In this episode, Faiz Rasool shares Pakistan’s bold steps to reimagine its food systems. From developing a first-of-its-kind national food systems dashboard to making food systems education compulsory in universities, Pakistan is building resilience through innovation and collaboration. Faiz reflects on the challenges of turning policy into action, the power of cross-sector partnerships, and the importance of data in shaping decisions that affect millions. His journey shows how systemic change is possible when vision meets commitment. Tune in for insights on how one country is rewriting the future of food security—and what the rest of the world can learn from it.
In this episode, Faiz Rasool shares Pakistan’s bold steps to reimagine its food systems. From developing a first-of-its-kind national food systems dashboard to making food systems education compulsory in universities, Pakistan is building resilience through innovation and collaboration.
Faiz reflects on the challenges of turning policy into action, the power of cross-sector partnerships, and the importance of data in shaping decisions that affect millions. His journey shows how systemic change is possible when vision meets commitment.
Tune in for insights on how one country is rewriting the future of food security—and what the rest of the world can learn from it.
Bite The Talk Pakistan's Journey and Lessons Learned
Mark: Welcome to Bite The Talk, the podcast where we bring you stories of leadership, innovation, and policies shaping healthier food systems around the world. I'm your host, Mark Gachagua. Today, we want to hear more about Pakistan, more specifically, Pakistan's food systems transformation journey, the food systems dashboard, and the food systems course co- developed with Pakistan's National Agriculture Education Accreditation Council.
I'm so happy and delighted to welcome our guest, Faiz Rasool, the head of policy for GAIN in Pakistan. With over 24 years of experience in public policy, supply chains, and nutrition advocacy, Faiz has been very instrumental in shaping Pakistan's food systems transformation. Master Chef, welcome to the podcast.
Faiz: Thank you so much, Mark. This is always a wonderful experience to have a discussion with you.
Mark: I've been looking forward to this conversation and I think we'll just hit the ground running.
Faiz, could you please walk us through Pakistan's journey on food systems transformation since 2021 at the 2021 Food Systems Summit? I know a lot has happened, but kindly walk us through, you know, what has been happening since then.
Faiz: Mark, since 2021, Pakistan has made significant strides in shaping its food system transformation agenda. While working on our food system transformation agenda, what we have been doing and what we did, we established our National Food System Transformation Secretariat.
Obviously, this has been under the able leadership of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research. But this happened after long efforts. Those started during mid-2021 when the government of Pakistan started its work on finalizing Pakistan's food system transformation pathway.
So that work has been very much rigorous. During that work, we have been convening more than a dozen of national and sub-national state and private sector-led dialogues. And those dialogues give wonderful insights to all the stakeholders at the national level to design and propose a drafted food system pathway for the country to the national government.
And for that purpose, as I mentioned earlier, this National Food System Transformation Secretariat, it has been instrumental to lead, hold this discussion, which engaged diverse stakeholders through inclusive dialogues and multiple platforms. So importantly, I would say that food system priorities have been integrated into our national and provincial planning perspectives. So that was an initial time for us when we started work to design our food system transformation pathway. But, you know, the interesting thing was that the process was very much inclusive. At the same time, we have been very actively engaging government sector, government officials, government, different multi-sectors. We have been engaging small and medium enterprises, academia, and we also have been engaging not only the federal government people and officials, but also the provincial authorities to improve access to safe and nutritious food.
So, this has been the center of the discussions and our agenda, how we all can make work together to ensure that our population in Pakistan, they can have a better access to safe and nutritious and healthy diets. This is how we build our momentum in Pakistan to set an agenda for us on food system transformation and recommend a set of game-changing prepositions for the country as a foundational work.
Mark: Thank you, Faiz. This is very encouraging. I'm curious because I know for all these things to happen, there must have been some challenges here and there. I like the biryani of an explanation that you've given us to understand the context. I'm just wondering what major challenges has Pakistan faced and how have they adopted?
Faiz: Mark, these years, those started from 2021 and by now, Pakistan unfortunately has been facing very serious challenges in the political landscape. First of all, the challenges were more on political transitions. A huge transition has been happening around in the country during the last couple of years. But if we look into in a more systematic way, the critical challenges, although those are very complex, but are very clear, like food price volatility, although this is coming out of some other challenges, like we have been facing climate shocks. One example is floods in country, across the country, and only floods has affected more than 30 million Pakistani people during 2022. In addition to that, as I mentioned earlier, that political transition, we have a couple of governments, those came and went, came and went.
This kind of transition always create trouble in front of commitments and progress. So, these have been a couple of challenges, but the resilience has come from multi-sectoral collaboration. So, whenever these challenges arose, we learned from our local landscape that there are also the opportunities coming side by side.
So, these challenges have made our nation a bit more resilient and our multi-sectoral collaboration have increased during these times. So, this is a very positive thing, but our challenges have always been creating trouble, not only for the policymakers, but these challenges, those I mentioned, these have created our program implementers to step down and to think again and again to move forward. So, and our development partners, our civil society, those have been working throughout the country, but our progress have not like that, which we have been expecting because of these critical challenges.
Those arose from political transitions, those have been climate implications, and then finally at the grassroot level, the food price volatility that has created a biggest challenge for our nation in terms of increased and price hikes at the one end. On the other end, it has been created a trouble in terms of accessibility to safe and healthy diets. So, these challenges are not only the challenges on progress and the political landscape, but these challenges have trickled down to our population to making their lives very difficult.
Mark: Thank you, Faiz. I think that proves and also adds on to the resilience that the Pakistan government and the Pakistani people have, you know, to push through those challenges. Faiz, I like what you mentioned, you talked about multi-sectoral collaboration, and I know at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, we are big on collaboration partnership.
In all this, how has GAIN supported, you know, in this food systems context and also, just to support through the work of food systems transformation in Pakistan?
Faiz: GAIN's role has been to act as policy convener and evidence broker. So, this is very interesting, you know, kind of, I would say a nexus, how to convene the policies and how to understand the policy landscape and then playing the role of evidence broker. So, this is what GAIN has been putting focus on, and we have provided data-driven insights to guide our national and provincial policies.
So, this altogether has facilitated multi-stakeholder dialogues and built the capacity of not only the public sector, but also small and medium enterprises to come closer and to work together. Through our advocacy work, what we have been doing, we have supported alignment between food safety, fortification, climate and nutrition agendas, and making the transformation more coherent and impactful. So, one area which I'm very happy to highlight that our work on policy landscape, our work to understand how much our policies are harmonized.
So, this has been instrumental to provide our assistance to Government of Pakistan to rethink what's happening around on the policy landscape and what are the critical gaps on the policy landscape. So, this is how we have been trying and providing all the best assistance as a policy convener in Pakistan.
Mark: Fantastic. I'm learning all these terms, Faiz, and I like the term evidence broker, and it's good that you've mentioned it because it leads us to the next segment. And we have something called the Pakistan Food Systems Dashboard. I may understand it and know about it, but probably our audience is wondering what was the purpose behind creating the food systems dashboard?
Faiz: This is very interesting, Mark. This is very interesting. One thing, when initially we started a discussion on food system dashboard, so I remember the time we were diverse range of stakeholders sitting together at a high-level discussion. We were having our colleagues from development partners and we were having colleagues from public sector.
So, everyone was thinking that how this food system dashboard can play a solution to our couple of challenges. When we discussed in detail about our critical challenges for two areas were very serious for us. Number one, the availability of robust data for the decision makers, the policy makers, and the program designers. And second, that was even more important, how much if the data is available in bits and pieces, how much authentic their data is. So, availability, accessibility, I would say, accessibility of data, availability of data, and finally, authenticity of data. So, these three areas have been a key challenge for us in country to make robust and evidence-based decisions.
So in that context, when we discussed about the utility of food system dashboard, because the food system dashboard, what we used to say in Pakistan, Pakistan's sub-national food system dashboard, this is a wonderful tool which provides solution to these three areas, which I just mentioned, accessibility of data, it's, you know, how to make it available for the decision makers, and finally, is that it is really authentic. So, all of these three areas have been, you know, addressed with this Pakistan sub-national food system dashboard. It has been a long journey, I would say, because when we started working on Pakistan food system dashboard, as compared to the global dashboard, where there are more than 200 indicators.
And when we started working on Pakistan sub-national dashboard, we were only able to find data for 26 indicators. And, you know, that has also been embarrassing for all of us because at the global level, at the national level, there are more than 200 indicators, huge data is available is there. But when we are going down to the provincial level, because our provinces are the key decision makers, they are key impact creators.
So, they need some data at one place, but the data was not available because data was there, but accessing that data, integrating that data, I'm talking about the secondary data, and then making that data in a presentable form, it has been challenging. So, Pakistan sub-national food system dashboard, I'm highly appreciative to government of Pakistan, they took it very seriously. And one of the very few countries, Mark, where government of Pakistan, they considered that this is a wonderful solution to a couple of policy level challenges.
So, the government has not only decided to place host Pakistan sub-national food system dashboard within the ministry, in the technical section of the ministry, which is known as Pakistan Agriculture Research Council. And they provided a proper place, we used to say, a data hub in that Pakistan Agriculture Research Council under food system dashboard. And they have also appointed dedicated staff, researchers and scientists.
So dedicated staff is available from the government of Pakistan to review the existing data to identify what are the critical gaps and then connecting and contacting with the relevant stakeholders to access the data and pulling their data into the sub-national food system dashboard. So, this has been a wonderful exercise and government has so much interest and they are so much appreciative to this initiative. And now using this food system dashboard, the next step, which is very interesting, Pakistan Agriculture Research Council is going to launch a biannual publication, which is Pakistan Food and Nutrition Outlook.
So, I think using this food system dashboard, the first product which is coming out to support our policymaker is Pakistan Food and Nutrition Outlook. That will have, you know, a wonderful kind of support to our policy makers, what kind of data is available in the food system dashboard and how they can use this dashboard and what support this dashboard is providing.
Mark: Thank you, Faiz. That is really, really amazing. And I usually tell people that a food systems dashboard, I like to think of it as a salad bowl, you know, as a salad bowl where we have different ingredients. We have some lettuce, we have some fruits, we have some grapes. You know, you can add a lot of things and it's a one-stop shop for a lot of data on food systems. And I'm really happy to hear that the government of Pakistan is really, you know, showing a lot of ownership and leadership in utilizing data to inform its decisions and its actions. Our friends of the dashboard, they say that it helps you to describe, to diagnose, and also to decide.
Now, Faiz, you've touched on a very nice example of how the government is using the dashboard. And I'd like us to unpack that a bit more, since you have already touched on it. I like what you've mentioned, the biannual publication.
Are there, maybe you can unpack that, and if there are any other ways that the government is using or planning to use the dashboard, that will really be a good eye-opener.
Faiz: Absolutely, Mark. There are a couple of other areas where government has shown interest and started using this food system dashboard.
So, as we discussed, one area is publication. That's not a traditional publication, but what we discussed, the Pakistan Food and Nutrition Outlook. This is actually guidance for our planners and our stakeholders at the highest level to understand what's happening around the food system transformation in country because our proposed and our, you know, outline of our Food and Nutrition Outlook, which is going to, the first version is going to be launched during next quarter. This, it has a couple of components. One component will give a reflection how the last two quarters have been, you know, responding to our food systems, what areas have been creating challenges against the food system progress and the food system transformation, and what we should see in the future, what are the future implications about which we need to be careful, for example, if the next season is coming during the next six months, what have been the historical implications of that new season? What have been the complications created during the last five years? So, what could be the potential mitigation areas where we need to take care? For example, if historically during next six months, there are three to four crops, A, B and Cs are coming out. So, what happened during the last five years about those crops? Have those have been helpful for our farmers, producers in terms of livelihood? Have they faced any trouble against that? So, what happened in the past and what could be the potential areas where our farmers, our producers can get the maximum benefit of any policy and any support in advance? So, I think in these terms, this is a guiding, a supporting tool for our program planner and policy implementers and policy designers. So, in addition to that, there is another very good example in Pakistan.
Mark, a government has recently launched just in the last month in July. This is Pakistan Food System Transformation Digital Platform, another very interesting digital platform. And this platform is being hosted by Government of Pakistan at the Government of Pakistan's web hosting. And they have launched this idea and digital solution in a way that this is an open digital platform for everyone, not only for the public, private sector stakeholders, but for academia and for all the other players too, even CSOs. It has two different components. One is the dashboard, live available in their platform.
And second is a repository. Which stakeholders is doing what to support food system transformation in Pakistan? What academia is doing in terms of food system transformation? What public sector policies are there to support food system transformation? What kind of financial support and our Pakistani financial institutions, how they are thinking about food system transformation? So, this digital platform is a wonderful tool and kind of platform for all our Pakistani stakeholders to have a look into that and get benefit out of this. Another solution which Government of Pakistan provided to support using the food system dashboard, the same idea.
And another innovative idea which has been added in this digital platform is the use of AI. So, artificial intelligence has been embedded into this food system transformation digital platform. And any question what any user wants to know about food system dashboard, about the use of food system dashboard to analyze the data, what we have, what other partners have been provided to put on the digital platform, what is happening around.
So, that AI corner is a wonderful tool to support our users under this. And this is again; I think a wonderful idea and wonderful initiative by Government of Pakistan. They have not only integrated food system dashboard, but they are slightly even moving beyond to make the food system dashboard and its findings available to everyone.
So, anyone can use this data. And this idea has been taken very much positively by our academia and research institutions. And they are so happy on this initiative and they are very much, you know, interested to use this food system digital platform.
Mark: Thank you, Faiz. That's really insightful. And also, I'm happy to hear about the innovations, even the incorporation of AI into the dashboard. I'm really looking forward to interacting more with that. Faiz, usually at this point, we take a segway and we divert a bit just to also spotlight a few interesting facts about you. I know some time back, we won a competition, I think, and that's how the term Master Chef came about. I think that was in Turkey, but I don't want to dive so much into that. Faiz, what's your favorite food and which food did you enjoy growing up?
Faiz: Well, very interesting, Mark. On my backyard, we used to grow some vegetables.
I have some ladyfinger, which is one of my favorite vegetables. And we used to grow at home in the backyard, and not only me, and I'm very good in cooking that. And whenever I used to cook that in the morning, my family also enjoys that because, you know, you can imagine, and you know, well, our jobs, they are so demanding, and we have to stay and remain busy throughout the day. Sometimes we travel, we are away from home. But whenever we get time, and we can cook food at home, and particularly when the food is also grown at home, that gives you a stage, a very good feeling.
So, I used to cook this ladyfinger grown at home, where I serve it to my family, and the ideal time of my cooking is morning time. And I also have a fruit in my backyard, persimmon. And this persimmon, if you know, this is a great taste for us, seasonal fruit, obviously, after summer, this becomes ready. And these days, we are just ready to pick that down, and, you know, to serve not only the family, but also our neighbors and other visitors to home. So, these two areas are my favorite, to add fruit and vegetable.
Mark: Thank you, Faiz, for sharing that. Definitely a very nutritious choice there of a vegetable. And I'm happy that you share it with your family.
So, Faiz, as we close this out, and as we go to the next section, you know, let's spotlight an innovation in education that we've seen in Pakistan. GAIN has worked with Pakistan's National Agriculture Education and Accreditation Council to develop a food systems course. So, you know, how was this developed? Is the course taught online or offline? Is it with the universities? Walk us through it.
Faiz: This is one of our very favorite areas of work, Mark, in the country, because, as I just mentioned, that our food system dashboard, the data, importance of data, authentic data, use of the data, and, you know, using of data in research activities. So, that drive us towards to look into our educational institutes. Do our educational institutes, they have the right information? They have the right courses available? Our youth, which is at the university level, either undergrad or graduate level, how much they are aware about food systems and the global perspectives on food system transformation? So, when we had a very quick dive into this area, we realized, and we have identified a very serious finding that in Pakistan, none of the universities has any course offering which is synced and, you know, giving a reflection on food system transformation.
Although there were courses on food safety, there have been so many courses on nutrition, but, you know, food systems and food system transformation is a terminology which is unique and which is very broad to where our future policymakers, I mean, our youth, they must understand what is food systems and how this can be transformed. So, when we shared this gap with our policymakers, our higher education commission at Government of Pakistan, and one of the very serious senior level councils, which is known as National Agriculture Education Accreditation Council, we normally say it, NIAC. So, when we discussed with NIAC, we invited the senior officials, management of NIAC and HEC, at a couple of our policy discussions, they realized, got influenced that this is something where our education institute should come at the forefront and they should do a quick, you know, kind of tweak in their curriculum.
So, this is how the story started. Although it took more than 18 months for us, I mean, one half year, but the result was wonderful. Initially, they realized, all the stakeholders in the education sector, academia, they realized that this is a gap and we need to work on this together.
They notified and nominated almost 30 very high-level curriculum review people. Those are at the, you know, pool of higher education commission and NIAC. They engaged them and we provided the basic technical background on this.
And these 30 high-level curriculum review people, experts, they come up with their different ideas, how we can review the Pakistani curriculum, particularly our universities, those are connected with food, our food system, our food system transformation, our food sciences. So, this was the second step. And the third step was to reach out to the universities, to invite them at the one platform and to present them these courses, those were designed in collaboration with higher education commission to understand how our universities think about these courses.
So, they proposed a couple of tweaks into that approach. They, as per their context, and finally, when those tweaks were done in these proposed courses, universities are so happy to incorporate these courses into their regular curriculum. This journey started with zero university who was offering food system courses.
And now currently in Pakistan, there are almost 50 universities, those have already started, are already incorporated into their curriculum and going to start teaching during next semester, or they have at the final stage on starting these new courses. So, three courses. First course is fundamentals on food system.
Second is more on sustainability of food systems. And third one is more on policy and policy implications on food systems. So, these are three courses meant for undergrad, post-grad and undergrad graduation and post-graduation level degree programs.
And universities are very much at fast pace to start accepting these courses. As I mentioned, almost 50 universities, they are on board right now, only in 16 to 18 months to start these new courses. So, how quickly our landscape is going towards transformation.
And we believe that this is a foundational work, what we have been doing in partnership and under the support of government of Pakistan to engage academia and impress them on food systems, because our youth is our future. And if youth understand about how to transform and how much important it is to transform Pakistani food system, I think nobody can stop us to reaching a level where we can claim that Pakistan on a right pace towards transforming our food systems.
Mark: That's really incredible, Faiz. Indeed, no one can stop the wonderful progress that we've just talked about. I'm really, really amazed. And I was just thinking about it, this ensures that we have future policymakers, you know, the young people right now who are going to take that course. We are guaranteed that we'll have policymakers in the future who are going to have a better understanding of food systems. And that gives food systems transformation a better chance. And, think about it. This is also about sustainability, you know. And I'm really looking forward to the first cohort of graduates from this course.
And I also love the structure that you just shared. It looks, sounds very good and also inclusive in the way that those who are developed. You know, I wanted to ask how it has been received, but you've already touched on that.
Are there plans to make this course, you know, to expand it or to let other countries perhaps, you know, learn from these and maybe take it up on their own? Are there any other plans to upscale or anything like that?
Faiz: Yeah. So, this coursework is in July. Early July, government had a National Curriculum Review Committee, and this happened after 13 years. It took long because, you know, as I mentioned earlier, we have a couple of serious challenges in our political landscape. So, there are a couple of things, those are very much important, but those are not happening because they need some push. But this National Curriculum Review Committee, this is what we're from GAIN, we did a lot of efforts to push and happen this meeting after 13 years and finally, this happened. You know, happening of this meeting, what's the future? They have taken all these courses as mandatory courses within the government of Pakistan Higher Education Commission. Now, any graduate, if they want to really receive the degree at the undergraduate level, they have to study and pass this, fundamentals of food system, the basic course.
So, how important this movement have become, Mark? You would be amazed to know that the courses which had never been introduced and discussed, they have not been introduced, but they have also been made mandatory to get the degree for our undergrad and graduate level students. So, this is a wonderful step, achievement, what we used to say. So, this is one wonderful achievement for us.
And as you mentioned that our next generation of leaders, they are getting on this. So, in future, food system would not be a new word. It would be a very common word for our - these policy makers, and they start thinking and understanding food system.
So, another very interesting thing, Mark, what I would like to share with you from very different angle, people have at universities, because during these courses’ formulation, we have increased interaction with universities and academia. People have, you know, for me, I have been labeled as a person who is coming from GAIN, and what is GAIN? Our students, they have started thinking that GAIN is something who have designed these courses with the government who have initiated this partnership to who have sensitized this partnership with academia and government and stakeholders to design these courses. And they have started looking at GAIN in a very different perspective, which is very positive, I would say.
So, they are looking at us as a solution providers that we have created a new idea to incorporate what is happening across the world on food systems and food system transformation. And now our students are getting well aware about their global perspectives.
Mark: Fantastic. I can imagine and I don't see any other reason why the students wouldn't be, you know, wouldn't see GAIN in that positive light. We really appreciate that. And that's really, really amazing.
Faiz, I'm a big fan of your work. We learn a lot. We hear a lot of good things. And we admire the resilience that you've demonstrated in your work and also the team that you work with, the government, all the officials. It's really, really nice to know that there's a team which is very, very passionate about food systems transformation, maintaining that momentum and also very, very innovative. I mean, coming up with this idea, innovative idea of having a course, a food systems course. I mean, that's something we really, really appreciate. So, Faiz, thank you very much for your invaluable insights today.
Faiz: It has been a pleasure, Mark. Thank you for the opportunity to share Pakistan food system transformation journey. I truly believe that these sustained partnerships, what we have established in the country by now, those are addressing our data issues. Obviously, we'll support data-driven policy formulations, incorporation of artificial intelligence into our interesting food system transformation initiative and empowering our youth.
Pakistan cannot only transform its food systems but also contribute valuable lessons to the global community.
Thank you so much, Mark.
Mark: You're welcome, Faiz.
That wraps up this episode of Bite the Talk from Pakistan's strategic policy journey to the game- changing food systems dashboard and, of course, the food systems accredited course. We see how policy, data, and education are together driving transformation. To our listeners, don't forget to subscribe, share this episode on your socials, and join us next time as we continue unpacking the future of food systems globally.
Until then, stay engaged, stay informed, and keep walking the talk. I've been your host, Mark Gashagwa. See you next time.