Program/accelerator:

Better Diets and Nutrition

We will identify, co-design, and test food system solutions that tackle major constraints to delivering sustainable healthy diets and improving nutrition outcomes for people in low and middle-income countries.

Through a holistic collaboration, we will support country-led food systems transformation enabling our partners to take actions that deliver sustainable healthy diets and improved nutrition outcomes while safeguarding income, employment, social equity, and environmental sustainability.

Our work aims to help

  • Making healthy foods affordable for the almost 3 billion people worldwide who currently cannot afford a healthy diet.
  • Promoting diets that are diverse, nutritious and safe to reduce the number of people at risk of all forms of malnutrition and diet linked morbidity and mortality.
  • Supporting actors to take actions that ensure food systems transformation benefits people and the planet.

Where we will work in

Bangladesh, Benin, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam

Challenges we’ll address

  • Affordability: Healthy foods are priced fairly so that they can be purchased by everyone
  • Accessibility: Opportunity and ability to get healthy foods
  • Availability: Steady and sufficient supply of diverse, nutritious and safe foods
  • Desirability: Preferences for foods that belong to a healthy diet
  • Agency: Power and ability to make healthy choices

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Areas of Work

  • Consumers and food environments
    We will explore transformative, scalable solutions in consumer behavior, food environments, and governance to promote sustainable healthy diets while supporting income, food safety, environmental sustainability, gender equality, and climate resilience.
  • Market systems for better diets
    We will harness market systems to enhance the availability, affordability, and desirability of diverse, safe, and nutrient-rich foods while boosting incomes and employment opportunities, including women and youth.
  • End-to-end solutions for increasing intake of perishable nutrient-rich foods
    We will focus on co-designing, implementing, and scaling approaches to boost the consumption of perishable nutrient-rich foods and understand the impact of each approach, what mechanisms drive their success, and how cost-effective they are.
  • Biofortified and health-enhancing staples
    We will aim to enhance both demand and supply of biofortified and health-enhancing staple foods, ensuring access to essential micronutrients and improved nutrition security for rural and urban communities.
  • Multisectoral systems
    We will harness the potential of multisectoral systems—such as schools, health, and nutrition-sensitive social protection programs—to combat all forms of malnutrition, align with food systems transformation efforts, and advance equity goals.
  • Transformative leadership
    We will drive transformative change by enhancing the integration of diet- and nutrition-focused design across CGIAR research and sharing insights beyond target countries through regional and global networks.

Gender Equality & Social Inclusion

Our research will fill knowledge gaps on equity issues in food systems transformation related to gender, youth and other marginalized groups. Our evidence will inform solutions that will deliver sustainable healthy diets to women and youth while leveraging opportunities to increase their incomes through employment in the food system.

Our Approach

Interlinked support across CGIAR’s portfolio

We will work closely with the Breeding for Tomorrow, Policy Innovations, Scaling for Impact, Sustainable Animal and Aquatic Foods, and Sustainable Farming programs, and the Capacity Sharing, and Gender Equality & Social Inclusion accelerators.

Working to share our capacity with

  • National partners
  • Countries, regions, and global platforms
  • Scientists

Built on CGIAR’s proven expertise

  • Proven track record of testing, co-designing, and evaluating consumer-oriented, market-oriented, and end-to-end food systems solutions
  • Established partnerships with national governments, universities, research institutions, and organizations such as NGOs, UN agencies, and civil society groups
  • A history of technical capacity-sharing and leadership development, expanding our focus to include organizational and institutional strengthening
  • Qualified expertise in translating evidence into actionable recommendations, combined with our reputation as a thought leader

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