Symposium 8: From Feeding People to Nourishing People
The eighth Royal Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering for Development symposium took place in Madagascar from 27-29 November, with participants arriving for the evening of 26 November for a welcome dinner and networking event. This event was organised in partnership with Welthungerhilfe (WHH) Madagascar and was the second symposium under the overarching theme 'From Recovery to Resilience'.
The symposium focused on the UN Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger and discussed topics such as how best to tackle malnutrition, how best to strengthen the links between agricultural production and nutrition as well as concepts of food safety and food security.
The event was made up of three multidisciplinary and interactive workshop-style sessions that explored the overall theme of 'From feeding people to nourishing people'. These sessions focused on the following questions:
- Agricultural revolution: How do we ensure it is driven by sustainability and system innovation?
- Healthy diets: Can we improve nutrition globally by eating more sustainably?
- Food loss and waste: how do we tackle losses and waste of foods already produced
Event Chairs
Dr Tahrat Shahid, GCRF Challenge Leader - Food Systems
Tahrat Shahid has over a decade of international development and policy research experience in a variety of contexts. Her research interests include agricultural development, food security, nutrition, gender, and the politics of religion. Tahrat began her career as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York City, after which she co-founded a non-profit organisation offering free burns and reconstructive surgery in Bangladesh. Afterwards, her work ranged from macroeconomic analysis at the Central Bank of Turkey in Ankara to poverty and social impact analysis at the World Bank in Washington, DC.
Additionally, she focused on impact evaluation at Oxford Policy Management, including evaluations of agricultural cooperatives in Rwanda and mobile banking in Kenya. Prior to joining GCRF, she also led research for advocacy on agricultural policy, food security, and nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa for the ONE Campaign’s Global Policy Team in London. Tahrat has a DPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford, a Master in Public Administration and International Development (MPA/ID) from Harvard University, and an A.B. in Economics from Mount Holyoke College.
Professor Noble Banadda, Head of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Makerere University
Noble was born on 14 May 1975 in Kampala, Uganda. He holds a Ph.D.in Chemical Engineering (2006) at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium). He later followed Post-doctorate studies in Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) in 2007. In 2013, he became a full professor of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at the age of 37 years; a departmental chair; first African recipient of the Pius XI Golden Medal since its inception in 1603 awarded on 12 November 2018 at the Vatican by Pope Francis for Academic Excellence and publication; Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge (UK); Laurate of Next Einstein Fellow award; Member of the prestigious Malabo Montpellier Panel of experts; an Adjunct Professor at Iowa State University. Noble has worked as a coordinator of Fulbright Scholars at Makerere University and supervised foreign students from numerous universities on short stays at Makerere University.