Healthy Planet, Healthy People
Barriers and Solution for Inclusive Health, Sustainable Agriculture, and Climate in Asia-Pacific and Latin America
In Partnership with:
This study…
…covered 65 countries in Latin America and Asia Pacific
…handled textual data in the 10 largest languages across these regions
…analyzed 2.5 million posts and articles from social media, news, and academia
…ran computations 24/7 for 10 weeks in the cloud
…identified 21 primary barriers and 109 sub-barriers, along with associated solutions
…quantified volumes, relationships, gender relations, trends, and geographical distribution of each barrier
…validated and expanded on the results through three expert workshops
The study paints a comprehensive picture of barriers, solutions, and enabling factors related to inclusive health, sustainable agriculture, and climate in 65 countries in Asia-Pacific and Latin America. It does so by leveraging AI-powered text analytics techniques to extract and aggregate insights from news coverage, social media discussions, and scholarly publications.
How to Read This Data
This dashboard is designed to inform the stakeholders in tackling the most prevalent challenges to inclusive health and sustainable agriculture, i.e. barriers and sub-barriers identified, in the regions of Latin America and Asia-Pacific while identifying gaps and potential levers for successful solutions.
The terminology used in the dashboard and the study is as follows:
- A barrier is an obstacle hindering the progress towards inclusive health, sustainable agriculture, and a healthy environment.
- A solution is defined as the initiatives and innovations aimed at lowering the identified barriers structurally or creating relief in the short term from the effects of these barriers. Examples include entrepreneurial innovations, humanitarian aid, and initiatives by different organizations.
- An aspect of the enabling environment is any activity that creates and supports an environment to nurture solutions to tackle the identified barriers. Examples of enabling environment activities can be policy incentives, training programs, hackathons, and accelerators focused on supporting development in an area.
The following measures are used to quantify the data and allow for further comparison and insights.
- The share of a barrier (or a sub-barrier) represents the magnitude based on the frequency of discussion related to the barrier in the overall data.
- The gender score serves as an indicator of the extent to which a barrier interconnects with gender-specific matters. It is given on a normalized scale between 0 and 1; the higher the score, the stronger the linkage to gender-related concerns.
- The solution score and the enabler score measure how often online discussions are about ways to address or overcome the barrier. The solution score is a measure of the prevalence of innovative solutions while the enabler score represents the strength of support in the innovation ecosystem.
Key Results of the Study
Comparison of Asia-Pacific and Latin America
Comparison of the volume and ranking of identified barriers in online discussion for Asia-Pacific and Latin America
*The width of the streams represents the volume of discussion in each region, and the barriers are sorted in descending order based on this volume.
Food insecurity and public health vulnerability are key barriers in both regions
Among the 21 barriers, food insecurity stands out as the most prominent barrier in both regions, measured by the volume of discussion. In the Asia-Pacific region, it is followed by the impact and long-term consequences of COVID-19 as the barrier with the second highest discussion volume (compared to the sixth largest in Latin America), as well as declining agricultural yields and soil fertility (fourth rank in Latin America). In Latin America, meanwhile, the vulnerability of public health and well-being ranks second (compared to fourth in Asia-Pacific), and the lack of healthcare access and affordability ranks third (compared to eighth in Asia-Pacific) based on discussion volumes.
Among smaller barriers, the disproportionate effect of climate change on vulnerable groups as well as the lack of frameworks around sustainable development, stand out in Latin America compared to Asia-Pacific. Conversely, barriers that are stronger in Asia-Pacific than in Latin America include the impact of GHG emissions and extreme weather events.
Regional Overview
Country Overviews in Asia-Pacific
% share of the volumes of discussion in relation to each country, their overrepresented sub-barriers, and gender score representing how much gender-related issues are mentioned together with each countryOverview of Barriers
% share of the volume of discussion of the barriers and gender score representing how much gender-related issues are mentioned together with each barrierGap Analysis
Opportunity areas help tackle several barriers simultaneously
The analysis links each barrier to discussions around solutions and enabling factors, helping to identify possible gaps. Understanding such gaps can help spot areas with an opportunity for impact, either by lowering the barrier or by supporting and amplifying the solutions. It should be noted that while a content analysis can highlight potential opportunities and gaps, it is important to verify such insights through expert validation and other methods.
Gap Analysis in Asia-Pacific
The prevalence of innovative solutions (average solution score), plotted against the support strength of the ecosystem (average enabler score) where the bubble size represents the discussion volume of the barrier (% share of the volume of discussion)
The figure shows the matrix of barriers’ average enabler and solution scores. The triangular area in the upper right corner, with a high prevalence of innovative solutions and a supportive innovation ecosystem, indicates high scalability. The diagonal middle area shows solutions that can benefit from stronger support in the innovation ecosystem to thrive and scale. The bottom left triangle shows barriers with low to medium prevalence of innovative solutions and support, which can point to deeper structural issues that make it harder for social entrepreneurial solutions to emerge.
* The size of the bubbles represents the share of voice.
Barriers that require a stronger enabling environment. Discussions around barriers such as increasing pollution, malnutrition, the long-term impact of COVID-19, and environmental degradation have a medium-to-high focus on solutions and a relatively weak focus on the supporting ecosystem. These barriers could thus potentially be addressed through efforts to strengthen the support systems. An important barrier that needs stronger support in the ecosystem is malnutrition, particularly infant and child malnutrition, emerging as a significant sub-barrier. The sub-barrier child malnutrition has weak support despite its close correlation with food insecurity with stronger support in the ecosystem. However, entrepreneurial solutions, such as nutritious baby biscuits, are being discussed. A concentrated effort on strengthening the enabling environment to support solutions in this area could lead to highly scalable entrepreneurial solutions that lower this barrier as well as food insecurity.
Barriers where long-term solutions can be supported and scaled. Food insecurity, declining agricultural yields, and insufficient and mismanaged food systems are prominent barriers in both regions that require focus on creating long-term solutions. While food insecurity has strong support in the ecosystem, the focus on solutions is only at a medium level. Current discussions largely revolve around short-term solutions like providing humanitarian aid during crises. There is a stronger focus on solutions for insufficient and mismanaged food systems. However, to establish sustainable food systems, a stronger focus on sustainable and long-term solutions is required, along with strengthened support systems to address declining agricultural yields and soil fertility that can help the creation of long-term solutions for these interconnected barriers.
Similarly, weak healthcare capacity and infrastructure, vulnerability of public health and wellbeing, and lack of healthcare access and affordability have a medium strength in terms of the support systems and medium focus on solutions. They are the main barriers to achieving inclusive health in both regions. These barriers are closely related in terms of solution strategies and can be addressed simultaneously through infrastructural improvements, awareness building, and digital health solutions.
Barriers that require structural changes. Barriers such as stigmatization and lack of awareness, gender inequality, and supply chain disruptions have comparatively weaker discussions on solutions and support. These barriers are deeply rooted in structural and cultural issues, posing a significant challenge for entrepreneurial solutions to lower these barriers.
Gender Relation of Barriers
Strong gender dimension in most of the barriers
The gender lens analysis showcases the correlation between the identified barriers and gender. It highlights several barriers with adverse effects on women and girls in both regions.
Stigmatization and discrimination affecting women is the strongest gendered issue emerging from the analysis, associated with health as well as agriculture. Other areas with a strong gender connection include the healthcare sector’s inadequate provision for women and issues around their reproductive rights. The gender lens analysis further highlights women’s weaker employment opportunities and, particularly in Latin America, the agriculture sector’s large gender gap as women face difficulties accessing land, markets, credits, and training. There is also an emphasis on the disproportionate impact of extreme weather events on women in the Asia-Pacific region.
The influence of malnutrition is another strongly gendered issue, with a focus on maternal health and its subsequent effect on child malnutrition due to the lack of nutrition awareness and inadequate access to food.
Comparison of Asia-Pacific and Latin America
Comparison of the gender scores of identified barriers for Asia-Pacific and Latin America
* Gender score is a measure showing how much a barrier is correlated with gender, i.e. how much the barrier is mentioned with gender-related issues.
