Challenge
The need to make food, land, and water systems more productive, resilient, and responsive to growing demand — and future shocks — in a rapidly changing global context has never been greater. Some countries experience rapid economic development often driven by urban areas, but many parts of society continue to experience food and nutrition insecurity, income poverty, inequality and economic marginalization. And while economic development and urbanization offers great opportunities, macroeconomic challenges, political insecurity, pockets of conflict, climate change and other demographic and social changes continue to pose risks to countries’ development. Addressing these challenges requires in-country analytical capacity, strong institutions, and decisive and effective policy action.
Objective
This Initiative aims to improve the lives of millions of people by identifying ways of building stronger policies and strategies with greater coherence and capacity, helping countries address current policy demand and future development needs.
Activities
This objective will be achieved through:
- Building policy coherence by piloting national policy and cross-CGIAR policy coherence mechanisms, monitoring CGIAR policy research and communication activities at country level and supporting more effective policy information. The Initiative will develop a policy coherence dashboard as well as a framework for food, land, and water policy coherence and will pilot a policy coherence-building mechanism.
- Integrating policy tools to strengthen the analytical performance of countries’ institutions – a cornerstone of building more effective policy responses. Using innovative approaches and co-creating user-friendly tools, the Initiative will play a key role in holistic policy analysis at the country level to analyze the trade-offs between investment options and provide policy solutions.
- Responding to policy demand and crises by building policy communities of practice at country level around common themes and by convening ad hoc, rapid response teams to respond to policy demand and crises with the broader objective of promoting evidence-based decision-making.
Engagement
This Initiative will, initially, work in the following countries: Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Laos, Nigeria, and Rwanda .
Outcomes
Proposed 3-year outcomes include:
- Six countries have co-created policy research with the CGIAR Initiative on National Policies and Strategies and are informed about/adopted and/or refined policies and strategies to foster food, land, and water systems transformation (Responding to Policy Demand and Crises)
- Six countries have co-created crisis response research and recommendations and are informed about/adopt and/or refine crisis responses (Responding to Policy Demand and Crises)
- Six countries have built capacity for and familiarity with using at least one CGIAR tool or other innovation (including those of partners). (Integrating Policy Tools)
- In six countries, at least one CGIAR tool is integrated in a local institution’s analytical unit and/or a new analytical unit has been created. (Integrating Policy Tools)
- Six countries recognize the importance of coherence in policy making and have taken steps to implement coherence building measures in the policy making process. (Building Policy Coherence)
- Six countries hold multistakeholder policy dialogues/seminars and/or multilevel Communities of Policy Practice for Food, Land, and Water Systems are established. (Building Policy Coherence)
Impact
Projected impacts and benefits include:
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NUTRITION, HEALTH & FOOD SECURITY
Countries are supported to use evidence to define policies and prioritize investments with the greatest potential for impact on nutrition, health and food security, assisting 4.5 million people to meet minimum dietary energy requirements. |
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POVERTY REDUCTION, LIVELIHOODS & JOBS
Women, youth and marginalized groups benefit through increased, more inclusive policies and investments under large government, private sector and donor-funded programs that generate employment and contribute to improved efficiency beyond the farm, across food, land and water systems. Around 5.8 million people are assisted to exit poverty. |
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GENDER EQUALITY, YOUTH & SOCIAL INCLUSION
Around 8.3 million women, as well as youth and marginalized groups, benefit and are empowered as a result of strategies and programs designed and implemented with explicit attention to equity and inclusion. |
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CLIMATE ADAPTATION & MITIGATION
Climate impacts, especially on the poorest and most marginalized, are minimized through activities and policies that are less fragmented and reduce trade-offs, leading to improvements in climate adaptation and resilience responses, as well as contributing to net carbon capture and retention in agrifood systems, benefiting 7.8 million people. |
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ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH & BIODIVERSITY
Governments better manage environmental trade-offs and achieve food, land and water system transformations that succeed in reducing 20 km3 in consumptive water use, and strengthening environmental health and biodiversity in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems under pressure from economic and demographic growth. |
Projected benefits are a way to illustrate reasonable orders of magnitude for impacts which could arise as a result of the impact pathways set out in the Initiative’s theories of change. In line with the 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy, Initiatives contribute to these impact pathways, along with other partners and stakeholders. CGIAR does not deliver impact alone. These projections therefore estimate plausible levels of impact to which CGIAR, with partners, contribute. They do not estimate CGIAR’s attributable share of the different impact pathways.
Partners
Partnerships are essential to the success of CGIAR Initiatives. The CGIAR Initiative on National Policies and Strategies has a wide array of demand and innovation partners, including national and sub-national ministries of agriculture, social solidarity, and planning; think tanks, research institutes and universities with focus on economic and agricultural development; national, regional and international private-sector partners; NGOs and international organizations.
Leads
The Initiative is led by Clemens Breisinger and Alan Nicol.
Photo by Aleksandar Todorovic/Shutterstock.
