1.5 billion people live in fragility and conflict-affected settings (FCAS) and they face an increased risk of food insecurity and poverty trap. A systems approach in collaboration with innovators in FCAS is needed to produce practical and inclusive solutions that can improve the resilience of food, land, and water systems (FLWS). CGIAR is in the unique position to produce transformative policies, programming, and market strategies to bring science-driven innovation to improve resilience among FCA communities and create a bridge between the humanitarian, development, and peace (HDP) nexus. This market report conducts a market assessment across 14 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia to inform a science-driven acceleration programme to scale CGIAR innovations in FCAS. The analysis in the report is from a newly developed database on FLWS-HDP innovation ecosystem actors, which includes 600+ innovator data covering 90+ solution types and 200+ funding supporters, including investors, governments, NGOs, hubs, and other collaborative ecosystem enablers. Additionally, the report draws insights from consultations with experts in the ecosystem ranging from CGIAR practitioners to innovation hubs and innovators (Chapter 1). The ecosystem mapping shows that the FLWS-HDP innovation ecosystem is still nascent in many FCA countries, and is largely concentrated on food production. Water resources, migration, and anticipatory action innovations only take up 20% of all innovations. Financial support to enable private innovators has been rising and 25% of the innovators mapped in the selected countries have raised funding amounting to over $330M as of November 2023, with investors from the private sector paving the way and with public-private partnerships (PPPs) increasingly playing an important role. Funding support from private investors and PPPs support early-stage innovation development by creating hubs, de-risking funding by co-investing with the private sector, and directly providing financial support to the innovators. International donors, governments and investors from the Global North are also prevalent in the ecosystem as 90% of actors supporting innovators are from outside the FCA countries. Local actors often work with international actors to implement programmes, co-invest, and help source high-impact innovators. There is little evidence of international research organisations’ activities in the FCAS so far (Chapter 2). Developing a sustainable FLWS-HDP innovation ecosystem in FCAS is met with challenges related to limited infrastructural resources, value chain disruptions, and heightened security risks. However, opportunities also exist, especially when innovators flexibly adapt innovations to address local challenges, and in settings where the solutions become tools to better facilitate and coordinate humanitarian, government, and private sector initiatives. Hence, supporting private sector innovation should prioritise localising solutions for the specific context to increase longerterm sustainability. Research organisations should support by developing systems to bring science to sector value chains and becoming expert support for innovators. Lastly, partnerships with governments, local actors, and international NGOs should be leveraged to bring innovations to tackle local challenges (Chapter 3). Finally, he report provides an overview of the macroeconomic and FCA context and an analysis of the FLW-HDP innovation ecosystem for each of the 14 countries The country overviews highlight that each country has a unique set of challenges and opportunities for developing a resilient innovation ecosystem, yet there are strong signals that innovators, support initiatives, and actors are making an impact in improving the conditions for FLW and HDP systems in FCA contexts (Chapter 4).

This work studied the structural changes and the migration of triacetin plasticizer in starch acetate films in the presence of distilled water as food simulant. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy result showed that the macromolecular interaction was enhanced to form compact aggregation of amorphous chains. The characterization of aggregation structures via wide and small angle X-ray scattering techniques indicated that the orderly microregion was compressed and the crystallites inside were “squeezed” to form interference and further aggregation. The compact aggregation structures restricted the mobility of macromolecules, triacetin and water molecules. The overall kinetic and the diffusion model analysis manifested that Fick's second law was the predominant mechanism for the short-term migration of triacetin. The increasing relaxation within film matrix caused the subsequent migration to deviate from Fick's law. The safe and reasonable application of the starch-based materials with restrained plasticizer migration could be accomplished by controlling the molecular interaction and aggregation structures.

The historic pandemic faced by the international community today boldly demonstrates the complexity and interconnectedness of the resource challenges we must better understand and address in the future. Further complexity is observed when accounting for the impact of compounded shocks related to natural disasters and forced migration around the world. Effectively addressing these challenges requires the development of research that cuts across disciplines and innovates at their interfaces, in order to develop multifaceted solutions that respond to the social, economic, technological, and policy dimensions of these challenges. Water, energy, and food systems are tightly interconnected. They are faced with pressures of varying natures and levels of urgency which need to be better understood, especially as nations work toward achieving the UN 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. This paper will review existing models and knowledge gaps related to water-energy-food (WEF) nexus models, as well as models for quantifying the impact of migration, pandemics, and natural disasters on this resource nexus. Specifically, this paper will: (1) explore the WEF nexus literature and identify gaps in current assessment tools and models: (2) explore the literature on tools and models for predicting the shocks of migration, natural disasters, and pandemics: (3) identify interconnections between water, energy, and food systems and the identified shocks: (4) develop a common framework that provides a road map for integrating those shocks in WEF nexus analysis: (5) provide recommendations for future research and policies moving forward.

Today most foods are available in a packed form. During storage, the migration of chemical substances from food packaging materials into food may occur and may therefore be a potential source of consumer exposure. To protect the consumer, standard migration tests are laid down in Regulation (EU) No. 10/2011. When using those migration tests and applying additional conservative conventions, estimated exposure is linked with large uncertainties including a certain margin of safety. Thus the research project FACET was initiated within the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission with the aim of developing a probabilistic migration modelling framework which allows one (1) to calculate migration into foods under real conditions of use; and (2) to deliver realistic concentration estimates for consumer exposure modelling for complex packaging materials (including multi-material multilayer structures). The aim was to carry out within the framework of the FACET project a comprehensive systematic study on the solubility behaviour of foodstuffs for potentially migrating organic chemicals. Therefore a rapid and convenient method was established to obtain partition coefficients between polymer and food, K P/F. With this method approximately 700 time-dependent kinetic experiments from spiked polyethylene films were performed using model migrants, foods and ethanol–water mixtures. The partition coefficients of migrants between polymer and food (K P/F) were compared with those obtained using ethanol–water mixtures (K P/F’s) to investigate whether an allocation of food groups with common migration behaviour to certain ethanol–water mixtures could be made. These studies have confirmed that the solubility of a migrant is mainly dependent on the fat content in the food and on the ethanol concentration of ethanol–water mixtures. Therefore dissolution properties of generic food groups for migrants can be assigned to those of ethanol–water mixtures. All foodstuffs (including dry foods) when allocated to FACET model food group codes can be classified into a reduced number of food categories each represented by a corresponding ethanol–water equivalency.

Varnishes used as the inner coatings of food cans are often based on epoxy resins or vinylic organosols. The epoxy resins can be produced from bisphenol A (BPA) and bisphenol F (BPF) and they also contain bisphenol A diglycidyl ether (BADGE) of bisphenol F diglycidyl ether (BFDGE) as stabilising components. These compounds may break down during storage and also by influence of food simulants. The stability of BADGE and BFDGE was studied using reverse-phase gradient high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) with fluorescence detection (FLD). Four experiments were compared: (i) BPA solution at the concentration 3 μg/ml of each food simulant, (ii) BADGE solution at the concentration 3 μg/ml of each food simulant, (iii) BFDGE solution at the concentration 3 μg/ml of each food simulant and (iv) mixture of all bisphenols solution at the concentration 3 μg/ml of each food simulant. Distilled water, 10% ethanol, 95% ethanol and 3% acetic acid were used as food simulants. It was observed that BPA, BADGE and BFDGE were most stabile in 95% ethanol and least stabile in 3% acetic acid. Creation of hydroxy and chlorohydroxy derivatives was in each food simulant different so it cannot be predicted.

The chloropropanols, monochloropropane-1,2-diol (3-MCPD) and 1,3-dichloro-2-propanol (1,3-DCP) are potential contaminants that may be found in food contact materials (FCM) from paper and paperboard that have been treated with certain wet-strength resins. They can migrate from the paper matrix to aqueous food and beverages and, due to their potentially carcinogenic properties, are of increasing interest in quality assurance or official controls of paper-based FCM. We hereby describe an improved method for the analysis of 3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP in water extracts of FCM making use of 1-chloro-3-methoxy-2-propanol (CMP) as a novel internal standard. The LOD and LOQ were determined to be 0.4 µg/L and 1.2 µg/L for both analytes, making the method appropriate for the quantification of 3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP below the current legal limits. The method was applied to an extensive market survey of food contact articles made from paper and paperboard including 674 samples. The survey revealed that a high percentage of the products available on the market (e.g., up to 55% of the analysed drinking straws) exceed the BfR limits with values of up to 327 µg/L 3-MCPD and 20 µg/L 1,3-DCP detected in the cold water extract. Remarkable differences were observed concerning the release of 3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP from different kinds of paper-based FCM products, with drinking straws, cupcake cases, bagasse bowls and kitchen rolls showing particularly high rates (>10%) of non-conformity with the legal limits. A number of samples with especially high concentrations were additionally analysed by hot water extraction, which surprisingly yielded considerably lower results for the release of 3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP than cold water extraction. The results indicate that cold water extraction is the most sensitive method to detect the migration and control the risk of exposure to 3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP.