IAEA’s Nutritional and Health-Related Environmental Studies Newsletter – Issue 11 (January 2020)

The 11th Nutritional & Health-related Environmental Studies Newsletter features the following articles.

Meeting outcomes

  • 4th Federation of African Nutrition Societies (FANUS) Conference
  • Africa Day for Food and Nutrition Security (ADFNS)
  • General Conference side events
  • Nutrition workshop for SIDS Member States

News 

  • New Technical Cooperation Cycle
  • Application of stable isotopes to understand the effect of environmental enteric dysfunction on protein metabolism and health outcomes

Publications

  • Perspective: Creating the evidence base for nutritional support in childhood cancer in low- and middle-income countries: priorities for body composition research
  • IAEA Support for the Use of Stable Isotope Techniques to Assess Micronutrients

Success stories

  • Toolbox to measure body fatness in children expanded in the European region
  • Not all food proteins are equal: how nuclear techniques help to understand protein quality in low- and middleincome countries
  • Combatting childhood obesity in Jamaica by strengthening nutrition assessment capacity

This edition also features a NAHRES Special article entitled Nutrition and Food Systems at the Climate COP in Madrid by the UNSCN.

You can download you copy here.

Read about our meetings and get inspired by some success stories on IAEA supported projects. A big accomplishment during the last months was the publication of the DBM symposium outputs; check them out. Moreover, don’t miss our news section, where you will find exciting information about the preparation of the new Technical Cooperation (TC) Cycle for 2022-2023. Finally, don’t miss the contribution made by UNSCN on the UN Climate Change Conference held in Madrid, Spain in December 2019.

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FAO appeals for urgent support to fight worsening Desert Locust upsurge in the Horn of Africa

FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said today the Desert Locust upsurge in the Horn of Africa threatened to provoke a humanitarian crisis and appealed for urgent funding to tackle the outbreak in order to protect livelihoods and food security.
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Overfishing of the world’s major tuna stocks going down, bycatch and pollution reduced and 18 new areas protecting vulnerable marine ecosystems established

A five-year, $50-million Global Environment Facility (GEF)-funded program rolled out by FAO and partners has made remarkable progress in protecting international waters’ biodiversity by rendering fishing in these waters less harmful to several marine species, including sea turtles and tuna.
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Alarm over Desert Locusts increases as new generation of the destructive pests starts breeding in Horn of Africa

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today warned that rising numbers of Desert Locusts present an extremely alarming and unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods in the Horn of Africa.
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Policy Seminar – Food Systems Dashboard: How it will work

Monday, 27 January 2020
12:15 pm to 1:45 pm (EST)
IFPRI (Washington, DC)

IFPRI, CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), and Johns Hopkins University (JHU) are pleased to invite you to the seminar Food Systems Dashboard: How it will work

Our food systems are bankrupting our health systems, accelerating climate change and using natural resources in an unsustainable way.  Most people agree they need to be transformed to change this.  But how?  Food systems are complex and offer many entry points for change.  In addition, the data to describe food systems and their performance is scattered and not interoperable.  In effect we are flying blind in our journey to change food systems for the better.

The Food System Dashboard, developed by GAIN and Johns Hopkins University in collaboration with iTech Mission, University of Michigan, and Euromonitor, responds to this challenge. It brings together extant data from public and private sources to help decision makers diagnose their food systems and identify all their levers of change and the ones that need to be pulled first. Following presentation of the Food Systems Dashboard, commentators will reflect on data and indicators as well as on implications for developing countries.

Speakers

  • Jessica Fanzo, Bloomberg Distinguished Associate Professor of Global Food & Agricultural Policy and Ethics; Director for Johns Hopkins Global Food Ethics and Policy Program, Johns Hopkins University (JHU)
  • Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN)

Discussants

  • Inge Brouwer, Associate Professor of Food and Nutrition Security, Wageningen University & Research, and A4NH Flagship Leader of Food Systems for Healthier Diets

  • Olivier Ecker, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI
  • Gina Kennedy, Theme leader, Diet Diversity for Nutrition and Health, Bioversity International

Moderator

  • John McDermott, Director, CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH)

Register here

Live webcast and post-event viewing available here

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First comprehensive portal to track international capacity development support for forest monitoring

The Global Forest Observations Initiative (GFOI) today launched a portal – the first such comprehensive platform - to track international capacity development support to developing countries in forest monitoring for climate action.
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E-consultation on the V0 draft of the HLPE report “Food security and nutrition: building a global narrative towards 2030”.

During its 45th Plenary Session (October 2018), the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) requested the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) to produce a brief report titled “Food security and nutrition: building a global narrative towards 2030” that takes stock of HLPE contributions “with a view toward informing future CFS actions on FSN for all in the context of the 2030 Agenda”, with analysis that takes into account the perspective of those most affected by food insecurity and malnutrition. The overall aim of the report is to: “elaborate in a forward-looking perspective a global narrative on FSN, enlightened by previous HLPE publications and considering recent developments in the FSN sector” in order to provide strategic guidance towards the achievement of SDG2 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The report will be presented at CFS 47th Plenary session in October 2020.

The HLPE is organizing an online consultation to seek inputs, suggestions, and comments on the present preliminary V0 draft. The results of this consultation will be used by the HLPE to further elaborate the report, which will then be submitted to external expert review, before finalization and approval by the HLPE Steering Committee.

For more information, please visit the web page in English, French or Spanish to read the full introduction to the consultation.

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FAO teams up with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

FAO will bolster the scale and scope of its geospatial monitoring toolkit thanks to collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that will expand the capacity of FAO’s accessible platforms for forestry and land-use assessments
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Webinar: Cost-effectiveness of anaemia prevention interventions

23 January 2020, from 15:00 to 16:00 CET

Register here

Right in the middle of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016-2025), and as countries make commitments towards achieving UHC, all policy-makers will be confronted with the same question: which interventions should be included in the national health system?

This requires careful prioritization across all potential health interventions and maximizing health outcomes within the available budget. Countries are encouraged to prioritize health interventions that are both cost-effective and serve the poorest and most vulnerable groups first so that no one is left behind.

Many nutrition interventions, including supplementation in pregnancy and food fortification, are highly cost-effective to prevent disease and mortality.

This webinar is organized by the Accelerated Reduction Effort on Anaemia (AREA) Community of Practice (CoP).

More information available here.

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UNSCN Discussion Paper Urban-Rural Linkages for Nutrition

The nutrition challenges facing the world of today are daunting. One out of three people suffers from at least one form of malnutrition, and current trends suggest this may increase in the coming years. Every country in every region in the world is affected. The causes of malnutrition are multisectoral, and so reaching global and national goals requires addressing numerous underlying and structural factors as well as securing the concerted attention of a broad range of actors. 

Although the multisectoral nature of nutrition is well known, how nutrition is affected by linkages across the rural–urban continuum is not. Increased attention to the impact of changes in food systems, urbanization and rural transformation has highlighted the importance of territoriality and urban governance in addressing nutrition. Nutritionists now need to better understand how urban–rural linkages shape the factors that affect nutrition (factors that are often embedded in complex, non-health-related systems) and how these broader policies and programs are designed and governed.

This paper provides, first, an overview of nutrition and the urban–rural context and how, in general terms, this relates to integrated territorial governance and development. The discussion is then situated in the context of the global development agenda, particularly initiatives dealing with nutrition, urban settlements and urban–rural linkages. The paper then explores how the Guiding Principles for Urban–Rural Linkages (URL-GP) and Framework for Action (FfA) developed by UN-Habitat relate to nutrition actions. Recognizing that the links between urban-rural linkages are not direct, but mediated by other systems and factors, and noting that experiences with applying a territorial  approach to nutrition policies and programs are still limited, the paper concludes by outlining initial steps towards promoting more integrated territorial planning for nutrition, while also encouraging further thinking, initiatives and research in this direction.

The paper has been translated in all 6 UN official languages; pre-design language versions will become available in the week of 10-14 February. 

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Massive, border-spanning campaign needed to combat locust upsurge in East Africa

"This has become a situation of international dimensions that threatens the food security of the entire subregion. FAO is activating fast-track mechanisms that will allow us to move swiftly to support governments in mounting a collective campaign to deal with this crisis," said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu.
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Agriculture ministers meeting in Berlin welcomes the FAO-designed concept for an International Digital Council for Food and Agriculture

The Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) drew to a close with ministers approving the establishment of an International Digital Council for Food and Agriculture designed by FAO, and issuing a final communiqué pledging to make trade help smallholders access larger value chains.
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