Hesat2030: Delivering Results in 2025
Hesat2030 seeks to end hunger while also addressing malnutrition, inequity and climate change. It is charting a course for policymakers and donor agencies to make high-impact decisions and investments driven by data. To this aim, they offer evidence-based research, new tools and collective action.
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Hesat2030: Ending Hunger Sustainably, Nutritiously, and Equitably, a joint project of the FAO, Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI), and the Shamba Centre for Food & Climate, is planning to unveil a number of policy tools this year.
Hesat2030 leverages evidence-based research, innovative technologies and coordinated action to provide donor agencies and policymakers with the resources and tools necessary to make informed and scientifically-based decisions. This year, the project will focus on delivering key policy reports on nutrition and climate-resilience as well as a new tool to track foreign aid on food security and nutrition.
Using evidence-based research
Through the Juno Evidence Alliance, Hesat2030 policy reports harness the latest technologies to scan, organize and analyze millions of agricultural research papers and determine which policy interventions have the greatest evidentiary support. This is followed by economic modelling of the interventions selected, using the MIRAGRODEP model, to understand their costs. The aim is to identify the the most effective interventions while understanding their costs and trade-offs.
Focus on nutrition
Solving hunger without addressing concurrently the quality of the diet exacerbates other forms of malnutrition. The current situation in Cambodia illustrates this problem. While the prevalence of hunger has decreased from nearly 25% in 2000 to 5% in 2020, the prevalence of obesity has triple in the same period. This places significant health and economic burdens on countries across many years with a current cost estimate of USD 760 billion annually.
The upcoming Hesat2030 Nutrition Report seeks to help policymakers and donors make better informed investment decisions. Through evidence-synthesis and cost modelling, the report will respond to the following questions:
- Is there evidence to support cost-effective interventions for healthy diets and nutrition outcomes in agrifood systems?
- Beyond enabling healthier diets, is there evidence of secondary outcomes– or trade-offs - in areas such as climate mitigation and adaptation, increased incomes, women’s empowerment, social agency?
- How can ‘bundling’ reduce costs and improve outcomes?
Linking climate resilience and food security
Climate change is a leading driver of hunger. Yet, despite extensive scientific literature exploring solutions to enhance food security and resilience to climate change, an integrated focus on these two topics is lacking. To bridge this gap, a new Hesat2030 initiative will compile and assess existing evidence to identify patterns, gaps, and synergies in agricultural interventions that enhance climate resilience and food security.
As a first step, researchers have identified seven key interventions that have significant, albeit varying, impacts on climate resilience and food security in the agricultural systems of low- and middle-income countries:
- Agroforestry
- Post-harvest Management and Storage
- Crop Diversification
- Improved Water Management
- Soil Conservation
- Market Access and Value Chain Development, and Financial Services
- Access to Climate Information and Extension Services
A causal pathway has been developed to provide a clearer understanding of how specific interventions contribute to resilience and food security within vulnerable food systems. This approach identifies potential synergies and trade-offs among interventions, thus promoting a holistic understanding of their cumulative impacts.
Innovative technologies
Despite agreed definitions for food security and nutrition financing and a common aid database, a common standard for tracking official development assistance (ODA) for food security and nutrition is lacking. This results in significantly different estimates on how much ODA is spent in this area – from USD 5.9 to USD 63.8 billion.
For this reason, a new tracker for ODA food security and nutrition is needed to enable better targeting and use of ODA resources. Policy makers need tools for an accurate, timely and clear snapshot of how their resources are being used at a country, program or project level. For this reason, Hesat2030 is building an interactive platform to analyze, monitor, and track ODA for food security and nutrition.
The Food Security and Nutrition Aid Tracker will offer a comprehensive and analytical overview of the ODA flows that have an impact on food security and nutrition. Ultimately, this analysis will help make the case for more and better ODA for food security and nutrition and thus contribute towards the achievement of SDG 2.
Coordinated action to end hunger
The Zero Hunger Coalition catalyses coordinated action to achieve zero hunger in the world by 2030 by bringing together a broad range of stakeholders and aligning them to science-based, high-impact actions. As a first step, the Coalition identifies the most effective and cost-efficient policy interventions to operationalize national food systems roadmaps. In several countries, the Coaltion has helped governments to re-engage with food system partners through National Food Systems Task Forces
Working together with the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub and these Task Forces, the Coalition has delivered the costings and evidence needed to translate national policy into action plans. This work is currently underway in Bangladesh, Benin, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar and Zambia.
In addition, the Coalition has set up a series of South-South Dialogues to encourage representatives from the various national task forces to meet on a regular basis to share experiences and best practices.