Feeding Change: Cross-Sectoral Approaches and Strategic Investments to Combat Malnutrition

Organizer: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and International Finance Corporation (IFC) / World Bank Group

The IFAD/IFC event, Feeding Change, brought together leaders from development institutions, governments, financial institutions, and the private sector to explore how targeted investments can address malnutrition in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The event was opened by IFAD president Alvaro Lario, emphasising how smallholder farmers and especially women, young people and indigenous peoples need to be at the heart of our investment strategies to truly defeat malnutrition and that integration across sectors is inevitable.

The two-part panel focused first on public sector approaches, with speakers from IFAD, AUDA-NEPAD, GAIN, and Wellspring Development highlighting how governments and development partners are catalysing nutrition-sensitive investments across agriculture, food systems and rural development. Insights into approaches, tools and models to screen assessments into SMEs achieving greater nutrition impact were shared as well, highlighting the importance of blended finance models ensuring private and public money are invested for nutritional impacts. IFAD further emphasized inclusive investment designs to reach vulnerable groups—especially smallholder farmers, women, and youth.

The second panel shifted to the private sector, where representatives from Volcafe, IFC, and GAFSP discussed how business incentives and blended finance can unlock greater nutrition impact. IFC's Adam Struve and GAFSP’s Niraj Shah underlined the business case for investing in nutrition, while Volcafe shared practical steps already taken in their value chains.

The session concluded with a call for stronger collaboration across sectors to scale nutrition financing and align public-private efforts for better and more impactful investments and consequently better outcomes.

Speakers:

  • Alvaro Lario, President, IFAD
  • HE Ambassador Patricia Chisanga Kondolo, Permanent Representative of Zambia
  • Kefilwe Moalosi, Senior Programme Officer, Nutrition and Food Safety Africa Union Development Agency (AUDA/NEPAD)
  • Juan Carlos Mendoza, Director, Environment, Climate, Gender and Social Inclusion Division, IFAD
  • Joel Moktar, Director, Wellspring Development
  • Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director, The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN)
  • Geert Jan heusinkveld, Sustainability Manager Volcafe/KCL
  • Adam Struve, Global Sector Lead for Crops, Inputs, and Agri-commodity Trade
  • Niraj Shah, Principal Investment Officer, Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP)
  • Afshan Khan, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement