Ending Hunger and Malnutrition: Keeping Our Eyes on the Road

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

• Johan Swinnen, Director General, IFPRI
• Shobha Shetty, Global Director, Agriculture and Food, World Bank

High-level Panel on Challenges and Opportunities

• Policymakers participating in the Spring Meetings will speak to challenges and opportunities on cross-cutting topics as well as national priorities

Deep Dive: The Role of Value Chains in Boosting Food and Nutritional Security

• Alice Ruhweza, President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
• Loraine Ronchi, Global Lead for Science, Knowledge and Innovation in Agriculture and Food, World Bank
• Joseph Glauber, Research Fellow Emeritus, IFPRI