Critical topics in Vietnam and Ethiopia’s food systems related policies: An exploratory policy review

This study provides an overview of the connection between the existing multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) which are active in the nutrition and food space, and the current national policy agendas related to the food system in Ethiopia and Vietnam, focusing on how both the policies and the MSPs conceptualized both food systems divers and outcomes. At the outcome level, Ethiopia’s policies focus on persistently high levels of maternal and child undernutrition. Policies seek to address these outcomes by focusing on intensification and diversification of production and environmental drivers including reliance on rainfall and high levels of seasonality and poor infrastructure, leading to high levels of post-harvest food waste especially of perishable foods. In Vietnam, outcomes focus on high levels of undernutrition in rural and ethnic minority communities as well as micronutrient deficiencies. Key food system drivers include climate change, rapid rural-urban migration and issues linked to increasing distance between producers and consumer such as food safety issues. In both Ethiopia and Vietnam Multi-stakeholder platforms are largely working on the same issues as those prioritized in policies. Policies which govern the food system and MSPs have yet to adopted a food systems framing, however there are policies and MSPs active in many parts of the food system.