Food System Resilience: Elusive Concept or Actionable Framework?
For Food Systems Resilience month on ResilienceLinks, join our hosts in learning how guiding principles of the field can be put into practice.
Shocks and stressors on the global food system due to the war in Ukraine, COVID-19, and climatic changes highlight the need for countries to strengthen food system resilience initiatives. To increase capacities of key actors in the food system to be better prepared to cope, food systems resilience can be a helpful concept for policy makers and the humanitarian community. This month, we explore lessons learned with Wageningen University & Research, the World Food Program, and the International Livestock Research Institute.
Join ResilienceLinks, USAID, and Wageningen University & Research in learning how food systems resilience can be put into practice.
Meet the Host
Herman Brouwer is a senior advisor at Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation (WCDI) at Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands, working on multi-stakeholder engagement for sustainable, healthy and inclusive food systems. He advises, trains and coaches professionals across sectoral boundaries on how to contribute to sustainable development through collaboration, with a special focus on food systems in Africa and Asia. Herman is lead author of the acclaimed MSP Guide: How to design and facilitate multi-stakeholder partnerships, which has been referred to as an “invaluable management tool for identifying the core principles, tools and considerations needed to optimize your organization's approach to engagement”. He is also an associate consultant with CDR (Collaborative Decision Resources) Associates in Boulder (Colorado, USA), where he focuses on facilitation and mediation of environmental conflicts.
Meet the Speakers
Dr. Bart de Steenhuijsen Piters is one of the leading food system transformation researchers at Wageningen University & Research (WUR), and WUR’s ambassador for food and nutrition security. Bart has over thirty years of experience, gained through long-term positions and research projects in Africa and Asia. As Senior Food System Scientist, he works in the areas of food system governance, political economy and processes of transformation towards more sustainable, resilient and equitable food systems. Bart investigates novel approaches to enhancing food system outcomes, such as by mobilizing the innovation capacity of midstream actors in informal sectors of the food system, and how to enhance food system resilience. He is an advisor to food system policy platforms in Africa and the Middle East, and is known as a public speaker and debater.
Dr. Ones Karuho is Head of the Resilience and Food Systems Unit at WFP Regional Bureau for West and Central Africa. His responsibilities include providing strategic guidance, technical advice, and strengthening strategic and operational partnerships with actors contributing to food systems development and resilience. Dr. Karuho has more than 25 years of experience, having served as Head of Markets and Post-Harvest Management at AGRA, Director of Value Chains, Deputy Country Director, and Regional Manager at TechnoServe, and Program Director at Food for the Hungry. Dr. Karuho has expertise in agricultural value chain analysis and upgrading, market and food systems development, as well as inclusive and sustainable business strategies. He received a Ph.D. degree in Public Policy and Administration from Walden University and an MBA degree in International Business Management from Hult International Business School in Boston, USA.
Namukolo Covic is ILRI Director General’s Representative to Ethiopia. From 2015 to 2021 she served as Senior Research Coordinator at IFPRI, for the CGIAR Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health and worked on projects in several countries, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia. A multidisciplinary academic background that spans crop science and extension (BSC), animal and poultry science (PGD) and nutrition (MSc & PhD) has made her uniquely positioned to addresses dynamics of food systems transformation from different fronts. She is recognized for her ability to link diverse stakeholders on interlinkages of research, policy and program processes. She has worked extensively with the government of Ethiopia and other stakeholders including the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Agriculture, and development agencies on different fronts of food systems and nutrition, including the development of food based dietary guidelines and their adaptation to pastoralist settings in Ethiopia; and the development of Ethiopia’s food systems transformation pathway in response to Ethiopia’s development needs and the United Nations Food Systems Summit process. She has supported African Union efforts on linking agriculture and nutrition in the CAADP process. She leads the Governance Working Group of an Independent Expert Group that emerged from the UNFSS that has developed a Monitoring Framework on Food Systems Transformation to guide progress on the SDG countdown to 2030.