Integrating Food Culture Into Indonesia’s Food System Agenda: The Case for a Cultural Dimensions Approach
- 06/07/2026
Despite decades of nutrition campaigns, more than 95% of Indonesians consume insufficient fruits and vegetables, and high-risk food consumption continues to rise. Current approaches (supply-side intervention, SBCC and other relevant health and nutrition campaigns) are insufficient because they overlook the cultural values, shared identities, and social norms that drive food preferences, not just individual knowledge or choice.
Accelerating Food Systems Transformation Across Asia
- 06/07/2026
Despite progress in reducing hunger and improving the affordability of healthy diets, the region’s food systems are not transforming quickly enough to deliver equitable nutrition, environmental sustainability, resilience and shared prosperity. This report presents eight practical tools covering food-systems monitoring, data visualisation, diet-quality measurement, policy coherence, climate nutrition integration, political-economy analysis, innovative financing and financial-flow tracking that governments and partners can use to identify gaps and opportunities, develop evidence-based plans, align policies across sectors, overcome implementation barriers and direct investment towards priority areas. Drawing on cases and data from across Asia, it highlights substantial differences between countries and subregions, alongside persistent challenges in food security, diet quality, emissions, water use, governance and financing. It concludes that accelerated, coordinated and government-led action supported by reliable data, coherent policies, inclusive decision-making and better-targeted finance is urgently needed to build healthier, fairer and more sustainable food systems and advance the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Bridging the Gap: Integrating Nutrition into India’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda
India’s agricultural transformation is widely recognised as one of the most consequential development stories of the twentieth century. From chronic food shortages in the decades following independence to self-sufficiency in staple cereals like rice wheat and millets, India’s investments in irrigation, research, and price support fundamentally reshaped food availability. Public procurement and subsidised public distribution systems ensured that calories reached even the most vulnerable. And this culminated in the institutionalisation of food security through the National Food Security Act.
When Faith Meets Food: Lessons from the Food Culture Alliance Indonesia's Collaboration with Catholic Institutions
There is something quietly powerful about institutions that have spent centuries mastering the art of storytelling. Long before food systems became a policy agenda, religious communities were already doing something that nutrition programmes have long struggled to achieve: making people feel something about what they consume, share, and value.
Aligning Food Systems with Net Zero Ambition through Sub-National Food and Nutrition Action Plan
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), in collaboration with the Food and Land Use Coalition Indonesia (KSPL), officially launched its support for the development of the Regional Action Plan for Food and Nutrition Based on Local Resources (RAD-PG BPSDL) in Trenggalek Regency. The two-day inception meeting marked a critical step toward building a more resilient, nutritious, and sustainable local food system
Accelerating Food Systems Transformation Across Asia - Key tools and selected cases
- 27/03/2026
This paper provides brief descriptions of eight key tools available to support national and sub-national transformation of food systems. Produced in advance of the Asia and the Pacific Food Systems Transformation Forum 2026, descriptions and cases provided focus on the Asia region.
Leveraging The Power of Employers: Adoption and Growth of Workforce Nutrition in Bangladesh
- 24/04/2026
The workplace can be an important environment to influence nutrition and food choices. This case study examines the potential to use workplaces and employers as leverage points for improving nutrition and fostering larger food system shifts by considering efforts made by individual employers in Bangladesh and how these have been expanded and supported under government leadership through the National Workforce Nutrition Alliance. It shows how a novel concept can gain traction and explores how it could potentially be institutionalised in policy.
Piloting Air-Fried Snacks to Reduce Unhealthy Food Consumption in Jakarta, Indonesia
- 02/04/2026
In Indonesia, over 98% of households have food budgets sufficient to purchase a healthy diet, yet most allocate a substantial share of their spending to discretionary foods such as fried snacks and sugary drinks. The challenge is therefore not one of financial access to healthy food, but of how existing food budgets are allocated. This paper documents a proof-of-concept pilot in Jakarta that tested whether Indonesia's ubiquitous deep-fried street snacks, gorengan, could be transformed into healthier air-fried alternatives, examining both consumer acceptance and business model viability.