Ceres2030 has the ambitious goal of achieving a global consensus on the most effective ways to sustainably end hunger. In order to do this, the joint initiative by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Cornell University, and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which is supported by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and USAID, who are all members of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development, has formed a global advisory board of 20 agriculture and economic experts to identify key knowledge gaps that need to be filled for achieving a world without hunger.
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Steps towards consensus on the best way to end hunger
The Ceres2030 advisory board met on 7 December at the Center for Development Research (Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung, ZEF) in Bonn, Germany to discuss the next steps and identify the research topics to be published in a special peer-review journal issue, in collaboration with Nature Publishing Group. So far 21 research topics have been identified, ranging from “What impacts can alternative feed sources for livestock, such as insects, have on small holder farmers and the environment?” to “What is the effectiveness of finance and extension services on the adoption of smallholder irrigation solutions?”;
Only seven to ten topics are possible within the framework of the peer review process and for this reason, the advisory board is selecting the research topics, which will determine the focus of the Ceres2030 project’s research. Ceres2030 will invite authors later this year to address the research topics identified by the advisory board and contribute to an evidence synthesis (such as scoping reviews, systematic reviews). The journal issue is expected to be published in 2020.
Dr. Stefan Schmitz, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, highlighted the importance of this project for donors in their quest to achieve zero hunger by obtaining better evidence and managing the road to SDG2:
“The gap between research on one hand and policy-making is widening; here we have opportunity to bridge that gap. The better research does its job to frame its results in a way that is useful for practical application and the more we policy-makers are able to inform researchers on what evidence is needed, we can close the gap and enter into a great collaboration.”
Steps towards consensus on the best way to end hunger
The Ceres2030 advisory board met on 7 December at the Center for Development Research (Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung, ZEF) in Bonn, Germany to discuss the next steps and identify the research topics to be published in a special peer-review journal issue, in collaboration with Nature Publishing Group. So far 21 research topics have been identified, ranging from “What impacts can alternative feed sources for livestock, such as insects, have on small holder farmers and the environment?” to “What is the effectiveness of finance and extension services on the adoption of smallholder irrigation solutions?”;
Only seven to ten topics are possible within the framework of the peer review process and for this reason, the advisory board is selecting the research topics, which will determine the focus of the Ceres2030 project’s research. Ceres2030 will invite authors later this year to address the research topics identified by the advisory board and contribute to an evidence synthesis (such as scoping reviews, systematic reviews). The journal issue is expected to be published in 2020.
The results of some of the research will be used to generate cost models of interventions that can improve smallholder livelihoods through increased income or productivity while minimizing environmental harm – which are SDGs 2.3 and 2.4 – and to assess tradeoffs between increases in production/income and sustainability.
What these interventions and tradeoffs will be, we’ll learn as the work of the project progresses.
