Please find, attached, the FSN form in response to the Call for lessons and good practices on investments for healthy food systems.
As you know, the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) has two levels of support to food and nutrition security: (i) a global (SDG17-type) level that promotes the finding, funding and implementation of areas of "policy convergence" in food security (including nutrition); and (ii) a country/local level of support to interventions where on-the-ground results are obtained and shared.
The attached submission highlights both these levels and the various areas where GAFSP is contributing to the funding of the transformation of food systems toward improved food and nutrition security. Additional details could be provided as we get closer to the CFS annual meetings and depending on FSN's needs.
With best regards
Nadim Khouri
Consultant to GAFSP
Proponent
GAFSP—The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program Coordination Unit.
Joint experience of a multi-stakeholder funding mechanism for food security and nutrition in the poorest countries.\
Date/Timeframe and location
2009-Present; “IDA-Only” Countries.
CFS may be interested in one or both of the dual/mutually-reinforcing aspects of GAFSP: (i) a global program that leads to policy convergence and on-the ground investments in nutrition; and (ii) specific experience and lessons learned from one or the other of the nutrition-sensitive interventions in selected countries (e.g. Rwanda, Nepal) as briefly presented and grouped in this form.
Main responsible entity
GAFSP Coordination Unit, based in Washington DC—in partnership with Governments, CSOs and Supervising Entities.
Nutrition context
- At project preparation stage, all GAFSP projects that have nutrition components establish a baseline that includes the nutrition context of the particular investment that is envisaged;
- Depending on the specific interest of CFS, GAFSPCU will be able to put some of the data that is available at the disposal of CFS and its members.
Key characteristics of the food system(s) considered
- Globally, GAFSP supports the continuum of traditional, intermediary and modern food systems. As a matter of routine procedure for all investments—including the ones with specific nutrition objectives—social, environmental, and governance assessments are undertaken in order to give a holistic view of the food system being addressed;
- In Rwanda, the GAFSP project supports traditional food systems that rely on small gardens for nutritious food;
- The Nepal GAFSPsupported project is working to enhance the traditional diets of vulnerable communities. The project commissioned a study to analyze the nutritive value—including moisture, ash, fat, protein, carbohydrate, crude fiber, energy, iron, phosphorus, and vitamin C content—of locally available foods.
Key characteristics of the investment made
- Globally, GAFSP focuses assistance on the poorest countries—where poverty and malnutrition and hunger are, in general, correlated;
- To date, GAFSP has invested about US$1.5 billion (Public and Private Sector Windows combined) in countries with average rates of poverty at 40 percent (compared with 22 percent for all developing countries) and where the incidence of hunger is 27 percent;
- More than half of the GAFSP Public Sector Window projects include nutritionrelated activities, totaling $158 million;
- GAFSP investments include many of the sectors that support rural smallholders (onfarm and off-farm) and that lead, directly or indirectly to improved nutrition.
- Country specific examples can be provided on the various types of investment, including the cases cited below;
- In Rwanda: GAFSP support included the upgrade of kitchen gardens to increase the availability of nutritious foods for selfconsumption, the production of fruits and vegetables, seed multiplication for iron-enriched beans, and training about growing and consuming nutritious foods, especially by children;
- In Nepal: GAFSP support is contributing to increasing food availability and the productivity of highnutrient crops and livestock. Based on the findings of the nutritive value study, nutritious recipes from locally available, underutilized, food were developed and disseminated through the project. This included the preparation of weaning food for infants.
Key actors and stakeholders involved (including through south-south/triangular exchanges, if any)
- The governance of GAFSP is innovative and multistakeholder. Its structure supports southsouth learning and triangular exchange amongst its representatives, who comprise: recipient governments; donors; CSOs (northern and southern); Supervising Entities (including the African Development Bank; the Asian Development Bank; FAO; the Inter-American Development Bank; the International Fund for Agricultural Development; the World Bank and WFP for its Public Sector Window; and IFC for its Private Sector Window); a foundation (BMGF); and the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Food Security.
- One of the innovations of GAFSP is also to have both public and private sector funding under one overarching structure via two operational windows. This has enabled coordination and investment along the value chain at the country level. For example, in Rwanda, the IFC, the government of Rwanda and private sector actors are involved in investments supported by both GAFSP Windows – public and private sector that help malnourished children by giving them access to fortified nutrients that will allow them to reach their full potential. It also means that farmers in Rwanda can gain access to new market opportunities, higherquality inputs, and better farm management practices.
Key changes (intended and unintended) as a result of the investment/s
- Globally, GAFSP is, by design, contributing to changes in the architecture of development financing (including for improved nutrition) through: (i) increased alignment of external support with national strategies and related investment plans; (ii) combining private and public investments; (iii) attracting private investments into riskier markets; (iv) knowledge and results exchange that has encouraged MDBs and other Supervising Entities to internalize crosscutting themes such as nutrition in their respective portfolios of assistance to smallholders.
- What follows are specific examples that can be supplemented with other countries or further detailed and clarified:
- In Bangladesh: The GAFSPsupported investments have led, directly or indirectly, to improved nutritional outcomes including: (i) the diversification of crop production (introduction of wheat, maize, pulses, oilseeds in addition to rice improvement as staple crops; diversification into horticultural crops); (ii) the improvement of fish production; (iii) enabling the establishment of kitchen gardens through rainwater harvesting. The efforts included the promotion of governance support such as: seed sector quality assurance (in partnership with the private sector and seed producers); nutrition (how to optimize the impact of crop, livestock and fisheries activities on nutrition outcomes); inclusiveness and participation of stakeholders in the design and implementation processes;
- In Ethiopia: GAFSP support contributed to improved human and organizational capacities to incorporate sustainable, intensified livestock production into integrated watershed development;
- In Senegal: GAFSP investments is contributing to improved yields and production diversification through extension, better water and other infrastructure; improved access to diversified food through better marketing of produce;
- In Honduras: GAFSP support was recently initiated to support food production—including the introduction of crop biofortification to enhance nutritional content, the diversification of food production. Investment support includes: matching grants for small irrigation infrastructure and equipment; post-harvesting and food conservation techniques ; introduction of higher-value or more nutritive crops; processing of food to increase its shelf life and adding value including nutritive elements to be sold in local markets (e.g. school lunches); TA and training for nutrition education. Investments also are improving family hygiene;
- In Kenya: As an example of GAFSP support through its Private Sector Window, this project is in the form of a debt facility to help a private manufacturer expand its readyto-use therapeutic food (“RUTF”) production. RUTF is a high calorie fortified peanut paste based food product, which is consumed directly from the pouches in which it is supplied. This support significantly helps UNICEF globally, which offtakes 80-85% of the company’s production capacity
Challenges faced
- Globally, one major challenge that GAFSP faced and addressed was the harmonization of M&E policies and procedures among the various actors, to ensure full alignment with the 2030 SDGs and to highlight the “Theory of Change” of food security that ultimately needs a systematic assessment of the impact of various investments on nutrition. One of the ways in which this issue was addressed by the selection of FIES as an indicator of food security for the Program going forward (see also discussion of indicators below);
- (Note: In each of the GAFSPsupported operations, there were specific challenges that can be highlighted. At the request of CFS, GAFSPCU could further detail one or two of the project experiences with respect to their specific challenges and how they were addressed.)
Lessons/Key messages
- GAFSP is demonstrating that it is possible to have an “SDGready” funding mechanism to promote nutrition through demand-driven investment in a variety of food systems and with a supporting architecture that promotes sharing of the experience amongst various actors;
- For example, on measurement of nutritional impact, at present a number of approaches and indicators are being used and results will be compared and help in ensuring evidencebased policy recommendations: (i) Number and proportion of malnourished, as defined by underweight, stunting, wasting, and micronutrient deficiency, disaggregated by gender (Bangladesh and Kenya); (ii) Chronic malnutrition rate in children under five (Benin, Burundi, Mali, and Zambia); (iii) Delivery of nutrition, health awareness, and access to micronutrient-rich foods to pregnant and nursing women and to children (Benin, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kenya, the Kyrgyz Republic, Nepal, and Nicaragua); (iv) Improved food security and nutritional status of vulnerable groups and households measured by wasting prevalence (The Gambia); (v) Food Consumption Score (Kyrgyz Republic and Mongolia); (vi) Dietary Diversity Score (Honduras, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Uganda, and Yemen).
- Going forward, all GAFSP investments with nutritionrelated objectives will utilize either FCS or MDD-W or C to track impacts. In addition,, GAFSP will be using the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) across all its public sector projects and most of its private sector investments and will be able to explore the relationship between the above nutritional indicators and this broader food security measurement.
- There are, in addition, projectspecific lessons learned that can be teased out, depending on the interest of CFS in one or the other of the types of projects supported by GAFSP to promote nutrition.
Nadim Khouri