A CGIAR COVID-19 Hub, bringing together agriculture and health research in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, has been established to ensure that a research-informed response to COVID-19 effectively reaches the world’s most vulnerable.
The CGIAR COVID-19 Hub provides a coordinated research response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Convening researchers, funders, and key stakeholders, it focuses on supporting national response and recovery work across CGIAR research themes through the response, recovery, and resilience building phases of the global pandemic. The CGIAR COVID-19 Hub is a global initiative hosted by the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health, and co-implemented by the International Food Policy Research Institute, the International Livestock Research Institute, the CGIAR System Organization, and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
Two-thirds of CGIAR’s research is already relevant to COVID-19 response – by drawing relevant results from across the CGIAR System and making them available to key decision-makers and stakeholders in the agricultural sector, the Hub aims to maximize uptake of CGIAR innovations by countries most vulnerable to the impacts of the pandemic.
To provide swift support during crisis response and recovery, the Hub will focus its attention on high-priority areas. These include surveillance and modeling of secondary impacts of COVID-19, such as the risk of increased poverty and hunger, and on monitoring and preventing future zoonotic disease outbreaks. It will also guide ongoing work, by identifying strategic opportunities for new research.
The Hub will support high-level coordination and provide a ‘one-stop shop’ for CGIAR funders and major partners seeking to engage with CGIAR on COVID-19. It will coordinate response and recovery efforts made across CGIAR and its key partners, including those related to research, engagement and communications.
CGIAR is contributing to the global emergency response to the pandemic, as well as efforts to ensure recovery and long-term resilience. Research is being mobilized to address challenges in line with four research pillars: Food systems; One Health; Inclusive public programs and Policies and Investments. The new CGIAR COVID-19 Hub will enhance collaboration to deliver knowledge-based solutions at a country and global level, and support efforts to ‘build back better’.
Learn more about the CGIAR COVID-19 Hub
Read more about CGIAR’s contribution to global response, recovery and resilience
Visit the CGIAR COVID-19 Hub website
Header photo: Yatin Kumar, a farmer and water supplier, washes his hands using a solar-powered pump in Bihar, India. Learn more about his story. Photo by C. de Bode/CGIAR