Food Systems For Nutrition Innovation Lab
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Scalability Assessment Workshop: Malawi
August 26 - August 27
Malawi, like many low-and-middle income countries, faces significant challenges in ensuring access to safe, nutrient-rich perishable foods across its diverse food systems. As the country aims to overcome challenges related to food security, nutrition, and sustainability, it becomes crucial to explore scalable innovations across the food systems that can address these challenges effectively and sustainably.
The “Scaling Nutrient-Rich Perishables: Workshop on Assessing Scalability of Innovations Across Malawi’s Food Systems” aims to bring together cross-sectoral stakeholders to evaluate innovation readiness for scaling and to develop socio-technical bundles of innovations, solutions, and actions to accelerate Malawi’s agri-food system transformation.
The goal of the workshop is to offer participants a novel approach and tool to quantitatively manage a portfolio of innovations, assess the scalability of innovations within the context of Malawi, and identify and analyze innovative solutions that have potential for scalable impact in improving national and regional food system. Additionally, the workshop aims to foster collaboration and partnership among key value chain actors from the government agencies, private sectors, non-government organizations, local communities, research and academia, and develop strategies to bundle innovations for cost-effective, sustained, scaling of innovation and its impact on sustainable, healthy diets and nutrition.
Workshop Objectives
Participants from government, non-government, private sector, development organizations, academia and research, and civil society groups will collectively learn the concepts and approach of scaling and bundling of innovations, utilizing an interactive online tool, developed by the Food Systems for Nutrition Innovation Lab at Tufts University. Participants will learn to:
- Assess Scalability: Evaluate the potential scalability of nutrient-rich perishables across various sectors of Malawi’s food systems, ensuring comprehensive impact assessment.
- Measure, Prioritize, and Communicate Innovations: Identify and rank innovative solutions based on their scalability potential, facilitating effective communication and prioritization strategies.
- Utilize Innovation Prioritization Tools: Employ validated tools to assess the readiness of innovations, ensuring a systematic approach to decision-making and resource allocation.
- Create Innovation Bundles and Scaling Roadmap: Develop cohesive bundles of innovations and a detailed roadmap for scaling, providing clear direction for implementation across Malawi.
- Identify Scaling Bottlenecks and Opportunities: Address barriers and pinpoint opportunities to optimize scaling efforts, ensuring efficient navigation of challenges and leveraging emerging opportunities.
- Foster Collaborative Strategies: Promote collaboration among stakeholders from diverse sectors, fostering alliances and synergies to enhance the scaling of innovations within Malawi’s food systems.
Across the food system, FSN-IL will focus on innovations (technologies, behaviors, practices) that will ensure the three interlinked priority areas:
- Priority 1: Availability of Nutrient-rich foods
- Priority 2: Enhance Food Safety and Quality
- Priority 3: Prevent Food Loss and Waste
Key Thematic Areas of Malawi’s Food Systems include:
- Theme 1: Agriculture Production, Harvest, and Post-harvest
- Theme 2: Post-Farm Gate Processing, Packaging, and Storage
- Theme 3: Infrastructure, Transport, and Markets
- Theme 4: Food Environment, Consumer Choices, and Retail Promotion
Workshop Outputs
The workshop is useful for organizations or individuals with an interest in:
- Improving the scaling performance of individual interventions or scaling projects
- Small and Medium Scale enterprises
- Innovators, Food technologists and Scientists
- Start-ups
- Local and Provincial government officials
- SUN Business Networks
- Agribusiness Associations
- Women cooperatives
- Development Organizations/INGOs
- Managing a portfolio of interventions aimed at scaling innovations
- Project Managers – SMEs, commercial enterprises, start-ups
- SUN Business Networks
- Agribusiness Associations
- Women Cooperatives
- Development Organizations/INGOs
- Developing or evaluating proposals aimed at scaling innovations.
- Young Innovators and Researchers
- Early Career professionals
- Private sector stakeholders
- Academia and Research Centers
- Development Organizations/INGOs