The FIRST Program – Food and Nutrition Security Impact, Resilience, Sustainability and Transformation, is a partnership between the European Union and FAO. The EU and FAO launched a stocktaking exercise to assess progress in improving food security and nutrition in 24 FIRST priority countries. This paper presents the results of a quantitative analyses, literature review, country reports and a May 2019 consensus workshop that were the basis of identifying issues that must be addressed for FIRST countries going forward. Seven thematic areas were emphasized as essential for meeting the targets in SDG2 – zero hunger. These factors include reinventing agriculture; unleashing the private sector; gender equity; decentralization of programs; multi sector concepts within a sector approach; prioritization; data, and political process and governance.
In addition to challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss, the sustainability and resilience of agrifood systems worldwide are currently challenged by new threats, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war. Furthermore, the resilience and sustainability of our agrifood systems need to be enhanced in ways that simultaneously increase agricultural production, decrease post-harvest food losses and food waste, protect the climate, environment and health, and preserve biodiversity. The precarious situation of agrifood systems is also illustrated by the fact that overall, around 3 billion people worldwide still do not have regular access to a healthy diet. This results in various forms of malnutrition, as well as increasing number of people suffering from overweight and obesity, and diet-related, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) around the world. Findings from microbiome research have shown that the human gut microbiome plays a key role in nutrition and diet-related diseases and thus human health. Furthermore, the microbiome of soils, plants, and animals play an equally important role in environmental health and agricultural production. Upcoming, microbiome-based solutions hold great potential for more resilient, sustainable, and productive agrifood systems and open avenues toward preventive health management. Microbiome-based solutions will also be key to make better use of natural resources and increase the resilience of agrifood systems to future emerging and already-known crises. To realize the promises of microbiome science and innovation, there is a need to invest in enhancing the role of microbiomes in agrifood systems in a holistic One Health approach and to accelerate knowledge translation and implementation.
Undernutrition affects about one out of five children worldwide. It is associated with impaired growth, neurodevelopment deficits, and increased infectious morbidity and mortality. Undernutrition, however, cannot be solely attributed to a lack of food or nutrient deficiency but rather results from a complex mix of biological and environmental factors. Recent research has shown that the gut microbiome is intimately involved in the metabolism of dietary components, in growth, in the training of the immune system, and in healthy development. In this review, we look at these features in the first three years of life, which is a critical window for both microbiome establishment and maturation and child development. We also discuss the potential of the microbiome in undernutrition interventions, which could increase efficacy and improve child health outcomes.
The sustainable development goals (SDGs) represent a global agreement on priorities for health, environment, social and economic development (UN, 2016). SDG2 – zero hunger – explicitly addresses food insecurity, malnutrition in all its forms and sustainable agriculture. Countries are pursuing a range of policies and programs to achieve the targets embedded in SDG2. The European Union has invested in 66 countries under the FIRST program (Food Insecurity Impact, Resilience, Sustainability, and Transformation); 24 of the FIRST countries are priorities for EU investments. In 2019, FAO was asked by the EU to conduct a stocktaking exercise for the 24 priority FIRST countries to ascertain, to date, the progress in addressing SDG2. The stocktaking involved four related activities: 1. Country diagnostic reports 2. Literature Review of articles relevant to food security, nutrition, agriculture, social safety nets, gender and political economy 3. Quantitative analyses 4. Key informant interviews. Details on the results of 1, 2 and 3 can be found in a companion publication (Kennedy et al, 2020). The purpose of the key informant interviews was to capture experiential evidence that is often not adequately captured in journal articles. The interviews provided a “boots on the ground” perspective that helped elucidate the challenges at the country level in implementing policies and programs targeting SDG2. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the information provided by thought leaders involved in various aspects of SDG2 in 24 FIRST countries.
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