of India and the lakes and mountains of Geneva.
Invited by our partners at WWF, GAIN joined CARE, ICCCAD, Club of Rome & EAT to present the FoodForward consortium at COP26. This comes as part ofour collective commitment to continue working together, as former Action Track Chairs of the United Nations Food Systems Summit, to fix food systems within this decade.
In a pre-Covid-19 world, depression and anxiety were estimated to cost the global economy more than USD1 trillion per year in lost productivity. From recent discussions with companies on workplace wellbeing we notice a recurring theme: if mental health was emerging as a key focus area, it now most certainly is a priority for employers, and especially so as the pandemic continues to impact the wellbeing of millions of people around the globe.
I remember well the first Nutrition for Growth Summit in 2013 in London. I wrote the framing paper for that Summit: why should we invest in improving nutrition status? Answer: because 45% of under 3 mortality is linked to malnutrition.
After a year of planning, the UN Food Systems Summit is just days away. A catalyst for an extraordinary outpouring of energy and creativity over these past 12 months - hundreds of thousands of people from governments, civil society, business, and development agencies have participated in the preparations.
Today is International Youth Day, an awareness day created by the United Nations. The theme this year, "Transforming food systems: Youth innovation for human and planetary health", highlights the upcoming United Nations Food Systems Summit, an international event providing global leaders an opportunity to launch new policy and programmatic actions for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
BLOG: The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the food system have been well captured over the last year. Before COVID-19, SMEs in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) were already facing several challenges that limited their ability to grow and increase production of affordable nutritious foods. production, to knowledge and technical support to improve food safety and quality, and to networks to grow and share knowledge.
BLOG: Over the past eight months we—in our capacity as Action Track Chairs for the UN Food Systems Summit—have received well over 2,000 written submissions from around the world on how to transform food systems so that they can deliver access to safe and nutritious foods for all, in ways that deliver sustainable consumption, use approaches that are positive and regenerative for nature, generate livelihoods and decent work for those who depend on the food system, while promoting equity and building resilience for all.
Food is traded both globally and locally. Yet even when consumers can purchase food from all over the world, local, "traditional" markets often provide the least expensive, freshest products with the shortest supply chains. And that is why local markets are ubiquitous and essential for feeding consumers of all types.
BLOG: The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Global Alliance for Nutrition (GAIN) have just signed up to a new partnership. WWF aims to stop the degradation of the earth’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony, and GAIN to deliver more nutritious food for all people. At face value fundamentally different jobs. Why would they be joining forces? The answer is simple: food systems are failing nature and are leaving billions of people without safe and nutritious food.
