The COVID-19 pandemic is worsening food shortages in food deficit countries, such as China, which rely on import for domestic food consumption. We argue that fundamental revolution in China’s ...livestock system can meet about 50% of its consumption of livestock products and thereby reduce the country’s reliance on imports. Three food system revolutions that can greatly reduce China’s reliance on imports are technically and economically feasible, and generate high eco-system benefits: (1) organic or inorganic based microbial feed protein production to substitute imported feed protein, (2) vegetation greening and fodder production through grassland restoration to reduce import of ruminant animal products, and (3) insect protein based fish-plant production and offshore marine restoration to replace red meat consumption and increase recycling of manure. Together these revolutions can accelerate progress towards multiple Sustainable Development Goals in exporting countries.
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•China’s livestock system is under challenge during the post pandemic era.•Around 50% of China’s livestock supply relied on import.•Three food system revolutions that can greatly reduce China’s reliance on imports.•These revolutions can accelerate progress towards SDGs in exporting countries.
Abstract
The food and land use sector is a major contributor to India’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. On one hand, India is committed to sustainability targets in the Agriculture, Forestry ...and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sectors, on the other, there is little clarity whether these objectives can align with national developmental priorities of food security and environmental protection. This study fills the gap by reviewing multiple corridors to sustain the AFOLU systems through an integrated assessment framework using partial equilibrium modeling. We create three pathways that combine the shared socio-economic pathways with alternative assumptions on diets and mitigation strategies. We analyze our results of the pathways on key indicators of land-use change, GHG emissions, food security, water withdrawals in agriculture, agricultural trade and production diversity. Our findings indicate that dietary shift, improved efficiency in livestock production systems, lower fertilizer use, and higher yield through sustainable intensification can reduce GHG emissions from the AFOLU sectors up to 80% by 2050. Dietary shifts could help meet EAT-Lancet recommended minimum calorie requirements alongside meeting mitigation ambitions. Further, water withdrawals in agriculture would reduce by half by 2050 in the presence of environmental flow protection and mitigation strategies. We conclude by pointing towards specific strategic policy design changes that would be essential to embark on such a sustainable pathway.
The independent Technical Review Panel (TRP) of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is a unique mechanism to review funding proposals and to provide recommendations on their ...funding. Its functioning and performance have received little attention in the scientific literature. We aimed to identify predictors for TRP recommendations, whether these were in line with the Global Fund’s ambition to give priority to countries most in need, and whether they correlated with grant performance. We combined data on proposals and applications under the Rolling Continuation Channel, TRP recommendations and grant implementation during the rounds-based mechanism (2002–2010) with country characteristics. Ordered logistic and OLS regressions were used to identify predictors for per-capita funding requests, TRP recommendations, Global Fund funding and grant performance ratings. We tested for financial suppression of large funding proposals and whether fragile or English-speaking countries performed differently from other countries. We found that funding requests and TRP recommendations were consistent with disease burden, but independent of other country characteristics. Countries with larger populations requested less funding per capita, but there is no evidence of financial suppression by the TRP. Proposals from fragile countries were as likely to be recommended as proposals from other countries, and resulting grants performed equally well except for lower performance of HIV/AIDS grants. English-speaking countries obtained more funding for TB and malaria than other countries. In conclusion, the independent TRP acted in line with the guiding principles of the Global Fund to direct funding to countries most in need without ex ante country allocation. The Global Fund appears to have promoted learning on how to design and implement large-scale programs in fragile and nonfragile countries. Other pooled financing mechanisms may consider TRP operating principles to generate high-quality demand, to promote learning and to direct resources to countries most in need.
Le Comité indépendant d’évaluation technique (TRP) du Fonds mondial de lutte contre le VIH/sida, la tuberculose et le paludisme est un mécanisme unique d’examen des propositions de financement et de formulation des recommandations relatives à leur financement. La littérature scientifique s’est très peu intéressée à son fonctionnement et ses performances. Nous nous sommes efforcés d’identifier des indicateurs en vue de recommandations à faire au TRP, afin que celles-ci soient conformes à l’ambition du Fonds mondial de donner la priorité aux pays qui en ont le plus besoin et qu’il y ait une corrélation avec la performance des subventions. Nous avons combiné les données sur les propositions et les applications dans le cadre du Processus de reconduction des subventions, les recommandations du TRP et la mise en œuvre des subventions dans le cadre d’un mécanisme cyclique (2002-2010) lié aux caractéristiques du pays. On a eu recours à des régressions logistiques et MCO ordonnées afin d’identifier les prédicteurs de demandes de financement par habitant, les recommandations du TRP, le financement du Fonds mondial et les cotes de performance des subventions. Nous avons examiné la suppression du financement de grands projets et vérifié si les pays fragiles ou les pays anglophones avaient un comportement différent les uns par rapport aux autres pays. Nous avons constaté que les demandes de financement et les recommandations du TRP étaient conformes au fardeau de la maladie, mais indépendamment des caractéristiques d’autres pays. Les pays les plus populeux sollicitaient moins de financement par habitant, mais on ne dispose pas de données probantes sur une éventuelle suppression financière initiée par le TRP. Les propositions émanant de pays fragiles avaient autant de chances d’être recommandées que les propositions d’autres pays, et les subventions qui en découlaient étaient tout aussi efficaces, à l’exception des subventions moins performantes destinées à la lutte contre le VIH/sida. Les pays anglophones ont obtenu davantage de financements que d’autres pays pour la lutte contre la tuberculose et le paludisme. En conclusion, le TRP indépendant a agi conformément aux principes directeurs du Fonds mondial afin d’orienter les financements vers les pays les plus démunis sans allocations préalables attribués aux pays. Le Fonds mondial semble avoir favorisé l’apprentissage de la conception et de la mise en œuvre de programmes à grande échelle dans les pays fragiles et non fragiles. D’autres mécanismes de financement communs peuvent prendre en compte les principes de fonctionnement du TRP afin de générer une demande de haute qualité, de promouvoir l’apprentissage et d’orienter les ressources vers les pays qui en ont le plus besoin.
全球抗艾滋病、结核和疟疾基金(简称”全球基金”)独立技 术审查委员会 (TRP) 是专门评估基金标书和提供资助建议 的机构。其功能和绩效在科学文献中鲜少被提及。我们意图 发现TRP推荐的预测因素, 分析其是否与全球基金优先考虑需 求最大国家的目标一致, 是否与赠款绩效相关。我们结合了 2002-2010年通过滚动延续渠道提交的项目和申请、TRP推荐 和赠款执行数据, 以及国家特征。采用定序Logistic回归和 OLS回归分析人均基金需求、TRP推荐、全球基金资助和赠款 绩效评级的预测因素。我们检测了大额基金申请的经济抑制 效应, 以及脆弱国家或英语系国家的绩效是否有别于其他国 家。我们发现基金需求和TRP推荐与疾病负担一致, 但与其他 国家特征不相关。人口大国的人均基金需求较小, 但没有证据 显示TRP造成经济抑制。脆弱国家的申请与其他国家的申请 被推荐的概率相当, 除艾滋病赠款绩效较低外, 所得赠款的绩 效也同样良好。相比其他国家, 英语系国家获得的TB和疟疾 基金资助更多。综上, 独立TRP的行动符合全球基金的指导原 则, 即资助最需要的国家。全球基金促进了我们了解如何设计 和执行在脆弱国家和非脆弱国家运行的大规模项目。其他筹 资机构可考虑借鉴TRP运行原则, 产生高质量需求, 增进了解, 将资源导向最需要的国
El Panel de Revisión Técnica (PRT) independiente del Fondo Mundial de Lucha contra el VIH/SIDA, la Tuberculosis y la Malaria es un mecanismo único para revisar las propuestas de financiamiento y proporcionar recomendaciones sobre su financiación. Su funcionamiento y desempeño han recibido poca atención en la literatura científica. Tuvimos como objetivo identificar los pronosticadores para las recomendaciones del PRT, ya sea que estuvieran en línea con la ambición del Fondo Mundial de dar prioridad a los países más necesitados, y si ellos se correlacionaban con el desempeño de la subvención. Combinamos datos sobre las propuestas y las aplicaciones bajo el canal de consideración continua, las recomendaciones del PRT y la implementación de la subvención durante el mecanismo basado en rondas (2002-2010) con las características del país. Las regresiones logísticas ordenadas y MCO se usaron para identificar los pronosticadores de solicitudes de financiación per cápita, las recomendaciones del PRT, la financiación del Fondo Mundial y las calificaciones del resultado de la subvención. Exploramos si la supresión financiera de grandes propuestas de financiación y si los países fr ágiles o de habla inglesa se desempeñaban de manera diferente a otros países. Descubrimos que las solicitudes de financiación y las recomendaciones del PRT fueron consistentes con la carga de la enfermedad, pero fueron independientes de otras características del país. Los países con poblaciones más grandes solicitaron menos fondos per cápita, pero no hay evidencia de supresión financiera por parte del PRT. Las propuestas de los países fr ágiles fueron tan recomendables como las propuestas de otros países, y las subvenciones resultantes se desempeñaron igual de bien, excepto por el bajo resultado de las subvenciones relacionadas con el VIH/SIDA. Los países de habla inglesa obtuvieron más fondos para TB y malaria que otros países. En conclusión, el PRT independiente actuó de acuerdo con los principios rectores del Fondo Mundial al destinar fondos a los países más necesitados sin una asignación ex ante del país. El Fondo Mundial parece haber promovido el aprendizaje sobre cómo diseñar e implementar programas a gran escala en países frágiles y no frágiles. Otros mecanismos de financiación agrupada podrían considerar los principios operativos del TRP para generar una demanda de alta calidad, promover el aprendizaje y dirigir recursos a los países más necesitados.
Evidence-based policymaking must be rooted in sound data to inform policy priorities, budget allocations, and tracking of progress. This is especially true in the case of the Sustainable Development ...Goals (SDGs), as they provide the policy framework that all 193 UN member states have pledged to achieve by 2030. Good data and clear metrics are critical for each country to take stock of where it stands, devise pathways for achieving the goals, and track progress. Current assessments of the EU’s performance on the SDGs, however, tend to reach different findings and policy conclusions on where the priorities for further action lie, which can be confusing for researchers and policymakers. In order to demystify the drivers of such differences and make them transparent, this paper compares and contrasts the results obtained by four SDG monitoring approaches. We identify three main elements that are responsible for most of the differences: (i) the use of pre-defined targets for calculating baseline assessments and countries’ trajectories; (ii) the inclusion of measures that track not only domestic performance, but also the EU’s transboundary impacts on the rest of the world; and (iii) the use of non-official statistics to bridge data gaps, especially for biodiversity goals. This paper concludes that there is not one “correct” way of providing an assessment of whether the EU and EU member states are on track to achieve the goals, but we illustrate how the different results are the outcomes of certain methodological choices. More “forward-looking” policy trackers are needed to assess implementation efforts on key SDG transformations.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB), and Malaria (GF) was launched in 2001 in the context of the AIDS pandemic and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Thanks in large part to key ...design principles (DPs), the GF public-private partnership has played a major role in advancing public health science and in scaling up and strengthening evidence-based public health efforts in developing countries. As world leaders prepare to advance international development finance at the July 2017 Group of 20 (G20) Summit, we suggest the GF as a template for funding research, development, and scale-up of interventions in both health and nonhealth areas of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which replaced MDGs in 2016.