IFPRI Policy Seminar
Ending Hunger and Malnutrition: Keeping Our Eyes on the Road
Organized by IFPRI in collaboration with the World Bank
IFPRI Seminar during World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings
April 22, 2025

While global agricultural commodity prices have come down from the high levels seen in recent years, the world remains far off track in meeting the SDG2 of ending hunger and malnutrition by 2030. Last year, close to 300 million people faced food crisis while the number of people on the cusp of famine doubled. Efforts to address hunger and malnutrition are facing considerable hurdles, including protracted as well as new conflicts, cuts in official development assistance, inefficiencies in the global financing architecture, an increasingly fragmented political landscape and multipolarizing international order. How can the world mobilize more public and private resources to tackle the current food crisis, create more robust value chain and trade channels, and set countries on a path towards peace, stability and economic growth?

Timed to align with the WB-IMF Spring Meetings, this event will convene policymakers, representatives of international organizations, private sector and food system experts for a stocktaking of where we find ourselves and to chart solutions towards more aligned domestic and international, public and private financing flows aimed at ending hunger and malnutrition. Picking up on the Spring Meetings’ core theme of jobs as a path to prosperity, the important role of jobs in food value chains and improved livelihoods for furthering food security and nutrition will also be explored.

This policy seminar will:

Take stock of recent data, trends and outlooks for food and nutrition security, with a focus on the most vulnerable countries.
Discuss challenges and opportunities in resourcing, regional and global cooperation, and innovation to bend the curve of hunger and malnutrition.

Examine research findings and share policy recommendations to prevent and prepare for food crises, while broadening the focus to strengthening value chains and markets in developing countries.

Opening Session
Moderator: Ruth Hill, Director, Markets, Trade, and Institutions, IFPRI

Speakers
Shobha Shetty, Global Director, Agriculture and Food, World Bank
Johan Swinnen, Director General, IFPRI
Maximo Torero, Chief Economist, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

High-level Panel on Challenges and Opportunities
Moderator: Purnima Menon, Senior Director, Food and Nutrition Policy; Acting Senior Director, Transformation Strategy, IFPRI

Speakers
John Steenhuisen, Minister of the Department of Agriculture, South Africa
Arnel de Mesa, Assistant Secretary for Special Concerns and for Official Development Assistance (ODA) and the DA Spokesperson, Department of Agriculture
Alvaro Lario, President, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
Gilles Morellato, Head of Official Development Assistance team at the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs
Rania Dagash-Kamara, Assistant Executive Director Partnerships and Innovation, World Food Programme (WFP)

Deep Dive: The Role of Value Chains in Boosting Food and Nutritional Security
Moderator: Loraine Ronchi, Global Lead for Science, Knowledge and Innovation in Agriculture and Food, World Bank

Speakers
Alice Ruhweza, President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
Ayodeji Balogun, Group CEO, the Africa Exchange (AFEX)
Matthias Berninger, EVP, Head of Public Affairs, Sustainability and Safety, Bayer Global
Joseph Glauber, Research Fellow Emeritus, IFPRI

Closing Remarks
Martien van Nieuwkoop, Director, Agricultural Development, Gates Foundation

Links:

More about this Event: https://www.ifpri.org/event/ending-hunger-and-malnutrition-keeping-our-eyes-on-the-road/

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Ending Hunger and Malnutrition: Keeping Our Eyes on the Road

Introductory Remarks by Geraldo B. Martha Jr., Coordinator, Embrapa, Labex-USA
 
Successful agricultural transformations around the world provide critical lessons and offer insights into opportunities for other countries seeking to take this step forward.

 
At this special event, we will learn about Brazil’s agricultural transformation from Embrapa’s President, Maurício Lopes. IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan will share insights from Asian countries, ERS Administrator Mary Bohman will review the experience of the United States, and Asia-Brazil Agro Alliance President Marcos Jank will discuss the role of the food industry in agricultural transformation.

IFPRI Special Event:  Transforming Agriculture - 5/15/2018 - GMartha

Speaker: Marcos Sawaya Jank, President, Asia-Brazil Agro Alliance and IFPRI Board member
 
Successful agricultural transformations around the world provide critical lessons and offer insights into opportunities for other countries seeking to take this step forward.
 
At this special event, we will learn about Brazil’s agricultural transformation from Embrapa’s President, Maurício Lopes. IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan will share insights from Asian countries, ERS Administrator Mary Bohman will review the experience of the United States, and Asia-Brazil Agro Alliance President Marcos Jank will discuss the role of the food industry in agricultural transformation.

IFPRI Special Event:  Transforming Agriculture - 5/15/2018  - M.Jank

What happens when a child is malnourished? Can such a child ever “catch up” later in life? Why does urbanization and obesity seem to go hand in hand—and what does this mean for food production? We’ll explore big picture food system questions today on the Leading Voices in Food with our guest Dr. Shenggen Fan.

The Leading Voices in Food

Shenggen Fan on Hunger, Climate Change and the Hope of Innovation

Speaker: William A. Masters, Professor, Tufts University

Interventions and innovation can lower the price of individual foods, but healthy eating depends on access to a mix of foods from diverse sources. How has the overall cost of meeting dietary needs changed over time worldwide, and in Africa and South Asia specifically? What determines the cost of a healthy diet? And how does affordability affect dietary intake and health status in different locales?

To answer these questions, Changing Access to Nutritious Diets in Africa and South Asia (CANDASA) (https://sites.tufts.edu/candasa) has been using new food price indexes that account for food substitutions to meet nutritional needs to evaluate food systems all over the world, including in Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Malawi, and Tanzania.

This seminar will present the outcomes of CANDASA’s work to date, with a panel discussion featuring field researchers from each country to discuss the local and global implications of their results.

Research by Tufts and IFPRI on this topic is supported by UKAid and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

IFPRI Policy Seminar:  What is the Cost of a Healthy Diet? - 5/29/2019 - WMasters

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. Established in 1975, IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 50 countries. It is a research center of CGIAR, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development.

Ending Hunger and Malnutrition: Keeping Our Eyes on the Road

International Food Policy Research Institute

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