FUTUREFOOD workshop

Policies are often formulated far away from the realities and contexts in which they intervene and they often work differently from the original intention. NGOs have become key actors in the proliferating creation and transfer of maternal health policies. They are mediators between communities, states and global institutions as they relate to all in their work. On their journey from offices to mothers, policies meet institutions and people with differing interests, values and power. These (re)shape how policies take form and are understood, and hence how they work in the end. NGOMA studies how such processes and transfers progress on and between various levels, from global institutions, to national offices, to local villages. Focusing on Malawi in southeast Africa and the actions of international NGOs, the study explores what factors impact how a policy changes, what happens between various stages of the transfer, and how the processes on various levels impact each other. A main focus is Save the Children's work with maternal health. The project is a collaborative venture between researchers from the Centre for Development and the Environment (University of Oslo), University of Malawi, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Cambridge. In addition, the project contributes to and benefits from synergies with the NORHED project 'Strengthening Capacity for Democratic and Economic Governance in Malawi'.

The FUTUREFOOD workshop and public event falls in under the BIONAER call as the overall object of the program is to promote research that increases sustainability in the value chains of food production and because it falls directly in under all of our four crosscutting perspectives: The FUTUREFOOD network situates the challenges of sustainability in the context of the present global food system, while locating avenues for change in national and local production and distribution systems that in turn can provide more sustainable food systems. In this workshop, we include different social, institutional and economic aspects of society into one framework to confront the present challenges within the Norwegian food system. How can we promote and implement sustainable and economically viable food innovations throughout the value chain? In order to address these questions, we bring together a trans-disciplinary research group consisting of researchers from several disciplines with research experiences from different sectors. We combine this expertise with key partners in the market, industry, the authorities and experts within food-media communication. The workshop and public event will initiate dialogue between academic and non-academic stakeholders that can enhance collaboration and give input to future research.