Sustainable Healthy Diets

Research activities: Governance and inclusive food systems

At present, food systems do not contribute to healthy diets, fair livelihoods, and sustainable environments because of a range of lock-ins and barriers, and the underlying causes of constraints are not well understood. Researchers are working with partners to uncover and propose contextualized and evidence-informed governance and policy solutions.  

Critical to the success of this work is the team’s engagement with innovation and demand partners to plan and undertake policy research identifying historically contingent governance structures and powerful incumbent actors with an interest in maintaining the system on its current trajectory.    

Researchers are identifying the policy “lock-ins” (intractable decisions) and barriers that disrupt food systems’ contributions to healthy diets, fair livelihoods, and sustainable environments, and will propose context-specific and evidence-based solutions. 

For more information about this work package, please contact Christophe Béné, C.Bene@cgiar.org, or Simon Bush, Simon.Bush@wur.nl.

Read about the Initiative’s other focus areas:

• Consumers and their food environments
• Micro, small, and medium enterprises and the informal sector 
• Trade-off scenario analysis
• Catalyzing food systems transformation