The world is not on track to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The prevalence of hunger and poverty—the two core goals which are the litmus test for everything else—are on the rise. This is being made worse by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, skyrocketing food, fertilizer, and energy prices, COVID-19, and climate change. In Africa, the situation is exacerbated by internal conflicts, political unrest, economic recessions, and swarms of desert locusts. To get back on track, it is critical to pursue policy pathways that encourage synergies and limit the trade-offs between hunger, poverty, nutrition, and climate change. This report summarizes the evidence-based and costed country roadmaps for effective public interventions to transform agriculture and food systems in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Nigeria in a way that ends hunger, makes diets healthier and more affordable, improves the productivity and incomes of small-scale producers and their households, and mitigates and adapts to climate change.

The financing gap is immense. This report shows that while it is possible to achieve sustainable food system transformation in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Nigeria, in the next decade, it would require an average additional public investment of USD 10 billion per year from 2023 to 2030 and targeting spending on a more effective portfolio of interventions that achieve multiple sustainable development outcomes. Of the total USD 10 billion, the donor share averages USD 5.8 billion per year, and the country share averages USD 4.2 billion per year. Importantly, comparing the financing gap between the long-term investment needed to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 and the short-term investment needed for emergency food assistance shows that while emergency assistance has increased in recent years, there is significant underfunding of the longer-term investment needs. The shortfall in longer-term funding increases the vulnerability to shocks, pushing the number of people affected by hunger and poverty higher. Donors should therefore complement and better link the increased allocation of emergency food assistance with increased investments in longerterm agricultural development priorities to prevent future crises when the next shock hits.

Filling the financing gap of USD 10 billion per year will yield immense economic, social, and environmental benefits. The prevalence of undernourishment in all three countries will decrease to under 3% in 2030 from a current projection of 22% in Ethiopia, 25% in Malawi, and 21% in Nigeria, by 2030. The transition toward healthier diets will be achieved for 248 million people, or roughly 60% of the population in each country. The incomes of 29 million small-scale producers will double on average in 2030 compared to 2015 levels. These economic and social gains will be achieved while confining greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to nationally determined contribution goals and increasing resilience to climate change of the most vulnerable.

The findings in this report are based on analysis of academic and grey literature, as well as donor-funded projects, micro- and macroeconomic modelling, and engagement and consultations with key stakeholders in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Nigeria. The report summarizes the findings of a project that explores the interactions between reducing hunger and poverty, achieving healthy diets, and addressing climate change within the evolving food systems in three countries—Ethiopia, Malawi, and Nigeria.

The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the European Commission, through the GIZ implemented projects Knowledge for Nutrition (K4N) and Agricultural Policy and Food and Nutrition Security. The project was designed as a contribution to, and to build upon the progress made at,  the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit.

Agriculture and food systems in Malawi face key challenges. They need to simultaneously provide sufficient food for all, improve incomes and productivity for small-scale producers, make diets healthier and more affordable, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and build capacities needed to adapt to climate change. Yet, in the past few years, as a result of climate change, economic slowdowns, and COVID-19—and now rising food, fertilizer, and energy prices made worse by the Russian invasion of Ukraine—hunger and poverty have been on the rise, healthy diets are unattainable for most people, and the impacts of climate change are experienced more frequently and severely.

Even among those who do get enough calories, many will be malnourished due, in part, to the unaffordability of diets that both provide sufficient calories and satisfy the complex nutritional requirements of human bodies. The demographic dynamics in Malawi will continue to exacerbate these challenges, with the population expected to grow from 19.1 million people in 2020 to 25.8 million people in 2030. As the population and incomes grow in Malawi, so too will demand for food and more dietary diversity, which will exacerbate environmental challenges. At the same time, Malawi is home to some of the global public goods that are needed to address climate change, preserve biodiversity, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Transforming food systems to deliver on hunger, poverty, healthy diets, and climate change while safeguarding global public good will require significant efforts and resources—and therefore global solidarity; in other words, more domestic support and more external aid.

To support the transition to sustainable food systems in Malawi, this report aims to equip country-level decision-makers and the donor community with knowledge regarding the cost of sustainable food system transformation; evidence on which to base decisions regarding where and how to make investments to contribute to access to simultaneously sufficient, safe, and nutritious food (SDG 2.1 and 2.2); smallholder productivity and incomes (SDG 2.3); and environmentally sustainable agriculture production (SDG 2.4).

The report combines a review of country-level policy documents and peer-reviewed literature with a microeconomic analysis of changing diets, food consumption habits, and nutrition; four rounds of consultations with in-country stakeholders; and the country-level findings for Malawi from the project, Ceres2030: Sustainable Solutions to End Hunger. The findings are integrated into a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, which estimates the cost of ending hunger, doubling the income of small-scale producers, and transitioning to healthier diets while protecting the climate and investing in climate change adaptation. The report is part of a project that explores the interactions between reducing hunger and poverty, achieving healthy diets, and addressing climate change within the evolving food systems in three countries—Ethiopia, Malawi, and Nigeria.

The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of findings from the first round of activities for the four components of the project, namely the nutrition profile (Task 1), the data assessment (Task 2), relevant parts of the literature review (Task 3), and the findings of the first consultations (Task 4). Our research is based on diverse sources of information, including the relevant outcomes of the Ceres2030 project, public policy documents, peer-reviewed literature, and international databases. Using these sources of information, this report provides an overview of the current economic, social, and climate (mitigation and adaptation) trends in Malawi, as well as projections based on the Ceres2030 project model. We also include a brief review of relevant policy documents addressing undernourishment and agricultural development, along with an overview of the approach and early findings from country consultations. The report concludes with a brief summary of relevant national trends and planned next steps in the country-level research and analyses.

This paper discusses the costs and benefits of Malawi's efforts to induce private investment, particularly the economic incentives that the government offers investors.

It begins with a brief overview of Malawi's economic and investment policies, explains the country's ambitions with respect to sustainable economic development, surveys the main investment incentives offered to investors, and discusses the risks and opportunities associated with investment incentives. It is beyond the scope of this brief to provide detailed insights into how Malawi's individual investment incentives are performing with respect to their policy objectives, although further research in this area is strongly required, as discussed in the concluding section of this paper.