Resilient food systems. Zoonoses transmission. Food safety in fresh-food markets. As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe, phrases that had most often been found in research papers suddenly emerged on the front pages of newspapers and in trending topics on social media. Countries, corporations, and consumers alike struggled to understand not only how to cope with the threat of the disease itself, but also with meeting basic needs, such as food security, nutrition, and health, as lockdowns and mobility restrictions reshaped the world in very unequal ways, seemingly overnight. As a consortium working across five flagship research areas to address some of the world’s greatest challenges in nutrition and health, the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) was uniquely prepared to support policymakers and partners in low- and middle-income countries in their COVID-19 response and recovery efforts and to contribute research evidence on ways to build back better toward a more equitable, food secure, and sustainable future.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) was established in 1971 to support the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in funding four international agricultural research centres in Colombia, Mexico, Nigeria and the Philippines. As the first global programme to receive grants from the World Banks net income, the CGIAR now consists of 16 autonomous international centres, with a membership of 62 countries, including 24 developing and transition economies. This report evaluates the work of CGIAR and makes several recommendations to address the future challenges it faces in promoting agricultural research.

First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.