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The COVID-19 pandemic has generated serious threats to food security and nutrition and has greatly affected livelihoods and working conditions in agricultural value chains. This policy brief focuses on the role of responsible investment and responsible business conduct along agricultural value chains in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides policy recommendations for governments, investors, enterprises and civil society on how they can encourage responsible investment and responsible business conduct in agriculture in these challenging times. See the full list of policy briefs related to COVID-19.

With the COVID-19 in Jordan under control, the government of Jordan has managed the response proactively and to mitigate potential immediate impacts on the availability of food to the population. Food security among vulnerable Jordanian households has remained largely stable as yet with 15% of households showing a poor or borderline Food Consumption Score (FCS) in 2020 compared to 16% in 2018. Nevertheless the extent of the damage to key components of the food supply chain is still not completely quantified. Also, the pandemic still ongoing globally and in the region, Jordan will have to remain attentive to multiple risks that [...]

One of the main pillars of food security is food supply, which refers to the availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, supplied through domestic production or imports. In this paper, we use quantities of commercialized foods from the Supply and Utilization Accounts (SUA) compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to analyze trends in food available for consumption based on by region and country income level group. Results show that, in general, food groups available for consumption differ across income-level country groups. There are nonetheless evident regional trends. Low-income and lower-middle-income countries have [...]

Parliamentarians can significantly contribute to achieving the right to food at a global, national and local scale, as they play a key role in setting up the enabling legal and institutional frameworks, in allocating appropriate budgets and in monitoring government action on Food and Nutrition Security.The European Parliamentary Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition, established in 2016, has been and will continue to be instrumental in connecting Members of the European Parliament and in enabling them to engage actively in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. The Alliance provides a platform for policy dialogue and awareness-raising on the right to adequate [...]

This platform aims at supporting policy makers, program planners, NGO staff and many other stakeholders in taking informed decisions at country, regional and global level in the area of nutrition and food safety. FAO/WHO GIFT's mission is to make publicly available existing quantitative individual food consumption data from all countries around the world, collected through both large nationwide surveys and small scale surveys. The platform provides food-based indicators in the field of nutrition and food safety as well as microdata.

This series of e-learning courses assists professionals from all food and agriculture fields in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of nutrition-sensitive programmes, policies and investments. The courses use a scenario-based and experiential learning approach and cover all forms of malnutrition and a diversity of contexts.

This course aims to equip project designers and managers with the concepts, principles and tools they need to leverage value chain approaches to improve nutrition through agriculture and food systems. The concept of Sustainable Food Value Chains for Nutrition (SFVCN) was first presented in 2016 at the 43rd session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and is the framework adopted by the Rome Based Agencies (RBAs). An SFVCN approach considers how development of a sustainable food value chain can contribute to improving nutrition of a target population. System RequirementsThe online version of this course runs on the latest versions [...]

The development of sustainable food systems is a key component of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This course discussed why eliminating gender inequalities is pivotal to achieving the necessary transformations. It proposes FAO’s gender-sensitive value chain framework as an approach for the analysis of value chains, and for guiding interventions to address gender-based constraints. Released May 2020.1 h 30 m of learning System RequirementsThe online version of this course runs on the latest versions of Chrome and Safari. In order to access this course on Internet Explorer or Firefox, you must install and enable Adobe Flash player.The downloadable version only runs [...]

The health and environmental consequences of our dietary choices impose costs on society that are currently not reflected in the price of those foods or diets that contribute to these detrimental impacts. This paper provides updated estimates of two major cost items: the healthcare-related costs associated with unhealthy diets, and the climate-change costs associated with the emissions attributable to diets and food production. Results suggest that the health and climate-change costs of current diets are substantial and projected to increase up to 1.3-1.7 trillion USD annually by 2030. See here the The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 [...]

Many studies have provided global and regional overviews of the state of social protection policies and their importance to poverty reduction, food security and nutrition. However, little is known about how such policies are designed and implemented in rural areas, or how they complement and link to agricultural support programmes, which may cover the same geographical areas and reach similar types of beneficiaries. Both social protection and agricultural policies are needed for poverty reduction in poor rural populations. Yet coordination between the two sectors is generally limited and, until recently, little attention has been paid to their complementarities and how these [...]