Agriculture, Food & Rural Development Thematic Group and Health, Nutrition & Population Thematic Group event.
The SDGs of ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition (in all its forms) by 2030 are off-track due to a confluence of climate change, conflict, and poverty. Global socio-economic indicators including those of FNS were also setback by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to FAO’s 2023 SOFA, up to 783 million people faced hunger in 2022 (an increase of 122 million over pre-pandemic levels), while some 2.4 billion, especially women and rural populations “did not have access to nutritious, safe and sufficient food all year round”. This is not just a developing world problem, however. A recent FT article (https://www.ft.com/content/4acb98b8-2cc3-40a2-b5bc-7bfbb5500a62) highlights that nearly 18 million US citizens live in “food deserts”, which exacerbate malnutrition (including obesity). At the same time, governments around the world provide over $800 billion each year to support their agrifood sector, but much of this support is geared towards commodities that do not promote healthier diets.
So, what practical measures can be adopted by governments everywhere? Given that the World Bank has identified food security, health and nutrition as one of its six Global Challenge Programs (GCPs), how is it stepping up to address this silent crisis?
Speakers:
- Felipe Dizon, Sr. Agricultural Economist, AGF GP
- Meera Shekar, Global Lead, Nutrition Security, HNP GP
Moderators: Preeti Ahuja and Tawhid Nawaz, respective Chairs of the AgFRD & HNP TGs
Speakers’ Bios:
Meera Shekar is Global Lead for nutrition with the World Bank’s Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice. She provides leadership, support and policy advice on the Bank’s nutrition portfolio across the spectrum of undernutrition and obesity. She manages key partnerships, firmly positioning nutrition within the Bank’s initiative on Human Capital, as well as the agriculture and food security and social protection agendas. She led the repositioning of the nutrition agenda that led to the global Scaling-up Nutrition (SUN) movement, and was a founding member of the Catalytic Financing Facility for Nutrition that evolved in to “The Power of Nutrition”. Meera served as the chair for the SUN executive committee and has been one of the principals for the aid-architecture for nutrition, and the G8 and G20 agenda-setting process for food security and nutrition. She led the development of the first ever global Investment Framework for Nutrition and co-led (with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) the Nutrition Financing working group for the 2021 Tokyo “Nutrition for Growth” (N4G) summit. Meera has lived and worked across the globe and has extensive policy and operational experience. She has a PhD in international nutrition, epidemiology and population studies from Cornell University.
Among other publications, she is the author of several publications including Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development, 2006; Scaling-up Nutrition –What will it cost? World Bank 2009; And most recently, An Investment Framework for Nutrition: Reaching the global Targets for Stunting, Anemia, Breastfeeding and Wasting, World Bank, 2017; and Obesity: Health and Economic Consequences of an Impending Global Challenge, World Bank, 2020. Meera has served as an Adjunct professor at Tufts University, USA, and has been a guest speaker at several global and academic venues. She is on the Advisory panel for the Essential Living Standards index, Legatum Institute, UK; the Cost Of Obesity Advisory Group (CoOAG) and the advisory group for the Exemplars in Global Health at Gates Ventures (Bill Gates’s private office) and BMGF strategy refresh, among others.
Felipe Dizon is a Senior Economist in the Agriculture and Food Global Practice of the World Bank. His current work focuses on understanding the constraints and opportunities to improving access to healthier and more sustainable diets in rural and urban areas. Prior to joining the Bank, he conducted research on financial inclusion and novel financial products, and led various research projects in Guatemala, Haiti, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Uganda, and Zambia. Felipe holds a Ph.D. in Agriculture and Resource Economics from the University of California- Davis, an MA from the University of San Francisco, and a BA from De La Salle University- Manila in the Philippines.
Please RSVP if you plan to attend in person.
Venue: MC 4 – 100
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