Between 17 and 19 October, the World Food Prize was awarded in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. The World Food Prize Award Ceremony is preceded by the Borlaug Dialogue International Symposium, named after the late Nobel Peace Prize Winner and World Food Prize founder Dr Norman Borlaug. The Borlaug Dialogue International Symposium and World Food Prize Award Ceremony bring together international leaders, policymakers, farmers, executives from agribusiness and nongovernmental organizations, and scientific, academic and development experts to address the most critical issues facing global food security. This year’s theme “Rise to the Challenge” refers to the global movement to feed an estimated 9 billion people by the year 2050.
IITA and CGIAR were well represented during the World Food Prize event, with reference to CGIAR as the world’s leading agricultural research-for-development consortium, and IITA as driving agricultural transformation in Africa.
IITA DG Nteranya Sanginga featured in several panel discussions. During the main event at the State Capitol of Iowa, DG Sanginga and IITA were recognized for their achievements and for winning the Africa Food Prize 2018 that was awarded during the Africa Green Revolution Forum 2018 in Kigali, Rw anda.
According to Sanginga, “Winning the Africa Food Prize is significant for IITA since it shows that our stakeholders recognize the importance of the work we are doing in Africa to put agriculture in the driver’s seat of development. This has really made IITA as a partner of choice on research and development to enhance farmers’ lives and ensure that agriculture is used to make Africa as the next food basket of the world.”
CGIAR organized a side event on “Science of Scaling” that featured IITA Senior Scientist Dr Marc Schut as one of the panelists. The side event was attended by business leaders, R4D donors, CGIAR DGs, and colleagues and development organizations. “I think we really put ‘scaling of innovation’ at the center of the World Food Prize event. More attention for scaling is needed to ensure that our hard work translates into better development impacts and reaches more beneficiaries faster and in a more cost-efficient manner,” says Schut.
The 2018 World Food Prize was awarded to Drs Lawrence Haddad and David Nabarro for their individual and complementary global leadership in elevating maternal and child undernutrition to a central issue within the food security and development dialogue at national and international levels.
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