Events

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Agriculture and Food for Development in conjunction with the Hunger Alliance are to hold an event in the House of Lords launching a new policy brief, Small Scale - Big Impact: The Contribution of Small Scale Agriculture to Improving Nutrition.

The brief and discussion to follow will address key issues on how small scale agriculture is important in improving food and nutrition security, in what ways it can achieve this, and what are the challenges in implementing.

The event will hear from Panellists including: Steve Wiggins, Research Fellow, ODI; Gregory Barrow, Head of UK and Republic of Ireland's Office, WFP; and Richard Longhurst, Research Associate at the Institute of Development Studies. 

The launch of this brief comes at an opportune moment as Britain prepares to host the G8 Hunger Summit in June. The Enough food for everyone IF Campaign which launched in January, has also highlighted the importance of investing in smallholder agriculture for food and nutrition security. The Brief is based on research commissioned by the Hunger Alliance to understand the contribution of smallholder farmers to better nutrition. The research was undertaken by Steve Wiggins and Sharada Keats of the Overseas Development Institute.

The event is to take place on Monday, 29, April, 2013, 6.00pm-8.00pm at the House of Lords - Committee Room 2A, Visitors' Entrance, Cromwell Green. 

For more information on the event and to register, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF) and the WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger are excited to announce that the 15th annual Global Child Nutrition Forum will be held in Praia do Forte, Bahia, Brazil, May 20-24, 2013.

This year’s program, “School Feeding as a National Investment: How to Achieve It,” will continue its emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa and will also convene high level technical, government and development partners from countries worldwide.

GCNF’s School Feeding Toolkit will help countries develop a plan for establishing and expanding sustainable school feeding programme, and panel discussions and breakout sessions will highlight exactly how social safety nets and economic development can be linked via national school feeding programmes.

A day long field trip to local schools and farmers cooperatives as well as an ongoing Market Place exhibit where companies and organizations can showcase their goods and services will bring the school feeding supply chain to life.

GCNF -  The Global Child Nutrition Foundation was created in 2006 with the mission of expanding opportunities for the world’s children to receive adequate nutrition for learning and achieving their potential. It continues and expands upon the work of the Global Child Nutrition Forum, formerly conducted by the School Nutrition Association (SNA).  Created in 1946, SNA advocates healthy nutrition for every child in the United States.

WFP Centre of Excellence - The WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger is born of a partnership between the Government of Brazil and the World Food Programme to enable capacity development of national governments in the areas of school feeding, nutrition, and food security. The Centre of Excellence will have an initial focus on school feeding.

The 2012 Africa Day for Food and Nutrition Security (ADFNS 2012) is being held under the theme "Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food". The day is hoped to contribute to sustainable development goals and the Millennium Development Goals, particularly goal number 1, that of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.  

A main focus of the ADFNS 2012 is an event held co-jointly by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Wednesday 31st October, this will present an opportunity to engage all stakeholders in operationalizing an African vision on food and nutrition security.

More specifically, objectives of the event are:

• To raise awareness for prioritisation of food and nutrition security in development planning and financing
• To cultivate collective responsibility toward increasing sustainable access to safe nutritious and healthy foods through increased trade amongst Africa's countries
• To share knowledge and motivate the adoption and scaling up of best practices and quick-win food and nutrition security actions and programmes
• To buttress alignment with conventions and decisions of global platforms and regional initiatives for reducing hunger and malnutrition in Africa
• To encourage a stronger sense of multi-sectoral ownership and accountability from all levels

  Read more: Africa Day for Food and Nutrition Security 2012 – Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food

Sir Gordon Conway will launch his newly published, "One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World" on Tuesday 9th October. The book, in which Sir Conway, one of the world’s foremost experts on global food needs, explains the many interrelated issues critical to our global food supply from the science of agricultural advances to the politics of food security.

Bill Gates, Co- Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has recommended the book,“In One Billion Hungry, Gordon Conway lays out the formidable challenges we face in feeding the world by 2050 and reminds us why we have reason to be optimistic. History shows that we can reduce hunger and poverty, but to make a lasting difference we will need to help small holder farmers sustainably increase their productivity.”  

The launch event will see a discussion including panelists alongside Gordon Conway, Business Correspondent for Channel 4 News, Sarah Smith, founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation & founder and former chairman of Celtel, Calestous Juma, Dr Mo Ibrahim, Jamie Drummond, Professor of the Practice of International Development, Harvard Kennedy School. 

Read more: One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?