Governance and Leadership in Agri-food Systems and Nutrition

A decade ago, the governance of the international nutrition system was found to be ‘fragmented and dysfunctional’ in one of several reviews in the seminal The Lancet Nutrition Series (Morris et al., 2008). A lot has happened since then, with global political attention to nutrition being greater now than at any time since the World Food Conference held by the United Nations in Rome in 1974. This chapter first reviews the relationship between governance systems and processes (at various levels) and the nutrition sensitivity of agri-food systems, before reviewing the role of leadership in orienting such systems toward nutrition goals

Building a Sustainable Food City: A Collective Approach

Brighton – a city on the south coast of the UK with a vibrant food scene but also home to some entrenched inequalities – presents an excellent local case from which to explore some of the wider issues considered in this IDS Bulletin on the political economy of food. This article explores some of the issues facing the city and local food systems from the perspective of Brighton and Hove Food Partnership, a leading organisation behind the city’s food strategy, one of the first in the UK. Brighton’s experience shows how local organisations can put food at the centre of wider social issues and forge action plans that work across sectors to address the underlying inequities in food systems together. This should be of relevance not only to other cities in the UK, but others wantingInternational Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (iPES Food

Social accountabilty initatives in health and nutrition: lessons from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh

South Asia is home to nearly a quarter of the world’s population and is a region of dynamic economic growth, yet it performs relatively poorly on health and nutrition indicators. As a potential route towards addressing this poor performance, a range of accountability initiatives has been implemented to improve service delivery in the health and nutrition sectors. This is a rich and vibrant field, with a great deal to offer in terms of best practice; but there is little work that focuses on South Asian innovation and practice generally, and takes a comparative and theoretical perspective to ground existing and future accountability initiatives in health and nutrition specifically. This report fills this gap. It first summarises current concepts and issues in accountability thinking and practice, focusing on practices commonly referred to as ‘social accountability’. It goes on to contrast these with the ‘standard model’ of political and administrative accountability, which is prevalent in the literature, and points to ways in which reality often deviates from this standard model. Against this general conceptual and theoretical backdrop, it examines health systems in South Asia in the light of assumptions underpinning the standard model of accountability.DFIDUSAIDSIDAOmidyar Networ

Introduction: Valuing Different Perspectives on Power in the Food System

In this introductory article, we highlight debates that emerged in the IDS–IPES-Food workshop on the political economy of food as a way of introducing the articles that follow. In exploring how different groups view power in food systems, we conceptualise a ‘mainstream’ narrative emerging from embedded agricultural and economic thinkers and practitioners, and contrast this with a multiplicity of reactions to and critiques of that narrative. In aiming to understand power in the food system, we recognise that there are many different disciplinary, epistemological, and ideological entry points into the study of power, and that seeking a single approach will likely limit the insights that different disciplines and research orientations can bring to the study of food systems. We argue that we must first better understand power at its different levels, forms, and spaces, and then use this understanding in order to transform food systems via equitable processes which work towards the interests of all.International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (iPES Food