Harnessing Value Chains and Private Sector Innovation to Boost Nutrition

Event Details

Time: October 26, 2011 from 5:30pm to 7pm
Location: Shell Foundation, Shell Centre, London SE1 (Please use Tower Entrance, Belvedere Road and bring photo ID)
Event Type: conference, #featnutrition, #featafrica
Organized By: Business Action for Africa, DFID, IDS, Shell Foundation
Latest Activity: Apr 28

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Event Description

Speakers:

Marc van Ameringen, Executive Director, GAIN
Miguel Pestana, Vice President, Global External Affairs, Unilever
John Humphrey, Globalisation Team, Institute of Development Studies

Chair: Simon Maxwell, Research Fellow, ODI

Registration opens at 17.00. The event will be followed by a reception.

Background:

The current food crises in parts of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia and resulting child malnutrition present an acute illustration of the fact that food security and malnutrition remain a major barrier to human development not only in the Horn of Africa but in many other parts of the world. According to the Lancet Series on Maternal and Child Undernutrition, malnutrition is responsible for more than one third of the approximately ten million deaths that occur in children under five each year in developing countries. According to the FAO, in 2008, approximately 32% of Africa’s population was undernourished.

To help address these challenges, a growing number of large companies and development partners are exploring opportunities for harnessing agricultural value chains to improve nutrition.

To develop a more rigorous methodology for exploring these linkages between agriculture and nutrition, GAIN (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition) and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) are exploring the potential to integrate and improve nutritional opportunities and outcomes along agricultural value chains. This methodology, commissioned by USAID, is being tested out in Kenya and Bangladesh and intends to provide a publicly-available resource that will help identify i) ways to strengthen public or market led agricultural programmes to better integrate nutrition, 2) opportunities to enhance nutrition programmes through better agricultural input, and 3) how to combine promote innovation through multi-stakeholder partnership approaches to drive food and nutrition goals.

This event will explore:

How agricultural and agri-food value chains can be leveraged to improve food quality and diversity, and thus enhance nutritional outcomes.
How health and nutrition programs can incorporate an agricultural lens that will maximize the potential of foods to improve diets.
What role the private sector can best play in integrating agriculture, health and nutrition to reduce malnutrition.

How to register:

To register for this event, you first need to become a member of Business Fights Poverty. Membership is free and comes with a number of benefits. To become a member, click here.
Once you have become a member, return to this page and click on one of the RSVP options on the right hand side of the page.

Event Sponsor: Shell Foundation

For more information on the 2011 Event Series, click here.

Comment Wall

Comment by Gotto Danny on October 25, 2011 at 11:02: I am grateful for the organizers of this event. However I would like to request the organizers to share presentations and any necessary materials to us all. That is if this is possible. Reason being not every person interested to attend will do so. Kindly someone should get back to me on this.