World Bank agriculture and food global practice manager discusses nutrition security response

14 May 2024 --- In light of ongoing food security challenges related to geopolitical factors, inflation, declining wheat stocks and growing fertilizer prices, Nutrition Insight sits down with Julian Lampietti, manager for global engagement in the agriculture and food global practice at the Word Bank, to discuss how the international financing institution is tackling these nutrition-related questions.

“The World Bank has scaled up its food and nutrition security response, making US$45 billion available in 90 countries in the 15 months leading to June 2023, targeting 335 million people, equivalent to 44% of the number of undernourished people,” Lampietti tells us.

“We take a holistic view of the food and nutrition security agenda, seeking to address the root causes of these crises while meeting immediate needs. In close collaboration with partners, the World Bank is supporting countries to develop Preparedness Plans for Food and Nutrition Security Crises,” he continues. 

“The plans better amplify national voices, ownership and institution building and help crowds gain assistance across the fullness of the humanitarian and development communities.”

To date, 25 national governments have committed to putting these plans in place.

Nutrition security agenda
Illustrating the World Bank’s ongoing efforts to support communities in economically developing nations through preparedness plans, Lampietti points to the organization’s work with stakeholders in Egypt “to ensure poor and vulnerable households have uninterrupted access to bread” and in Tunisia by “financing vital soft wheat imports.”

The World Bank’s preparedness plans aim to amplify national voices, ownership and institution building.“These nationally-owned and led plans provide the operational foundation for mobilizing effective responses to extraordinary food and nutrition security crises — involving government, humanitarian, development, peace, donor and other partners.”

He asserts that preparedness plans offer a better integrated and more proactive system to promote earlier action and resource mobilization at scale.

Food resilience programs 

In June 2022, the World Bank rolled out its US$2.75 billion Food Systems Resilience Program for Eastern and Southern Africa to enhance food security and build resilience in the region.

“Since 2020, Africa has faced a worsening food and nutrition crisis. In Eastern and Southern Africa, up to 81 million people experience acute food insecurity, including famine. Beyond climate shocks, countries in the region are also vulnerable to conflict and other shocks that limit direct access to food and to import markets,” Lampietti explains.

“The Food Resilience Program for Eastern and Southern Africa is tackling the mounting food security challenges in the region through a balance of short-term and medium- to long-term interventions.”

The program offers solutions to improve the region’s medium-term food security outlook by investing in climate-smart agriculture and integrated landscape management, improving digital advisory services for farmers, strengthening value chains and promoting a greater focus on food systems resilience in policymaking.

“It also addresses short-term crisis needs through direct provision of inputs (fertilizer and seeds), direct cash transfers, Cash for Work and school meals for the most vulnerable,” adds Lampietti”

Results in eastern and southern Africa 
The Food Resilience Program for Eastern and Southern Africa is the World Bank’s key tool for engagement in the region. 

“In Ethiopia, 48,700 beneficiary farmers have received project services, including extension and advisory services, crop and water management techniques, and enterprise development. The project has distributed 300 tons of breeder seed and about 15,000 seedlings for horticulture crops,” Lampietti details.

The Food Resilience Program for Eastern and Southern Africa is the World Bank’s key tool for engagement in the region.In addition, he points out that the organization has distributed 750,000 day-old chicks and 500,000 fingerlings of improved strains to farmers’ groups. “The project support to policy reforms has led to the drafting and approval of proclamation on pluralistic agriculture extension and advisory services.”

“In Madagascar, the project scaled up Home-Grown School Feeding programs across nine regions and 21 districts with the aim to link 800 schools and 250,000 schoolchildren to 20,000 farms for the supply of nutrient-rich foods and other food products produced locally,” he continues. 

In Malawi, the project has supported more than 137,328 beneficiaries (or farming households), of which 18,500 received basic training on book-keeping, accounting, procurement and financial management to be eligible to access managing matching grants. Among the beneficiaries, 10,175 are women. 

“Through the project, 85 Productive Alliances have been established and will access matching grants aimed at enhancing commercialization. Out of the 460,188 targeted households, the project has reached 118,828 vulnerable food-insecure households and distributed 8,447 MT of fortified maize flour in collaboration with the World Food Programme.”

Global Alliance for Food Security
Another ongoing project through which the World Bank strives to boost the food security agenda was established in 2022 alongside the German G7 Presidency — the Global Alliance for Food Security (GAFS).

“Since its inception, GAFS has served as an agile forum for convening global leaders on the food and nutrition security crisis, with active engagement from over 60 humanitarian and development partners,” comments Lampietti.

“The alliance generates data and knowledge to facilitate decision-making and strengthen crisis response through tools such as the GAFS Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard. The dashboard is a publicly available platform that visualizes the latest data and collates resources from over 40 GAFS data providers on global, national and sub-national food crisis severity.”

The expert explains that the dashboard enables tracking of country crisis preparedness and global food security financing and presents emerging food and nutrition security risks and potential measures to strengthen crisis response and resilience efforts.

“By combining data and collaboration, the Dashboard is uniquely positioned to facilitate a shared understanding of the latest food and nutrition security data and decisions needed,” says Lampietti. 

 By Milana Nikolova