Global Partnerships

The Global Food and Environment Institute (GFEI) seeks to establish strong and equitable global partnerships that build collective capabilities for global challenge-led research and skills development. 

The global and interconnected nature of our food systems, and the challenges that they face, requires that systemic change is shaped through collaboration.

The global partnerships theme of GFEI aligns closely with the university’s global philosophy and global ambition, which places a lot of strategic emphasis on participating, and investing, in international research and education networks.

In this context, our research and education is wide-reaching and explores the interactions between health and nutrition, rural livelihoods, governance, food supply chains and markets and the environment.

The University of Leeds has a breadth of research expertise in food systems and is partnering with FANRPAN and organisations across Africa to contribute to making food and agriculture systems in sub-Saharan Africa more productive, sustainable and resilient to climate change."

Our projects

• Leeds is a key partner in a £2 million Africa-UK research network: Food Systems Research Network for Africa (FSNet-Africa), led by the University of Pretoria. This programme, funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), utilises interdisciplinary research to develop a new understanding of the African food system, tackling global challenges of disease, poverty, climate change, and food insecurity. 
• The Food Systems Transformation in Southern Africa for One Health (FoSTA Health) project, funded by Horizon Europe and Innovate UK, is exploring the consequences of emergent pathways of transformation in southern African food systems, with a One Health focus. Researchers from GFEI and a variety of international partners - from research, policy advocacy, and civil society organisations - are working together to evaluate the medium and long-term implications of the four broad food system changes in the region. These are:
  1. emerging alternatives to maize production;
  2. changing land use and investments in irrigation infrastructure;
  3. increasing engagement in export markets for fresh fruits and vegetables;
  4. increasing consumption of animal and plant-based proteins.

This work is informing an ongoing programme of in-country research, stakeholder engagement and food system modelling across the FoSTA Health focal countries – Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. 

• Leeds is leading work under the CGIAR ClimBeR Initiative, which aims to transform the climate adaptation capacity of food, land and water systems in six low- and middle-income countries (Guatemala, Kenya, Morocco, the Philippines, Senegal, and Zambia), ultimately increasing the resilience of smallholder production systems to withstand severe climate change effects like drought, flooding and high temperatures.
• Through the ‘Addressing micronutrient deficiencies associated with the double burden of childhood malnutrition in China’ project, Leeds partners with institutions in China and South East Asia, including the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 
• The EU Horizon 2020-funded CONFER project aims to co-develop dedicated climate services for the water, energy and food security sectors with stakeholders and end-users in the Great Horn of Africa region.

Our leading researchers

Professor Stephen Whitfield is Professor in Food, Agriculture and Climate. He has particular interests in the socio-politics of agri-food systems.

Contact  

For more information about Global Partnerships, please email the Global Food and Environment Institute via globalfood@leeds.ac.uk.