Food safety is central to GAIN’s large-scale food fortification program, in terms of quality assurance and in building government and industry capacity to implement food safety systems, testing and risk mitigation plans.

GAIN’s supply chain interventions have provided food safety-related training, technologies and mentorship to SMEs along various supply chains. The launch of the Nourishing Foods Financing Facility (N3F) in 2024 adds important financial support to this work with SMEs.

Through the Dutch 3.0 work in Kenya, GAIN is promoting the adoption of Kenya Standard 1758 with its focus on food safety, through its ‘Vegetables for All’ program and creation of FitFood Zones (FFZs).

GAIN’s largest food safety programme is EatSafe (Evidence and Action Towards Safe, and Nutritious Food), funded by USAID under the Feed the Future initiative. The programme is generating evidence into how food safety in traditional markets can be improved, through stimulating behaviour change and creating consumer demand for safer foods. Work has been conducted in northwest Nigeria and Central Ethiopia.

GAIN has made significant contributions to national and international policy efforts. In Nigeria, GAIN has provided technical assistance in refining the draft Food Safety and Quality Bill to include specific food safety measures for traditional markets. This input helped it through the legislative process. It now awaits presidential assent.

GAIN Ethiopia is working with the federal government on the development of food safety standards in traditional markets as part of its Food Systems Transformation Pathway.

The development of food safety standards is also being supported at the global level, with GAIN’s involvement in the development of food safety guidelines for traditional markets under the Codex Committee for Food Hygiene.

Foodborne diseases are considered a neglected but tractable problem – quality data and insights help inform, and guide efforts to improve food safety. GAIN was successful in lobbying for food safety indicators to be included in the Food Systems Dashboard – there are currently 4 food safety indicators. There has also been much effort in knowledge management and mobilization around food safety, including the publishing of over 20 papers in scientific journals in the last few years.

GAIN is also generating evidence to understand the impact of food safety work. For example, GAIN India is working with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to establish ‘Safe Street Food Vendors Hubs’. In addition to helping develop the training toolkit, GAIN is evaluating the pilot project and making recommendations to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and FSSAI on the expansion of the initiative to other states. 

With food safety being a new cross-cutting theme at GAIN, three different approaches are being taken to integrate and grow the food safety portfolio.

1. Programming: Strengthen existing food safety work in GAIN’s food system programmes while generating evidence and disseminating findings for continual improvement & greater impact.
2. Policy and Advocacy: Advocate for improved food safety, with a focus on the informal sectors of LMICs, leveraging global guidelines and metrics, as well as supporting country policy efforts.
3. Addressing gaps: Identify needs and develop impactful, attractive investment opportunities that address food safety gaps within the informal sector for future partnerships with donors, businesses, and governments.

Direct technical support is being prioritised to key portfolios such as Nourishing Food Pathways and CAtalyzing Strengthened policy aCtion for heAlthy Diets and ResiliencE (CASCADE) to ensure that gender is effectively considered through the project lifecycle.

Standardised tools and metrics that are being developed to facilitate and broaden support across all GAIN projects to help ensure gender is considered throughout the project lifecycle. This includes tools to facilitate the substantive integration of gender into activities, evaluation, and tracking impact.

Strategic Focus:

Resources: GAIN produces knowledge products such as working papers to disseminate findings and lessons learned in gender mainstreaming. Examples include "Impact of Gender Norms on Children’s Diets" and "Integrating Gender into the Governance of Urban Food Systems for Improved Nutrition." Further resources include case studies like "Choosing to Challenge Gender Inequality in Pakistan." As new tools come on line, they will be documented

Safeguarding the vulnerable is a core behaviour at GAIN, expected from all staff. To identify and tackle gender biases, GAIN has recently updated and implemented various internal policies, such as the .

The Workplace Gender Equity and Diversity Policy addresses all aspects involving staff recruitment, promotion, management, training, career development, and accountability. It prohibits discrimination against individuals based on age, gender, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy, maternity, family responsibilities, political beliefs, race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity. The Code of Conduct underpins ethical behaviour across all areas.

The Director of Strategic Operations and Head of Human Resources manage, supervise, and update all internal processes and policies.

GAIN has improved its performance on gender equity in the workplace and has been categorised as a high performer by the Global Health 5050 Report 2022 and the Global Health Report 2023 which analyses the gender policy position of almost 200 organisations that influence global health and scores them according to the depth of their commitment. This Programmatic Gender Strategy complements our internal policies, ensuring that GAIN’s commitment to gender equity is visible both within and outside the organisation.

Much of GAIN’s work to reach the very poorest consumers is situated within the Social Protection programme, which is currently working to improve the nutrition-sensitivity of social protection systems in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Under Nourishing Food Pathways, GAIN is supporting governments and other stakeholders to improve nutrition-sensitive social protection policy, promote integration of nutritious food value chains in social protection systems, and to design more nutrition-sensitive social protection programmes.

GAIN strives to be sensitive to the needs of people living in poverty across our entire programmatic portfolio. To ensure that GAIN’s projects and programmes are adequately reaching the very poor, we take the following actions:

• Target populations and geographies with particularly high poverty rates
• Assess suitability of specific approaches given the needs and vulnerabilities of people living in poverty in context. This includes documenting business models that reach the very poor.
• Involve low-income households in design and decision-making through human-centered design and inclusive governance
• Use standard metrics and KPIs to evaluate reach and impact on the very poor, such as GAIN’s FACT toolkit.
• Conduct internal capacity-building through knowledge exchange and co-learning, facilitated by GAIN’s internal Community of Practice on Reaching the Very Poor.

At GAIN, we recognize that resilience is the foundation for ensuring that food systems can withstand shocks and stresses while continuing to provide nutritious and sustainable diets. We believe in promoting resilience at various levels within food systems:

Programmatic Interventions - Building Resilience from the Ground Up

Our programmatic interventions prioritize strengthening the resilience of food systems. This involves:

• Enhancing the resilience of small-scale producers, processors, and distributors by equipping them with tools, knowledge, and resources to withstand challenges such as climate variability, conflicts, and economic shocks.
• Investing in resilient food production, processing, and distribution practices that promote sustainable agricultural methods, efficient resource management, and long-term sustainability.
• Encouraging smart food production in response to shocks that adapt to changing environmental, social, economic, and political conditions while simultaneously minimizing negative impacts on food systems.
• Developing resilient food market infrastructures and supply chains that ensure the uninterrupted flow of nutritious food to consumers, especially during times of crisis.

Our advocacy efforts aim to influence policies that enhance the resilience of food systems. We work to:

• Promote policies that support the development of resilient food system infrastructures, including transportation, storage, and market facilities.
• Advocate for investments in disaster-resistant infrastructure to safeguard food systems from natural disasters and climate-related events.
• Collaborate with governments to establish safety nets that improve the resilience of vulnerable populations, ensuring their access to nutritious food even in challenging circumstances.
• Encourage the development of regulations and standards that prioritize food safety and quality, ultimately increasing the resilience of the food supply chain.

In our own operations, we strive to set an example of resilience by:

• Measuring our carbon footprint and actively working to reduce it, aligning with global efforts to combat climate change.
• Implementing a travel policy that not only reduces carbon emissions but also ensures the continuity of activities in a changing world.
• Building an internal culture of resilience, where our team members have the ability to adapt to evolving circumstances and promote positive changes.

By incorporating resilience into every facet of our approach, from program implementation to policy advocacy and internal operations, we aim to strengthen food systems against the challenges of a dynamic and uncertain world.

GAIN’s youth work is housed in the Children and Young People theme of the Empowering Food Systems Actors Programme which supports projects the directly target and benefit youth in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mozambique, Pakistan and Tanzania. Through the Nourishing Food Pathways portfolio GAIN is seeking to ensuring youth voices are included in food system pathway development and implementation. GAIN supports the ACT4FOOD youth movement. The Transform Nutrition and Okhokelamo Ni Solha projects are engaging adolescent girls in the Jogo das Heroínas (Heroines’ games) to improve nutrition outcomes. The Food Investigator Game was an idea from a group of junior high school students and was brought to life by GAIN to help adolescents better understand food labels.

Beyond the Children and Young People theme, GAIN supports staff to integrate youth-focused activities across its programmatic portfolio. This includes:

• Technical assistance on youth engagement and co-creation practices by providing guidance, support, and resources to staff and projects seeking to effectively involve young people in decision-making processes, program design, and implementation.
• Promoting and enhancing safeguarding measures and best practice to ensure the safety of youth and to prevent harm across GAIN's activities.
• Standardised KPIs and Metrics on youth reach and participation to ensure all projects are measuring the impact and effectiveness of their work on youth.