Policy Briefs
SoWhat? This is a series of policy briefs released by the UNESCO Chair in World Food Systems that aims to translate research results into clear findings for action.
It seeks to cover all areas of sustainable food: from nutrition to the right to food, including marketing, social sciences and management, political science, economics, agrifood technologies and agronomy.
This series is intended for anyone who is curious and "savvy" and wishes to know more about recent research advances in the field of sustainable food. The Chair intends to contribute to dialogue between research and various food system actors.
Key points Food system largely relies on market, even in rural areas. Domestic food market is considerably more important than export market for agricultural products. The economic value of urban and rural markets has become roughly equivalent. At a national level, staple food accounts for about 40 % of the economic value of food consumption, animal products about a quarter and other products about a third. Food issues can no longer be mainly focused on cereals.
In order to achieve a (...)
Key points The today Ivoirian mothers practices regarding the feeding of their children have an alarming impact on the children’s health. This is not due to the misreading of the good practices but to the di iculty they have to find balance between the multiple constraints they come across as wives, mothers and working women. This social approach must be taken into account to build more e icient nutritional interventions and public health policies.
Anaemia and malnutrition represent a very (...)
Key points Children’s feeding is not only determined by their nutritional needs. The diet diversification stages, and the transition to solid foods and to the adult meal, are also strongly influenced by social issues: food is a support of the social learning for children, and of their integration in the adult world. The way in which the child’s body is seen by those around it, also determines the choice of foods for the child. To understand that research on feeding of the baby is (...)
Key points Instead of pointing a finger on the lack of knowledge of mothers, or on their nonobservance of the (official or elders’) recommandations in terms of child’s feeding, we propose to mobilize social sciences to better understand the mothers. Our results reveal that the symptoms of anaemia are well known and identified by mothers, but that a number of their believes make them ignore the causes of the disease and adopt curative treatments which are unsuitable to cure the illness. This (...)
