Lawrence Haddad: ‘Nutrition and climate are intrinsically linked’

“The two communities act as if they are ships passing in the night.”

That is Lawrence Haddad’s assessment of how those concerned with climate action and those concerned with nutrition behave towards each other.

It is a situation he believes needs to change, and urgently.

“Climate action, or a lack of action, really affects nutrition status a lot,” he says. “What’s maybe less known is that nutrition action also affects climate.”

Lawrence Haddad is the executive director at GAIN – Global Action for Improved Nutrition.

Prior to GAIN, he has held a number of executive roles, including founding co-chair and lead author of the Global Nutrition Report, as well as Director of the world-renowned Institute of Development Studies in Sussex.

Lawrence’s work has also gained international recognition, seeing him receive the 2018 World Food Prize on top of being made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 2022.

At the heart of it, Lawrence is an economist with an interest in the intersection of poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition.

In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, we explore his work at GAIN, look at some of the issues surrounding malnutrition, and discuss how we can create a global food system that sustains us all.

Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director, GAIN

Dr Lawrence Haddad has been GAIN’s Executive Director since 2016. In 2020 he was asked by the UN Deputy Secretary General to Chair Action Track 1 of the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit : Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All.  Lawrence is the co-founder of the Standing Together for Nutrition, a response to the COVID-19 crisis, and is one of the drivers behind the Initiative on Climate and Nutrition (ICAN) which was formally launched by the Egyptian Government at COP27.

Prior to GAIN, Lawrence was lead author of the Global Nutrition Report, Director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), and Director of the Food Consumption and Nutrition Division at IFPRI.  He was made a World Food Prize Laureate in 2018 and was awarded a CMG in the 2023 UK Honours List for his “services to international nutrition, food and agriculture”.