The Commercialisation of Biofortified Crops (CBC) Programme was launched in 2019 to address widespread hidden hunger in Africa and Asia by significantly expanding the reach of foods and food products made with biofortified staple crops.
GAIN seeks to understand and tackle barriers faced by small enterprises working to boost availability, affordability, desirability, and convenience of nutritious foods like milk, especially for people on low-incomes and population sub-groups who stand to benefit from greater consumption of nutrient-dense foods, such as children.
The global average supply of fish and seafood per person has more than doubled since the early 1960s, even as population has done the same. In many places, fish has become more affordable compared to other animal-source foods such as meat or poultry.
Supporting small enterprises in the food system is central to improving access to safe and nutritious foods in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) - and therefore to improving nutrition. However, the ways in which such enterprises are supported can have important implications for achieving other social goals, such as gender equity and women’s empowerment.
Starting a business is challenging - particularly in the agriculture and food sector in a low- or middle-income country, and particularly for women, who face numerous barriers to starting and running a firm. Business networks can play an important role in helping women (and men) navigate these challenges by providing them with access to information, contacts, and resources.
Small- and medium-sized businesses play essential roles throughout the food systems of low- and middle-income countries, and supporting them to expand and improve their production can help strengthen domestic employment and economic growth and facilitate improved access to safe, nutritious, and affordable food.
As conveners of the Global Consultation on Food Systems for Children and Adolescents and this Special Issue, UNICEF and GAIN are confident that the evidence presented in this Special Issue will be useful for food system reorientations in support of improved diet quality among children and adolescents.
Deteriorating nutrition and health outcomes have stimulated nutrition programmes and policies to strive to reduce the intake of salt, added sugar, and unhealthy fats towards recommended targets. Alongside promoting the consumption of fresh nutritious foods (e.g., fruits, vegetables, and whole grains), reformulation of processed foods may make an important contribution to improving diets.
Informal food retail is a central informal sector activity with a particular defining role in urban food systems, and is critical to the food and nutrition security of urban society. Many families and individuals residing in cities, especially those on low incomes, depend on informal food retail as a source of nutritious food such as fresh fruits and vegetables. It also offers a livelihood and source of income for many workers.
At every life stage, micronutrients are crucial to immune system function and resilience to infectious disease. This brief makes the case for large scale staple food fortification as a critically important tool to fight malnutrition in general, and even more so during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
