Workshop Book-1
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PATHS OF CONVERGENCE FOR AGRICULTURE, HEALTH & WEALTH HOSTED BY: THE MCGILL WORLD PLATFORM & INCLEN TRUST INTERNATIONAL World Platform Health and Economic Covergence Table of Contents Day-1 : Program Overview .................................................................................... Pg. 01 Day-2 : Group Work - Program for Roadmap Development ................................ Pg. 15 Roadmap - 1 ………….................................................................................................... Pg. 17 Roadmap - 2 ………….................................................................................................... Pg. 22 Roadmap - 3 ………….................................................................................................... Pg. 28 Roadmap - 4 ………........................................................................................................ Pg. 33 Day-3 : Closing Plenary Roadmap Presentation and Plenary Roadmap Presentation and Discussion ...................................................................... Pg. 41 FRAMING PRESENTATIONS The Speaker will present a conceptual framework of convergence with regional, national and global perspectives. Presentation should be beyond the organizational visions, expertises and experiences. REAL-WORLD LABORATORIES The speaker will present contextual framework of real world experimentation on convergence of various sectors. World Platform Health and Economic Covergence OVERVIEW The McGill World Platform for Health and Economic Convergence (MWP) and The International Clinical Epidemiology Network (The INCLEN Trust International) are hosting a two and a half day high-level workshop in New Delhi, India, with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MWP's and INCLEN's partners and sponsors on June 22nd-24th. The workshop will bring together actors from academia, the private sector, civil society, government, and international institutions to address some of the complex and seemingly intractable challenges at the nexus of health, nutrition, agriculture, wealth production, consumption, and distribution. This workshop is part of an on-going initiative led by the two convening organizations to foster novel, action-oriented collaboration between science, policy, and innovation in all these sectors, capitalizing on business as a catalyst for a real world change. It also builds upon the research and development agenda of the CGIAR Research Program (CPR4) on agriculture for improved nutrition and health. THE FOCUS In India and many other developing countries chronic hunger and under-nutrition persist among poor and vulnerable populations, even as over-nutrition and associated non- communicable diseases (NCDs) climb. The problem of hunger continues to haunt India and many other countries. By India's Planning Commission's estimates the number of persons living on less than $1 per day in India in 2010 was 354 million people, or 30% of the population. The National Family Health Survey found that half of Indian children under five years old were chronically malnourished, and one out of five were acutely malnourished. The percentage of children underweight in India is twice as high as in sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, overnutrition is leading to a global epidemic in obesity, with its many serious attendant ills. In industrialized countries, costs associated with obesity and their NCDs consequences are threatening the economic viability of organizations, health systems and governments. The problem has now spread to, and is accelerating in low to middle-income countries (LMICs) and emerging markets such as Bangladesh and India. In the western world, human biology had over three centuries to adapt to such transformation and failed to do so. In LMICs the time scale for the transition from subsistence agriculture to industrialized societies is now mere decades. A recent study by the University of Maryland and the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi found 22% of Indians living in cities were overweight and 7% were obese. The rapid rise of this epidemic in LMICs is particularly troublesome since their health systems are fragile and already burdened with chronic hunger, under-nutrition and other poverty-related health conditions. The way out of this Gordian knot lies in new forms and scales of innovation and collaboration. This conference is intended to develop four parallel Roadmaps for shaping this convergent innovation and applying it throughout all levels and sectors of society, so as to point the way to real solutions to the daunting challenges of diet-related health issues. PROGRAM OVERVIEW Paths of Convergence for Agriculture, Health and Wealth 3 World Platform Health and Economic Covergence THE ROADMAPS Greater convergence will be achieved through the use of collaborative Roadmaps. The Roadmaps provide a platform that is used to move forward action by convening a strategic consortium of academic, private, and public partners around a specific and pressing health or social issue; setting achievable objectives to be implemented over a one-to three-year horizon; and generating knowledge, intellectual leadership, policy direction, product and program innovation through novel collaborations at local, national, and global levels. For this workshop the Roadmap themes will be: ROADMAP 1: DE-SILOING NUTRITION INNOVATION One likely reason why any number of innovative approaches to solving persistent undernutrition in India has failed to make a large dent in the problem is that the innovation has taken place in separate silos. That is, individual innovations have come from individual companies, from individual academic research efforts, from individual government agencies, from individual NGOs, from individual healthcare organizations, and so forth. Instead, bringing a range of different stakeholders together to innovate collaboratively and to coordinate individual innovative efforts is more likely to lead to broader, more effective solutions. This Roadmap workshop aims to develop strategies to produce and scale up innovation through novel, integrated approaches that span nutrition-related innovation strategies across agriculture, health, and wealth. Besides bringing together previously siloed innovators, the effort must also combine traditionally siloed forms of innovation, be they bodies of knowledge, methods, organizations or systems. The innovation must take into account how these phenomena are woven into everyday life, and how they might be addressed through innovation in technology, community engagement, organizational strategies and social policy. There must be efforts to apply the innovation at local, national and global levels. Two “Real-World Laboratories”--one with the an initiative to biofortify a variety of millets, and the other to facilitate the increasing adoption of grain legumes in small farms--will serve as a foundation for discussion. ROADMAP 2: NEW FORMS OF BUSINESS ENGAGEMENT Private enterprise is playing an increasingly large role in the international development agenda. While advancements are being made to align business interest with social goals, there is need to move beyond notions of corporate social responsibility to engage and expand the reach of the business community in global development. Efficient markets, good governance and innovative business models would afford the nation with the key to more nutritious food. If done right the process can simultaneously spur wealth generation and enhance the quality of life for millions. This Roadmap workshop aims to identify the cross-sectoral collaboration necessary to spur private sector engagement in the pursuit of developing goals at the interface of health, agriculture, and nutrition. It can examine and build on current business models that provide engagement in development goals, and consider more novel models of business engagement. 4 Paths of Convergence for Agriculture, Health and Wealth PROGRAM OVERVIEW World Platform Health and Economic Covergence Three "Real World Laboratories"--an organization that produces specialized food products to treat malnutrition, an initiative to provide mobile-phone-based health advice and tracking to pregnant women, a novel partnership to improve health and economic development in rural and low-income regions of Eastern India facing challenging climatic conditions - will serve as a foundation for discussion. ROADMAP 3: RETHINKING POLICY During six decades of planned development, the twin challenges of growth and poverty reduction have been key policy concerns for India. High rates of economic growth have finally been achieved and have exceeded expectations, especially in this last decade. While poverty has declined, the reduction has been well below what was anticipated. Hunger remains an enormous problem. Meanwhile, India's economic boom is changing the way its people die. Diseases linked to affluence, especially heart problems, are overtaking poverty-related illnesses such as tuberculosis and diarrhoea as the biggest killers. Policy may have played a large role in these shifts. Though it contributed to a dramatic increase in its economic growth, it also led to an increase in income inequality, and has relatively reduced the economic role of farms. Agriculture now accounts for 50% of the labour force, which is a decrease from the 70% in the early nineties. Policy has also affected dietary attitudes and choices in ways that may favor less healthful foods. This Roadmap workshop will explore civil society and policy addressing