Christophe Béné

• PhD
• Senior Policy Expert at Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research

Objective Food systems and food environments are evolving rapidly in Viet Nam, concurrently with significant shifts in dietary patterns and health outcomes. This study aims to identify critical gaps in the national regulatory framework governing food environment in Viet Nam and to propose actionable recommendations to overcome these gaps. Results...

Urgent calls for food system transformation have spurred a variety of responses globally. In some cases, these calls have been answered through top-down led processes, driven by public agencies to design and implement measures that can drive societies towards more viable patterns of development. In other cases, transformation processes have been ig...

Due to complex interactions, changes in any one area of food systems are likely to impact—and possibly depend on—changes in other areas. Here we present the first annual monitoring update of the indicator framework proposed by the Food Systems Countdown Initiative, with new qualitative analysis elucidating interactions across indicators. Since 2000...

In a world rapidly transitioning, food consumption away from home is rising, therefore representing an increasing share of individual’s diet. Food consumed away from home negatively impacts diet, nutritional status and consequently has detrimental effects on health. In some contexts, where individual level dietary intake surveys are not regularly c...

The transformation of food systems emerges as a critical challenge necessitating a deep, holistic comprehension of the complex and multifaceted barriers that hinder progress towards sustainability. The existing literature is not consistent in identifying these barriers. Building upon existing work, this paper introduces a comprehensive, integrated,...

Many seafood products marketed as “sustainable” are not. More exacting sustainability standards are needed to respond to a fast-changing world and support United Nations SDGs. Future fisheries must operate on principles that minimise impacts on marine life, adapt to climate change and allow regeneration of depleted biodiversity, while supporting an...

This study examines the barriers faced by irrigation technology and service suppliers in Ethiopia, and their influence on business effectiveness. Data were collected from 42 firm owners and managers across 21 enterprises through online surveys, phone calls, and in-person interviews in August 2020. Additional insights were provided by 35 key informa...

The protein shift, or transition, entails a reduction in the production and consumption of animal-source foods, and an increase in plant-based foods and alternative proteins, at a global level. The shift is primarily motivated by the need to minimise the impact of the food system on social-ecological systems. We argue that rather than focusing sing...

In recent years, numerous examples of food system dashboards have been developed with the goal of offering users the opportunity to monitor or assess (their) national food systems. One of the many challenges faced by these initiatives has been to strike an acceptable balance between the complexity, local-specificity, and multi-sectoral nature of th...

The call for transforming food systems from their current unsustainable trajectories toward more desirable, healthy, sustainable, resilient, and equitable outcomes has received unprecedented echoes recently—particularly following the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit. But lack of guidance on how to do so in a comprehensive and integrated manner has left...

Current food systems fail to provide equity, sustainability, and positive health outcomes, thus underscoring the critical need for their transformation. Intervening in food environments holds substantial promise for contributing to this much-needed transformation. Despite scholars and practitioners often recognizing the necessity for bottom–up appr...

Unlock the potential of irrigation technology in Ethiopia! Our preprint, "Bridging the Gap: Analysis of Systemic Barriers to Irrigation Technology Supply Businesses in Ethiopia," dives deep into the challenges faced by suppliers. Through comprehensive data from 21 enterprises and insights from 42 firm owners/managers, we reveal critical barriers li...

Armed conflicts are among the major disruptions affecting local food systems in low-and middle-income countries, having devastating effects on populations' food security. The understanding of the mechanisms linking conflicts to food insecurity is limited, however, by a lack of data on how these conflicts affect the different actors of local food sy...

Traditional wet markets are the main source of fresh food and the largest source of daily nutrient intake for citizens of Hanoi. Nevertheless, due to the lack of traceability and sales registration systems, food flows within these markets remain largely invisible. This makes it challenging to assess the impact of shocks, such as pandemics, on these...

A new food system indicator framework and monitoring architecture is presented to track food system transformation towards global development, health and sustainability goals. Five themes are considered: (1) diets, nutrition and health; (2) environment, natural resources and production; (3) livelihoods, poverty and equity; (4) governance; and (5) r...

There is growing recognition that a better understanding of how food systems respond to crises is critical to build and protect the food security of local populations. But rigorous and reliable methods to measure food system resilience are still missing. In this paper, we build on the current literature to develop an analytical framework aimed at a...

A greater focus on governance is needed to facilitate effective and substantive progress toward sustainability transformations in the aquaculture sector. Concerted governance efforts can help move the sector beyond fragmented technical questions associated with intensification and expansion, social and environmental impacts, and toward system-based...

In this article we analyse the resilience of food systems' actors exposed to violent conflicts, using primary data collected in the Yagha province of Burkina Faso. The different resilience strategies adopted by actors of the local food systems when faced with recurrent attacks and high level of insecurity are analysed. We also analyse the factors t...

In this paper we revisit the current debate between red meat vs. alternative protein and explore the respective contribution that those two polarized discourses claim to make in relation to the new international agenda on transforming food systems toward a more sustainable future. To complete this, we combine classical political economy analysis fo...

The concluding chapter reflects on the conceptual, empirical, and policy-related contributions that this book has made and identifies remaining unresolved issues. ‘Resilience’, ‘food system’, and even ‘food security’ were seen to be elusive and contested concepts. A food systems’ lens is more holistic than conventional preoccupations with agricultu...

The aim of this introduction chapter is twofold. First it will set the scene, frame the overarching problem and present the central question of this volume: How does the concept of resilience help in improving our general understanding of the development process, in particular around the issue of food (in)security, and how does it influence the way...

Small-scale fisheries in Ghana are declining in response to the global fisheries crisis. The policies to curb this situation are dependent on the wellbeing of fishers in terms of material condition, quality of life, and transformative strategies for sustainable livelihoods. This paper employs survey data to investigate the wellbeing of fishers, usi...

Transforming food systems is essential to bring about a healthier, equitable, sustainable, and resilient future, including achieving global development and sustainability goals. To date, no comprehensive framework exists to track food systems transformation and their contributions to global goals. In 2021, the Food Systems Countdown to 2030 Initiat...

material accessible at https://food-system-country-profiles.cgiar.org/

Explains why we need to look beyond agriculture and trade and embrace a holistic food systems perspective Broaches an array of issues relating to resilience and food security, including gender, climate change, and COVID-19 Appeals to a broad audience, from academics to policymakers, students to practitioners This book is open access, which means...

Context Consumption of food away from home represents an increasing share of people’s food consumption worldwide, although the percentage of food intake that is consumed away from home varies among countries and among individuals. Previous systematic reviews have reported that, overall, consumption away from home negatively affects an individual’s...

This paper explores the conditions under which the changes leading to the Great Transformation of food systems called upon by a growing number of international experts and development agencies, will (or not) happen. After discussing the meanings of ‘transformation’ in the specific context of food systems, we draw on different elements of political...

Despite representing a growing element of the international community’s discourse, the sustainability of food systems and the challenge of its empirical measurement are still highly debated. In this paper, we propose to address this gap by computing a global food system sustainability index which we then use in a cross-country analysis covering 94...

The connection between international trade and food systems (un)sustainability is both contentious and critical for policy work supporting progress towards achieving the twin goals of hunger alleviation and dietary health while improving the overall sustainability of development. We characterize the food system using a set of metrics based upon the...

Both food safety and dietary behaviors are major contributors to the global burden of disease, especially in rapidly urbanising environments. The impact that food safety concerns have on dietary behaviors in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is insufficiently documented. Therefore, we examined whether food safety concerns influence consumer...

Food systems that support healthy diets in sustainable, resilient, just, and equitable ways can engender progress in eradicating poverty and malnutrition; protecting human rights; and restoring natural resources. Food system activities have contributed to great gains for humanity but have also led to significant challenges, including hunger, poor d...

Many call for radically transforming food systems to reduce climate change and to promote, food security, food safety, environmental sustainability and equity. Food system transformation requires food system governance to deal with the interactions between food production, processing and consumption, in relation with the different drivers of food s...

In this paper we present the first global assessments of COVID-19's impacts on food systems and their actors, focusing specifically on the food security and nutritional status of those affected in low and middle-income countries. The review confirms the magnitude and the severity of an unprecedented crisis that has spread worldwide and has spared o...

There is limited evidence on food environment in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) and the application of food environment frameworks and associated metrics in such settings. Our study examines how food environment varies across an urban-peri-urban-rural gradient from three sites in North Viet Nam and its relationship with child undernutritio...

Extreme weather events can have devastating effects on agricultural production. As rural households in developing countries largely depend on agriculture, climatic shocks have the potential to undermine food security. In this paper, we explore how crop resistance contribute to household resilience in extreme weather events. As case study, we used c...

At present, no clear consensus exists on how to assess resilience interventions in the field. In this paper we propose to measure the impact of the ECOFISH project, the objective of which was to strengthen the resilience of local fishing communities affected by recurrent crises in Bangladesh. The evaluation was based on a difference in difference (...

As part of the work implemented by CGIAR on COVID-19, the COVID-19 Research Hub Working Group 4 “Address food systems’ fragility and build back better” was tasked with implementing a global assessment of the impacts of COVID-19 on food systems and their actors, focusing specifically on the consequences that the pandemic had brought on the food secu...

Taking a food systems approach is a promising strategy for improving diets. Implementing such an approach would require the use of a comprehensive set of metrics to characterize food systems, set meaningful goals, track food system performance, and evaluate the impacts of food system interventions. Food system metrics are also useful to structure d...

To operationalize the great food system transformation and ensure its sustainability, five areas of research and action require more attention: economic and structural costs; political economy; diversity of cultural norms; equity and social justice; and governance and decision support tools.

An aspirational global food system is one that delivers across a suite of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including universal access to healthy diets, which can also codeliver on climate and environment SDGs. The literature has downplayed the relative contribution of dietary change to sustainable food systems. In this perspective article,...

COVID-19 undermines food security both directly, by disrupting food systems, and indirectly, through the impacts of lockdowns on household incomes and physical access to food. COVID-19 and responses to the pandemic could undermine food production, processing and marketing, but the most concerning impacts are on the demand-side – economic and physic...

The objective of this review is to explore and discuss the concept of local food system resilience in light of the disruptions brought to those systems by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion, which focuses on low and middle income countries, considers also the other shocks and stressors that generally affect local food systems and their acto...

While progress has been made recently in understanding food systems per se, much less is known about policies around those food systems. In this paper, we aim at understanding the food system policy context with the specific objective to look at policy dynamics-defined as the way policy agendas are identified, justified, and framed by decision-make...

While progress has been made recently in understanding food systems per se, much less is known about policies around those food systems. In this paper, we aim at understanding the food system policy context with the specific objective to look at policy dynamics-defined as the way policy agendas are identified, justified, and framed by decision-make...

Child overweight or obesity is increasing in most countries, including Vietnam. We sought to elucidate the drivers of child overweight or obesity in Vietnam and understand how they vary geographically. We compiled nationally representative cross-sectional data from the Vietnam Nutrition Surveillance Survey collected annually between 2012-2015 and h...

At present, our ability to comprehend the dynamics of food systems and the consequences of their rapid ‘transformations’ is limited. In this paper, we propose to address this gap by exploring the interactions between the sustainability of food systems and a set of key drivers at the global scale. For this we compile a metric of 12 key drivers of fo...

People are by nature characterized by some degree of intrinsic resilience. The capacity of households and communities to deal with shocks and stressors (their resilience) is therefore not something that is simply “introduced” or “added” externally through the activities of a project, but instead something that exists internally, and that can be alt...

In this paper we aim to evaluate the effects of a 3-year resilience intervention (the SUR1M project in Niger) on the beneficiaries of the project. The evaluation was structured around the project's theory of change and designed to evaluate three elements along that theory of change: the types of responses beneficiaries adopt when faced with adverse...

This paper presents the first global map of food systems sustainability based on a rigorous protocol. The choice of the metric dimensions, as well as the individual indicators included in the metric, were initially identified from a thorough review of the existing literature. A rigorous inclusion/exclusion protocol was then used to refine the list...

The dominant sustainable seafood narrative is one where developed world markets catalyze practice improvements by fisheries and aquaculture producers that enhance ocean health. The narrow framing of seafood sustainability in terms of aquaculture or fisheries management and ocean health has contributed to the omission of these important food product...

https://www.ifpri.org/publication/determining-key-research-areas-healthier-diets-and-sustainable-food-systems-viet-nam

Researchers and decision-makers lack a shared understanding of resilience, and practical applications in environmental resource management are rare. Here, we define social-ecological resilience as a property of social-ecological systems that includes at least three main characteristics — resistance, recovery and robustness (the ‘three Rs’). We defi...

In an aspirational global food system, everyone would meet but not exceed their nutritional needs, and fulfill personal preferences for tasty, affordable, varied, convenient and healthy food—while keeping climate change under 2°C. Diets are an outcome of people’s choices and are profoundly shaped by socio-cultural, physical and economic factors in...

In the emerging literature on resilience in relation to food security, a growing number of studies stress the need to expand our analysis beyond conventional socio-economic factors such as assets or social capital, and to consider less tangible elements such as risk perception, self-efficacy or aspiration. Drawing on the recent literature and the a...

Avoiding whinges from various and potentially conflicting stakeholders is a major challenge for sustainable development and for the identification of sustainability scenarios or policies for biodiversity and ecosystem services. It turns out that independently complying with whinge thresholds and constraints of these stakeholders is not sufficient b...

The concept of food system has gained prominence in recent years amongst both scholars and policy-makers. Experts from diverse disciplines and backgrounds have in particular discussed the nature and origin of the ''unsustainability" of our modern food systems. These efforts tend, however, to be framed within distinctive disciplinary narratives. In...

The concept of food system has gained prominence in recent years amongst both scholars and policy-makers. Experts from diverse disciplines and backgrounds have in particular discussed the nature and origin of the “unsustainability” of our modern food systems. These efforts tend, however, to be framed within distinctive disciplinary narratives. In t...

In the context of increasing climate-related extreme events and other crises, the concept of adaptive social protection (ASP) has been recognized as a potentially effective policy response to reduce the impacts of these shocks and stressors on vulnerable households. The concept is currently being tested at scale by the World Bank in six countries i...

Drawing upon examples of street vendors in Hanoi, this study explores gendered strategies to adapt to rapid urbanization, and how street vendors’ responses, in turn, shape the current informal food systems. The findings show that Hanoi’s informal food system is organized based on social, as well as economic, interactions and therefore the system’s...

In this document, the importance and the challenges related to the measurement of resilience across and between scales is discussed. The document is written as a concept note, aiming to provide generic advice and practical guidance to agencies, practitioners and other stakeholders that are involved in resilience interventions in the international d...

Small-scale fisheries play a critical role in both poverty alleviation and food security. A large proportion of the world fish stocks are, however, getting fully or over-exploited. In this article we address these issues in the context of the small-scale fisheries of the Solomon Islands. The paper explores the extent to which in-shore Fish Aggregat...

viter la contestation d'acteurs aux objectifs divers et parfois contradictoires est un défi majeur pour le développement durable et pour l'identification de politique pour la biodiversité et les services éco-systémiques. De plus, respecter les seuils d'acceptation des différents acteurs indépendamment n'est pas suffisant parce que des interactions,...

In the last two decades resilience has emerged as a promising concept that can help societies and more generally social‐ecological systems become less vulnerable to shocks and stressors. As such it has been adopted by a large number of disciplines ‐from psychology, physics and ecology, to disaster risk reduction, climate change adaption, and humani...

Reconciling food security, economic development and biodiversity conservation is a key challenge, especially in the face of the demographic transition characterizing many countries in the world. Fisheries and marine ecosystems constitute a difficult application of this bio-economic challenge. Many experts and scientists advocate an ecosystem approa...

Currently shaping a large part of the development and humanitarian agenda the concept of resilience has been embraced by a large number of donors, development agencies, and international NGOs. As a consequence, an increasing number of development interventions that aim at strengthening the resilience of vulnerable households and communities are now...

The aim of this paper is to analyse the emergence of the concept of ‘urban resilience’ in the literature and to assess its potentials and limitations as an element of policy planning. Using a systematic literature review covering the period 2003-2013 and a combination of techniques derived from narrative analysis we show that diverse views of what...

The small-scale fisheries sector in many Pacific islands is facing increasing challenges in relation to resource availability, economic opportunity, and demographic and social pressure. In particular, intensifying cash-oriented livelihood strategies can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and threaten food security and resource conservation. In thi...

Following a precise evaluation protocol that was applied to a pool of 202 articles published between 2003 and 2014, this paper evaluates the existing evidence of how and to what extent capture fisheries and aquaculture contribute to improving nutrition, food security, and economic growth in developing and emergent countries. In doing so we evaluate...

The objective of this paper is to better understand the various individual and household factors that influence resilience, that is, people’s ability to respond adequately to shocks and stressors. One of our hypotheses is that resilience does not simply reflect the expected effects of quantifiable factors such as level of assets, or even less quant...

With the developing world increasingly exposed to severe shocks and stresses, a growing number of international development agencies have now adopted resilience building as a critical long-term objective for their programmes. This paper explores the potential for this concept in the context of food security and nutrition but the reflection extends...

This paper applies a stochastic viability approach to a tropical small-scale fishery, offering a theoretical and empirical example of ecosystem-based fishery management approach that accounts for food security. The model integrates multi-species, multi-fleet and uncertainty as well as profitability, food production, and demographic growth. It is ca...

Inland fisheries can provide a wide range of social benefits, many of which make important contributions to both household livelihoods and national economies. These benefits and how they are created and distributed, however, are essentially social phenomena, perceived, valued and utilized by people and the social and economic worlds in which they l...

The " world fisheries crisis " has drawn the attention of academics, researchers and policy makers alike and raise question about the sustainability of fisheries. In trying to understand the impact of the crisis on the lives and livelihoods of fishing communities, the concepts of resilience and wellbeing provide promising analytical frames to start...

As resilience programming gains more and more prominence as an approach for addressing chronic vulnerability of populations exposed to recurrent shocks and stressors, empirical evidence will be needed for measuring how well households, communities, and systems manage shocks and stressors and how interventions and programmes that are designed to str...

Fish provides more than 4.5 billion people with at least 15 % of their average per capita intake of animal protein. Fish's unique nutritional properties make it also essential to the health of billions of consumers in both developed and developing countries. Fish is one of the most efficient converters of feed into high quality food and its carbon...

Fish provides more than 4.5 billion people with at least 15 % of their average per capita intake of animal protein. Fish's unique nutritional properties make it also essential to the health of billions of consumers in both developed and developing countries. Fish is one of the most efficient converters of feed into high quality food and its carbon...

As resilience programming gains more and more prominence as an approach for addressing chronic vulnerability of populations exposed to recurrent shocks and stressors, empirical evidence will be needed for measuring how well households, communities, and systems manage shocks and stressors and how interventions and programmes that are designed to str...