The Andean Initiative is a regional innovation platform designed to preserve the Andes’s unique agrobiodiversity, promote healthy diets, and build a climate resilient future.
To do so, Andean Initiative seeks to foster the sustainable use of agrobiodiversity to promote development based on unique local resources, climate change action—including mitigation and adaptation in extreme environments and healthy diets to reshape the region’s food system, based on the triple-P approach:
The agrobiodiversity of the Andes is unparalleled, a veritable treasure trove of “lost crops” and native foods for developing food systems that are resilient, sustainable, and nutritious.
Following a careful science for co-innovation approach, the Andean Initiative will produce a range of practical solutions for building resilience into our food systems.
By keeping the focus on people, we can uncover important breakthroughs on diet, food supply, and consumer behavior, compiling evidence to build systems that provide food for health.
The Andean Initiative pursues a collaborative and demand-driven direction for research and development. It specifically seeks to address the threats of agrobiodiversity loss, climate change, and malnutrition in an integrated manner:
Agrobiodiversity: The Initiative will promote interactive in-situ conservation in biocultural hotspots, as well as biodiscovery, bioeconomy, and differential market systems based on the Andes’ unique species and varietal diversity.
Climate action: The Initiative will produce a range of science-based solutions to strengthen the climate resilience of mountain communities, while assuring sustainable management and restoration of carbon stocks in high-altitude peat and grasslands.
Food for health: By keeping the focus on people, we can uncover important breakthroughs on diet, food chains, and consumer behavior, compiling evidence to build systems that provide healthy diets to fight the double burden of malnutrition – stunting and obesity.
Closing the gap: All thematic areas of the Andean Initiative will proactively address social barriers to achieve inclusive development and to maximize the potential of digital tools and communication technologies to boost accessibility, portability, and coverage of information for mountain agriculture. Through our science for co-innovation, we will integrate the needs and perspectives of youth, women and indigenous people within all our research and interventions to ensure we support social transformation, youth entrepreneurship, gender equality, and indigenous people’s empowerment.
Working closely with a range of stakeholders from universities, the private sector and civil society, the Andean Initiative offers a rare opportunity to combine the applied scientific research to ensure the on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity, innovative climate action and adoption of healthy diets.
The Andean Initiative is fully aligned to contribute to the 2030 agenda on the SDGs and the CGIAR’s longer-term development goals to address the key challenges of living within planetary boundaries, sustaining food availability, promoting equality of opportunities, securing public health, and creating jobs and growth. Our science for co-innovation impact targets for 2030 are:
Stef de Haan
CIP, Peru
S.DeHaan@cgiar.org
