Better Diets and Nutrition
Overview
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 goal
Our work aims to help
Technical Report
Where we work
The countries and locations listed below reflect where CGIAR and its partners reasonably expect their work to generate benefits:
- Global
- Regions: Latin America and the Caribbean, Southern Asia, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa
- Countries: Bangladesh, Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, The Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, Uganda
Challenges
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
Our publications
Identify, locate and download research and other outputs produced by our program/accelerator
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What shapes a rice variety A qualitative analysis of institutional rationale in rice breeding
Crop breeding is generally understood as a specialized scientific discipline, mostly governed by the quantitative principles of genetics. However,...
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From preferences to programs Using consumer insights on rice and green gram to guide varietal development and deployment in India
Persistent low varietal turnover in India, despite continuous varietal releases, constrains yield improvement and perpetuates dependence on older...
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A typology for national plant variety licensing pathways
This study presents a comparative assessment of plant variety licensing systems within selected National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems...
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Identification and development of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism SNP markers for progeny testing and quality assurance and quality control in common bean
Two SNP marker panels—a progeny testing panel and a QA/QC varietal purity panel were developed to support common bean breeding programs, using...
Areas of work
Consumers and Food Environments
This AoW explores 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
This AoW harnesses 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
This AoW focuses on co-designing, implementing, and scaling approaches from production to consumption to boost the consumption of perishable nutrient-rich foods (fruits and vegetables, aquatic and terrestrial animal sourced foods) and understand the impact of each approach, what mechanisms drive their success, and how cost-effective they are.
Biofortified and Health-Enhancing Staples
This AoW aims 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.
Transformative Leadership
This AoW harnesses the potential of multisectoral systems—such as schools, health, and nutrition-sensitive social protection programs—to support healthy diets by all, combat all forms of malnutrition, align with food systems transformation efforts, and advance equity goals.
Multisectoral Systems
This AoW drives 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.
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
Our 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
Events
News
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Call for Abstracts: Delivering for Nutrition 2026- Navigating Systems in Transition
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Serious Games in Ethiopia: EcoFoodSystems Develops Game Toolkit for Addis Ababa’s Adolescents
EcoFoodSystems, in partnership with the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), the Alliance of Biodiversity International and the International...
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Urban living linked to slightly healthier diets but also higher overweight and obesity among adolescents in Viet Nam
Urbanization is rapidly transforming food environments in many countries, with 68% of the global population expected to be living in urban areas by...
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Latin America and the Caribbean’s Diet Quality Crisis Put in the Spotlight at Major Regional Report Launch
The Latin American and Caribbean Landscape Report of Food Security and Healthy Diets, developed by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT...