Agrifood Systems-Transformative Research and Policy Guidance (AFS-TRP)

The Agrifood Systems-Transformative Research and Policy program at the Center for Development Research was initiated in November 2023 and will be implemented over a period of 3.5 years.

The program will strengthen the capacity and knowledge of program partner countries to craft and implement effective policies by providing the research and analytical support to develop evidence-based pathways and policies for a sustainable transformation of agrifood systems. The program will also facilitate peer-to-peer exchange and learning events (at the country and regional levels as well as at global fora) for the development of evidence-based sustainability- and resilience-enhancing policies and strategies. Finally, the program will address questions about governance structures, multisectoral and multistakeholder coordination mechanisms that are reflective of the interlinked challenges countries face, and support the development of metrics to better measure and evaluate the impact of interventions and policy structures.

Activities include research and technical support to partner countries in identifying synergies between food, agricultural and social development, nutrition, climate change, biodiversity protection, and environmental health within the broader framework of strengthening the resilience and sustainability of agrifood systems and agrifood systems transformation. The program will identify “low-hanging fruits” in partner countries as possible entry points for targeted interventions to enable evidence-based policy design and implementation. These research activities will be complemented by contributions to peer-to-peer exchange and learning events aimed at discussing what type of interventions may work or have worked already and could be replicated and brought to scale in order to avoid costly “failed experiments”. The research will also identify and highlight possible synergies and tradeoffs of policy interventions with respect to multiple sustainability dimensions (e.g., income, nutrition, gender, climate, biodiversity, etc.).

The program provides technical support to three GIZ programs: the global program on the transformation of food systems (Globalvorhaben Transformation der Ernährungssysteme), the global program on sustainable agrifood systems and policies (Globalvorhaben Nachhaltige Agrarsysteme und Agrarpolitik) and Knowledge for Nutrition (K4N).  It will be implemented in the following countries*: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Togo, and Zambia.

*Final list of countries tbc