Nutrition, health & food security
Ending hunger and enabling safe, affordable, healthy diets for the world's most vulnerable people.
Objectives
Through research and innovation, CGIAR aims to address these challenges and contribute to collective global targets for nutrition, health, and food security:
- Ending hunger for all and enabling affordable healthy diets for the 3 billion people who do not currently have access to safe and nutritious food (SDG 2).
- Reducing cases of foodborne illness (600 million annually) and zoonotic disease (1 billion annually) by one third (SDG 3).
Activities
To contribute to these collective global targets, CGIAR Initiatives will:
- Provide evidence and options for improving diets and human health through food systems outcomes, policy research, and technical and institutional innovations for making healthy sustainable diets affordable, targeting consumer behavior, local urban and informal markets, and social protection.
- Accelerate innovation in agronomy, livestock, and fisheries management to increase and diversify food supply and to manage zoonotic diseases, food safety, and anti-microbial resistance.
- Advance research on a wider range of foods and farming systems, including vegetables, insects, and urban farming, with a focus on affordable diets and perishable foods.
- Focus on dietary diversity, quality, and resilience underpinned by custodianship and distribution of a wide variety of genetic materials of crops and their wild relatives, and livestock; breeding of nutrient-dense legumes, roots, tubers, bananas and cereals, including biofortification and market relevant traits; and breeding of more productive livestock and fish to increase the supply of nutrient dense animal-source foods.
All CGIAR Initiatives will contribute to Nutrition, Health, and Food Security. Below, browse a selection of Initiatives that primarily contribute to this Impact Area.
News
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Testing Integrated Aquaculture in Coastal Bangladesh
Growing fish, shrimp, shellfish and aquatic plants together could help coastal farmers produce more food from the same farming system.
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New Delhi Marks UN Day for South-South Cooperation with Push to Scale Dryland Innovation Across the Global Sout
A major international push to accelerate agricultural innovation across the Global South took centre stage in New Delhi today, as the United Nations...
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From market stalls to healthier communities: Viwandani vendors leading the way to nutritious and safe food access in Nairobi's informal settlements
In Nairobi’s Viwandani informal settlement, 100 fruit and vegetable vendors are co-creating solutions to improve food safety, nutrition, livelihoods,...
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How does an earthquake affect food systems and what does recovery take?
The August 10 earthquake in Colombia affected urban and rural communities across Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Risaralda, Caldas, and Quindío. As...
Publications
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Perceived need and measured wellbeing How well do subjective rankings capture relative poverty
Subjective well-being rankings are widely used to target social protection programs, yet their ability to capture relative welfare and wealth remains...
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Postharvest grain system in Ecuador and smallscale farmers perceptions of gender roles and postharvest loss
Smallholder farmers in Ecuador are the main producers of staple grains, yet postharvest losses remain one of the major constraints they face. This...
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Livestock and Climate Solutions Hub Annual technical report 2025
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Progress Report Ethiopias Partnership for Accelerating Agricultural Solutions Scaling PAASS