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Unleashing the Catalytic Power of Donor Financing to Achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 by Perera et al.
Global Donor Platform for Rural Development and Shamba Centre for Food & Climate
2024
Perera et al.
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Build the agrifood expertise and risk appetite of domestic lenders, including by developing an agrifood credit risk assessment scorecard, as proposed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
Scale up priority lending programmes and results-based lending incentives for domestic banks, encouraging them to use their own balance sheets to lend to agrifood SMEs.
Increase finance for affordable, indemnity-based, weather-indexed and crop-indexed insurance.
Incorporate bookkeeping and accounting skills into SME technical assistance programmes.
Reduce transaction costs related to the exploration, negotiation and conclusion of blended finance transactions.
Explore how donors can provide not only first-loss financing but also lending at commercial rates, where returns on these investments can be ring-fenced for reinvestment into the same or other blended transactions.
Continue to provide grants for technical assistance for SMEs and domestic lenders, as they bring high levels of financial and development additionality.
Share data, reduce transaction costs and collaborate on cofinancing through the creation of a multi-donor working group, supported by a sustainable finance knowledge hub.
Provide DFIs with dedicated funds that allow them to offer higher-risk loans, such as first loss and mezzanine debt, that have well-defined targets on sustainable food and agriculture.
Provide DFIs with dedicated funds that allow them to provide long-term credit lines, guarantees, transaction advice and technical assistance to domestic financial institutions to build institutional knowledge on sustainable agrifood systems.
Create a data repository on the performance of agrifood SME loans, building on the experience of the Council on Smallholder Agricultural Finance (CSAF) and MIX Market.
2024 Global Food Policy Report: Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Nutrition by IFPRI
International Food Policy Research Institute
2024
IFPRI
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Build understanding of the drivers of food choices, especially the perceptions and values of consumers.
Develop food-based dietary guidelines to help consumers navigate their food environments and make healthy food choices.
Strengthen social and behavior change communication to reach a wide audience and build practical skills that nurture an informed consumer base.
Integrate multisectoral approaches, including agriculture, education, health, and economic policy, within the context of local food systems to help create an enabling environment for healthy food choices.
Improve national and subnational monitoring of healthy diet affordability, including food prices, expenditures, and wages, in order to strengthen knowledge and provide a strong platform for nutrition interventions.
Increase availability and reduce prices of nutritious foods by repurposing agricultural policies toward nutritious foods and increasing investment in transport, infrastructure, and logistics.
Scale up nutrition-sensitive social protection in LMICs, including appropriate targeting of vulnerable groups, delivering transfers that come closer to bridging the healthy diet affordability gap, and linking social protection with nutrition education interventions that increase demand for healthy foods and decrease demand for unhealthy foods.
Improve national and subnational monitoring of healthy diet affordability, including food prices, expenditures, and wages, in order to strengthen knowledge and provide a strong platform for nutrition interventions.
Accelerate pro-poor economic growth in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) through reforms to catalyze more equitable and inclusive growth.
Promote policies and accessible technologies that produce and supply more nutritious crops and foods, along with behavioral strategies that shift demand and consumer actions toward a sustainable healthy diet.
Promote production and consumption of biofortified or fortified staple foods as complementary nutrition strategies where needed. These foods can be an equitable and affordable means of delivering nutrients to especially vulnerable populations, including women and children.
Prioritize investments in crop diversity that can lead to increased accessibility, affordability, and appeal of safe and healthy diets when carried out alongside upgrades to market infrastructure and nutrition and hygiene education among farmers, value chain actors, and consumers.
Create an enabling environment, supported by government and financial commitments, for scaling up crop-focused initiatives that can achieve nutrition and climate goals through holistic and context-specific multisectoral interventions that span agriculture, food, trade, and social protection.
Promote a shift toward more plant-based diets in high-income countries and other populations with excess intake of animal-source foods through, for example, public awareness campaigns and adjusting prices to include environmental costs.
Support increased animal-source foods consumption among populations with deficient diets in LMICs, for instance by making animal-source foods more affordable through increased farm productivity, improved market efficiency, and by raising household income, for example, using social safety nets.
Address foodborne disease with better monitoring and food safety systems, especially in informal markets.
Invest in sustainable animal-source foods production systems to benefit human health and keep global livestock production within planetary boundaries.
Develop and test food system and food environment innovations that promote moderate animal-source foods consumption in countries at all income levels.
Complement economic analyses of policies for diets and nutrition with governance assessments to ensure policies are sustainable and scalable from both capacity and political economy perspectives.
Identify and address government constraints, such as insufficient financing, poor data, and corruption or demoralization in bureaucracy that limit capacity and influence.
Build government accountability to citizens — for example, through online transparency tools.
Provide an enabling governance environment that fosters the growth of successful grassroots movements that can support better diets and nutrition.
Economic analyses of the impacts of fiscal, transfer, regulatory, or investment policies on diet outcomes should be complemented by governance assessments to ensure such interventions are sustainable and scalable from a capacity and political economy perspective.
To expand the set of first-best feasible policy options, binding governance constraints need to be identified and tackled.
Improved and equitable access to information is a fundamental enabler for improved food systems governance overall.
Grassroots movements are playing a key role in reshaping food landscapes from below and demonstrating the transformative potential of an engaged citizenry.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 – Financing to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms by FAO, IFAD , UNICEF, WFP and WHO.
2024
FAO, IFAD , UNICEF, WFP and WHO.
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Scale up interventions to protect, promote and support breastfeeding (early initiation, exclusive, continued).
Advocate for SDG 2 as a priority in the international development agenda.
Promote optimal complementary feeding, prioritizing nutrient-dense animal source foods, fruits and vegetables, and nuts, pulses and seeds over starchy foods, and avoiding foods high in sugars, salt and trans fats, sugar-sweetened beverages, and non-sugar sweeteners.
Consider the risks of excessive energy density in complementary foods, avoiding feeding young children foods, snacks and beverages high in energy, sugars, fats and salt.
Include new training curricula for primary health care workers to provide double-duty nutrition counselling.
Enhance the role of multilateral development banks in de-risking financing flows.
Make food security and nutrition a single, indivisible policy goal.
Flag overweight and obesity risks alongside stunting and wasting in growth monitoring programmes, especially in contexts where childhood overweight is a problem.
Ensure adequate prevention and management of moderate and severe wasting – including with ready-to-use therapeutic foods, food supplements and improved fortified blended foods – depending on the condition and the context.
Create a closer nexus between humanitarian, climate and development finance towards food security and nutrition.
Break the sectoral silos in food security and nutrition policy and planning at the national level.
Put national and local governments in the “driver’s seat”.
Support sound governance and institutions for reduced sovereign financial risk.
Reduce corruption and tax evasion coordinately across countries.
Incorporate environmental, social and governance considerations in private sector decision-making.
Consider public and standardized financing data as a global public good.
Ensure that clear criteria and targeting guidelines are used for the distribution of ready-to-use supplementary foods (therapeutic foods, improved fortified blended foods), including for the prevention and treatment of moderate and severe acute malnutrition, and manage the duration of treatment to avoid excessive or rapid weight gain beyond that needed for prevention or recovery.
Redesign school-feeding programmes to promote access to healthy diets and devise new nutritional guidelines for food inside the school and surrounding the school campus where children have access to food. Support these efforts through policy, legal and institutional frameworks.
Create a supportive “whole-of-school” approach conducive to healthy eating such as integrating nutrition into the classroom curriculum/health literacy lessons; promoting active school environments; cultivating school gardens; building knowledge and skills to create awareness, shape tastes, and develop healthy food habits; involving parents in meal planning; and influencing healthy eating attitudes at home.
Use innovative youth-oriented social behaviour change communication tools and platforms to reach children and adolescents with key messages about nutritious foods and healthy diets.
In settings where the prevalence of anaemia in non-pregnant women is 20 percent or higher, provide intermittent iron and folic acid (IFA) supplementation for menstruating, non-pregnant adolescent girls. If the prevalence is 40 percent or higher, provide daily iron supplementation.
Scale up WHO antenatal care recommendations for pregnant women (also extending to pregnant adolescent girls) through the health system, focusing on counselling about healthy eating and keeping physically active during pregnancy to stay healthy and prevent excessive weight gain.
Monitor targeted protein and energy supplements to prevent unintended excess weight gain during pregnancy.
Provide cash and/or food vouchers to improve maternal diets while monitoring gestational weight gain to detect inadequate weight gain as well as excess weight gain.
Provide daily iron and folic acid (IFA) supplementation for pregnant women during routine antenatal care. In settings where the prevalence of anaemia in pregnant women is less than 20 percent, or daily iron is not acceptable due to side effects, provide intermittent IFA supplementation. In settings with a high prevalence of nutritional deficiencies, multiple micronutrient supplements that contain IFA may be considered.
In undernourished populations, use behaviour change communication (e.g. public talks, mass communication campaigns, one-to-one or small group counselling, visual communication aids) on increasing total daily intake, including proteins, to reduce risk of low birthweight; and balanced energy and protein dietary supplementation to reduce risk of stillbirths and neonates who are small for gestational age.
Find innovative, more inclusive and equitable solutions to scale up financing for food security and nutrition in countries with high levels of hunger, food insecurity and/or malnutrition and important constraints in accessing affordable financing flows.
Increase nutrition-sensitivity of social protection programmes for all age groups or targeted ones (e.g. for pregnant and breastfeeding women and young children, or the elderly) through modalities of adequate size and potential for improving nutrition – e.g. subsidies or food vouchers linked to retailers serving nutritious foods, while excluding foods, snacks and beverages high in energy, sugars, fats and salt; introducing rewards for transfers or vouchers spent on nutritious foods; implementing behaviour change communication strategies focused on healthy diets, physical activity, and the preventive use of health services (early detection of overweight, obesity and non-communicable diseases).
Scale up nutrition-sensitive agriculture programmes which promote diversified food production and consumption, particularly among poor households living in remote areas with little access to markets.
Align actions throughout agrifood systems to ensure that diverse, nutritious foods are available to all people, including vulnerable populations, through the value chain – from farm to table.
Transform food environments by implementing policies and legislation that eliminate the use of misleading promotion of breastmilk substitutes (infant formula, follow-on formula); strengthen restrictions on marketing of foods, snacks and beverages high in energy, sugars, fats and salt, including those which are fortified; adopt front-of-pack nutrition labelling; introduce targeted taxes on foods, snacks and beverages high in energy, sugars, fats and salt, and subsidies for nutritious foods to encourage healthier purchasing patterns.
Food producers, retailers and traders can be incentivized to improve the nutritional quality of the food supply by reformulating unhealthy foods high in fats, sugars and salt and by fortifying staple foods (i.e. universal salt iodization, fortification of maize flour, cornmeal, rice, wheat flour, vegetable oil with vitamins and minerals).
Integrate humanitarian, development and peacebuilding policies in conflict affected areas by promoting conflict-sensitive policies; fostering peacebuilding efforts linked to livelihood support; implementing nutrition-sensitive social protection and food production and supply programmes; supporting functioning and resilient food supply chains; adopting community-based approaches in post-conflict policies.
Scale up climate resilience across agrifood systems by reducing climate-related risks; adapting to climate change; adopting climate risk monitoring and early warning systems; supporting climate risk insurance; promoting improved access to and management of natural productive assets (e.g. landscape restoration, water management); implementing climate-smart interventions.
Strengthen economic resilience of the most vulnerable to economic adversity by strengthening agrifood productivity and market linkages along the food supply chain; curbing rises in food prices and excessive price volatility; boosting decent job creation; expanding social protection schemes and school feeding programmes.
Countries with limited access to financing are generally affected by one or more major drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition, particularly climate extremes but also conflict, which opens up opportunities for leveraging climate and humanitarian finance activities for financing food security and nutrition. For these countries, grants or concessional loans remain the most suitable option to scale up financing for food security and nutrition and can be leveraged through collaborative financing partnerships as part of blended finance strategies.
Countries with moderate ability to access financing can rely more heavily on domestic tax revenues due to their wider tax base and stronger public institutions. Their governments can raise revenues by steeping up health taxes to promote the consumption of healthy diets.
Countries with a high ability to access financing can take advantage of increasingly promising financing instruments such as green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds, which may also embed food security and nutrition objectives.
Making innovative financing instruments more accessible to population groups facing constraints in accessing financial services, such as women, Indigenous Peoples, smallholder farmers and small and medium agrifood enterprises, will be key for financing to work for food security and nutrition.
Intervene along agrifood supply chains to lower the cost of nutritious foods by increasing investments for nutrition-sensitive agricultural production and productivity; increasing efficiency of nutritious food value chains; reducing nutritious food loss and waste; promoting food biofortification; enacting mandatory food fortification; improving rural roads and infrastructure (e.g. nutritious food storage facilities).
Shift food environments towards healthier dietary patterns with positive impact on human health by strengthening food environments (e.g. supporting healthy public food procurement and services); changing consumer behaviour to include sustainability considerations (e.g. improving trade standards with a nutrition-oriented lens, taxing energy-dense foods, introducing legislation on food marketing, food labelling and food reformulation, eliminating industrially produced trans fats).
The financing architecture for food security and nutrition needs to shift from a siloed approach towards a more holistic perspective whereby stakeholders consider food security and nutrition to be a single policy goal that is featured in their broader financing flows and investments.
Tackle structural inequalities, ensuring interventions are pro-poor and inclusive by empowering populations in situations of vulnerability and marginalization; reducing gender inequalities by supporting women’s economic activities and the equitable distribution of resources; promoting the inclusion of women, youth and other populations in situations of marginalization; guaranteeing access to essential services; implementing fiscal reforms to reduce income inequality.
Policy priorities of national and local actors must be considered while building this new narrative for an enhanced financing architecture for food security and nutrition.
Multilateral development banks, development finance institutions and international financial institutions should take the lead in scaling up financing for food security and nutrition, increase their risk tolerance and be more involved in de-risking activities.
The public sector should fill gaps not addressed by commercially oriented actors, primarily by investing in public goods and enhancing social values, which requires relying on tax revenues, reducing corruption and tax evasion, stepping up food security and nutrition expenditure, and repurposing policy support.
Improving transparency is essential for enhancing coordination and efficiency among the different stakeholders and will require harmonizing data collection standards at the national and global levels and making data available, which, in turn, is critical to target financing towards the countries most affected by food insecurity and malnutrition and their drivers.
Eliminate or, at a minimum, regulate the commercial promotion and sale of foods, snacks and beverages high in energy, sugars, fats and salt around schools.
Strengthening urban and peri-urban food systems to achieve food security and nutrition, in the context of urbanization and rural transformation by HLPE
High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE)
2024
HLPE
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Local governments, with other subnational government actors (provincial, county, etc.) should formulate and encourage provisions to protect and promote sustainable food production, through agroecological principles and other innovative methods, in urban and peri-urban areas.
Land‑use zoning to protect urban agriculture, livestock and fishing activities.
Prioritize access to land, water, innovation and technology, and finance for projects that support urban livelihoods, address the needs of the most food insecure and promote sustainable practices.
Support territorial systems and shorter supply chains to facilitate market access for urban and peri-urban producers and to increase accessibility of fresh produce for urban and peri-urban residents.
Partner with civil society and research organizations to provide extension services to urban and peri-urban farmers and producers, promoting regenerative and nutrition‑sensitive practices.
National governments, together with local government actors, should work to ensure that trade regulations and policy are oriented towards increasing access and affordability of healthy diets, with a particular focus on poor families, protecting urban and peri-urban populations from the increasing availability and targeted marketing of foods high in sugar, salt and fat and protecting the interests of small‑scale and informal operators.
Include local government in national dialogues on food‑trade policy to raise awareness of the specific needs and contributions of urban and peri-urban food systems to the national economy and FSN, and by strengthening the capacity of urban food‑policy actors to engage with trade and investment policy stakeholders.
Consider the implications of trade policies on poor and food‑insecure urban and peri-urban consumers.
Assess the role of the informal sector in cross‑border trade and integrating provisions in policy to support and protect this trade from harassment and extortion.
Encourage both public and private investments in infrastructure, logistics, innovation and technology and capacities in the intermediary sector of urban food value chains, particularly for fresh and perishable foods.
Foster diversity of midstream food actors through mechanisms to support small‑scale and informal‑sector actors, including the development and maintenance of public food infrastructure (for example wholesale, traditional and digital markets), and ensuring fair supply‑chain practices to redistribute value.
Ensure that food‑system planning codes and regulations include informal processors operating in urban and peri-urban areas.
Support wholesale markets to strengthen connections with small‑scale producers, leveraging them to increase access to affordable, diverse and healthy diets.
Strengthen different types of markets and retailers (wholesale, traditional, wet, weekly) in the urban and peri-urban areas in enabling access to healthy and affordable foods and promoting livelihoods.
Protect and sustain traditional markets, incentivizing investment in infrastructure, operations, logistics, innovation and technology, and access to water and energy, as well as fostering closer links to small-scale food producers and local communities.
Work with market traders and street vendors to improve food safety by: (i) creating an enabling environment (where local and national authorities support food safety through investment in basic infrastructure, policy and regulation, capacity building and monitoring and surveillance activities); (ii) providing appropriate training and technology for value chain actors; and (iii) providing incentives for behaviour change.
Incentivize the sale of healthy and sustainable food, while disincentivizing unhealthy food and food that is harmful to the environment through appropriate legal and regulatory instruments, such as taxes and subsidies, warning labels, food licenses, preferential trading locations for vendors selling healthy foods and zoning restrictions on the marketing and sale of foods high in sugar, salt and fat.
Provide incentives for the establishment of healthy food outlets in underserved areas, encouraging food‑retail diversity.
Prioritize – together with private‑sector actors – support for innovation and technologies for small businesses and projects that connect consumers to smallholder farmers through apps and delivery services, such as community‑supported agriculture programmes.
Promote behaviour change towards healthier food choices on the part of consumers through targeted education and awareness raising, informed by the structural drivers of food choice, which can include front‑of‑pack labelling, public education campaigns and taxation of foods high in sugar, salt and fat.
In addition to strengthening markets, non‑market food sources, such as public procurement, community kitchens and remittances, should also be supported and developed to cater to the most vulnerable population groups and to provide buffer in times of crises.
Invest in nutrition‑oriented public procurement programmes, specifically targeted at vulnerable populations within urban and peri-urban populations.
Prioritize local, agroecological and small‑scale farmers in public procurement programmes, particularly within school feeding programmes and programming aimed at nutrition in the first 1 000 days.
Develop local bylaws that support the decentralized development of food banks and community kitchens, as well as deferral of surplus food to food banks, community kitchens and other food distribution programmes, informed by principles of dignity and agency.
Strengthen the role of civil society organizations in providing food aid in times of crisis, harnessing their capacity to reach vulnerable populations.
Local governments, in collaboration with market associations, private sector actors, resident associations, as well as individual establishments, should strive to minimize food loss and waste.
Provide supportive infrastructure (shading, cold storage units) and access to innovation and technology to informal‑sector actors to increase fresh food access, preserve vitamins and minerals in perishable foods and reduce food loss and waste.
Provide restaurants with guidelines, training and resources to mitigate food waste.
Create awareness among consumers to reduce food waste.
Promote and support circularity through composting, biogas digestion, feeding waste to livestock, donation of surplus food to food redistribution programmes, etc.
Ensure that infrastructure investments, including for transport, are equity sensitive, and include informal‑sector actors and food‑insecure consumers.
Explicitly integrate food into urban planning, including incorporation of food‑sensitive planning and design principles.
Integrate food‑trade infrastructure in transport planning to enable the sale of healthy meals to commuters.
Incorporate food‑security planning into housing and zoning policy.
Establish financial mechanisms, such as microcredit or subsidies, to assist small‑scale producers and food‑system actors in acquiring inputs and technology.
Incentivize investments towards low‑income residents and neighbourhoods for the provision of water, sanitation, waste management and reliable energy to enable healthy diets, safer food handling, and washing, preparation and cooking of meals at home.
Enhance decent work and employment in urban and peri-urban food systems, including by providing childcare spaces within traditional markets, promoting occupational safety and health, guaranteeing labour rights, etc.
Strengthen urban health services (neonatal and infant nutrition guidance, prevention diagnostics) for FSN outcomes.
Acknowledge temporal variation in urban and peri-urban food insecurity and frame social protection policies and programmes to be responsive to periods of heightened food insecurity.
Develop and invest in social protection programmes targeting specific urban and peri-urban contexts.
Promote nutrition in health services, particularly for women of childbearing age and pregnant and breastfeeding women, and in paediatric services. These should be informed by the lived experience of urban and peri-urban residents.
Increase financing and capacity of local and urban governments, particularly in LMIC contexts, to tackle urban food‑system challenges, and identify and promote innovative approaches for mobilizing resources (such as municipal bonds) and ensure sufficient municipal staff with holistic skills to address food‑system challenges.
Include local and subnational government in the development of national policies that are relevant to the food system, inclusive of agriculture, nutrition, environment, gender and trade policy.
Ensure that municipal financing is adequate and coherent with municipal mandates.
Identify the mandates of different levels of governance in shaping FSN and food systems in urban and peri-urban areas, and ensure that urban and peri-urban food systems policy is multilevel, multisectoral and multi-actor.
Clearly delineate the mandates and responsibilities over the urban food system across different tiers of government and other sectors to ensure accountability for action to urban residents (including through stakeholder mapping to assess responsibilities, available instruments and financial and human resources).
Ensure coherence and coordination of policies and programmes within urban departments and across levels of government and sectors, including through urban food strategies, joint integrated food policy offices and strategies, coordinated urban food units or multistakeholder platforms.
Develop inclusive multi-actor platforms to encourage active participation of local communities in decision‑making processes, including through building their capacity to effectively engage, and addressing inherent power imbalances.
Build capacities of urban food‑system actors (especially the underrepresented, such as traditional market‑trader associations and consumer associations) to enable stronger representation.
Resilience planning should be informed by the lived experience of vulnerable populations, should include civil society organizations, and should apply practices that have demonstrated impacts on household and community resilience.
Develop urban and peri-urban food‑system resilience plans and establish contingency planning and early warning systems for fragility and shocks.
Identify critical food infrastructure to be prioritized in times of crisis, and populations and areas most vulnerable to food insecurity in times of disaster and shock.
Embed resilience thinking into urban planning and design.
Include food‑system support in disaster‑response funding plans at all levels, from national to local.
Maintain and enhance food system diversity in terms of sources, supply chains and retail typologies, to bolster systemic resilience, considering the impact of urban and peri-urban food‑system decisions on resilience in rural hinterlands and beyond.
Integrate food into climate‑adaptation plans.
Develop urban and peri-urban‑specific FSN data tools.
Add a specific food security module to city household surveys.
Invest in information technology and digital systems to improve the evidence base for policymakers and food‑system actors to plan, prioritize, design and track food system activities.
Ensure finer‑grained disaggregation of data (along the urban–rural continuum, city size, intracity), to allow analysis of intersectional vulnerability.
Incorporate qualitative data into urban and peri-urban food policy.
Use geographic information systems, remote sensing, digital tools and participatory mapping to identify areas most vulnerable to food‑system disruption to inform long‑term planning and crisis response.
Invest in monitoring and evaluation of food policies and programmes, including non‑food specific impacts (such as economic development and environmental sustainability).
Invest in and learn from city food networks as a mechanism for sharing knowledge, training and increasing local government voice in national and international policy spaces.
From Rhetoric to Reality | Donor Coordination for Food Systems Transformation
Global Donor Platform for Rural Development (GDPRD)
2023
Woodhill and Surie
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Donors should instigate a collective review of funding modalities for food systems transformation and rural development with a view to creating a shared guiding framework for optimizing the complementarity of differing funding streams.
In consultation with partner governments and other actors at the national and local levels, donors should explore the types of support needed to drive longer-term structural change to achieve desired food systems outcomes. This requires an enhanced theory of change analysis for country investment strategies, focusing on the “how” of food systems transformation.
Recognize national food systems transformation pathways as a key mechanism for aligning food systems-related investments with national priorities.
At the country level, donors and governments must recognize the importance and value of an articulated negotiation process around food systems transformation.
Donors should examine whether existing global mechanisms enable sufficient donor coordination and alignment and, if not, look at how this could be strengthened in the context of existing institutional arrangements.
Support partner governments to continuously monitor and update national pathways as “living documents”.
Collectively support the monitoring and evaluation of coordination at the national level on food systems, agriculture and rural development.
Encourage and support ongoing multi-stakeholder national dialogue processes linked with implementing, reviewing and updating national pathways.
Undertake meta-evaluations of country-level evaluations of the effectiveness of coordination.
Collectively support efforts to document and share lessons learned and best practices from ongoing coordination efforts at the country level in the area of food systems and in other allied areas, such as health, water and sanitation.
Brainstorm approaches and methods for tracking and measuring systemic change in food systems at the country level.
Acknowledge the value of a more structured approach to collaborative planning at the national level.
Utilize national food systems transformation pathways as a basis for collaborative planning.
Work with partner governments to ensure that donor investments support the “soft” investments needed in stakeholder dialogue, to improve systems change capabilities and for policy reform to transform food systems.
Consider options for impartial convening of collaborative planning processes that enable all development partners (including the private sector) to come to a neutral table.
Work towards building alliances and partnerships with key actors and stakeholders engaged in the food systems ecosystem.
Donors should develop their own internal guiding principles and policies on country-level coordination around food systems that specifically address how to engage in collaborative programming for food systems transformation at the country level. In particular, donors should consider how to create stronger institutional incentives for effective coordination.
In consultation with partner governments, donors should draw on lessons learned from mapping donor investments at the country level to explore options for a common framework and data infrastructure that could be used in a flexible way across multiple countries. If there is sufficient support, donors should invest in supporting the development of the necessary data infrastructure.
Achieving SDG 2 without breaching the 1.5 °C threshold: A global roadmap, Part 1: How agrifood systems transformation through accelerated climate actions will help achieving food security and nutrition, today and tomorrow, In brief by FAOIn 2022, 738.9 million people faced hunger, nearly 2.4 billion in 2022 lacked regular access to adequate food, and over 3.1 billion could not afford healthy diets. The pandemic added 120 million to the number of the chronically undernourished. In 2030, an estimated 590.3 million will suffer hunger. The planet faces crises, exceeding safe limits on six of nine planetary boundaries, and much of them is due to agrifood systems, which contribute 30 percent of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and impede climate goals. Despite the Paris Agreement's aims, warming rates point to a serious gap in meeting targets. Agrifood systems appear to face a dilemma: intensifying efforts to increase productivity while endangering climate goals – or curbing production to reduce emissions. This perceived trade-off has led to inaction and emboldens climate action skeptics who argue climate action harms efforts to address global hunger and malnutrition. Agrifood systems should address food security and nutrition needs and facilitate a large number of actions aligned with mitigation, adaptation and resilience objectives under the larger umbrella of climate action. The climate agenda itself could and should transform agrifood systems and mobilize climate finance to unlock their hidden potential.In the unfolding narrative of our global commitment to transform agrifood systems, FAO embarks on a presenting a Global Roadmap; Achieving SDG2 without breaching the 1.5C threshold.FAO's roadmap involves an extensive process that spans three years, starting with COP 28 in 2023. It commences with a global vision for what ails agrifood systems today and goes on to explore financing options for the actions required, before culminating in a discussion of how to attract concrete investment and policy packages by the time COP 30 takes place. It also examines how to integrate technical assistance into our strategies while supporting sustainable investment plans. Our objective is to create a repository of both bankable and non-bankable projects in various domains.The In Brief version of the roadmap contains the key messages and main points from the report, and is aimed at the media, policy makers and a more general public
FAO
2023
FAO
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Improve livestock productivity through better genetics.
Intensify livestock production in relevant locations and improve feeding practices.
Protect animal health through improved veterinary services and animal disease surveillance.
Change the feed industry and promote new sources of proteins for feed.
Restore degraded pasture and improve grazing management practices.
Change the livestock population to match not only nutritional needs but also environmental opportunities and constraints.
Make changes towards integrated production regimes such as an integrated sylvopastoral production regime, to reduce deforestation and accelerate reforestation or afforestation, or crop–livestock integration to support enhanced nutrient management or a livestock-energy complex to process manure and slaughterhouse waste into biogas or biofertilizer.
Improve the adoption of certification and labelling schemes that contribute to promotion and incentivization of low-carbon practices and zero-deforestation by livestock producers.
Improve sustainability practices in fisheries to support long-term productivity of fisheries and to address growing demand for the sector.
Improve productivity of aquaculture and foster guidance on good aquaculture practices (GAPs).
Improve policies and governance of fisheries and aquaculture.
Protect fishers and fish workers with social protection and inclusive access.
Increase productivity and decrease GHG emissions per unit of product through better livestock genetics well adapted to existing and future climate conditions.
Biodiversity of livestock should be protected to avoid genetically homogenous animal population that could contribute to the emergence and diffusion of diseases, or lead to overutilization of antibiotics.
To boost efficiency, producers should intensify production in extensive systems, promote fattening livestock solutions, develop more digestible feeds, improve valuation of crop residues and avoid their burning, plant pastures with improved grasses and legumes, provide seasonal feed supplementation (including but not limited to lipids), and adopt new feed solutions (seaweed, insects) adapted to different types of livestock.
Investing in veterinary services and animal disease surveillance is crucial to improving animal health and welfare, reducing the economic impact of animal diseases, improving food safety, and reducing risks of antimicrobial resistance. This includes, but is not limited to, increased coverage of livestock vaccination.
The livestock sector can change the sources of its feed to promote innovative solutions for reducing its environmental footprint, including promoting circular economy solutions based on reutilization of food loss and waste, and developing newer solutions involving algal, fungal and microbial protein replacement, as well as use of insects.
Increasing soil carbon sequestration through improved grazing management practices can promote carbon sequestration in soils, avoid the risk of land degradation, and maintain long-term productivity.
Degraded pasture should be restored and planted with improved grasses and legumes.
When feasible, apply nitrification inhibitors on pastureland to reduce N2O emissions.
The livestock sector is composed of a large variety of animals associated with a wide range of GHG footprints and nutritional potential; shifting from large ruminant to small ruminant animals for meat products, and from ruminant to monogastric animals, in particular chicken, will reduce the GHG impacts of animal-food based products.
Subsidies encouraging overgrazing, excessive use of antibiotics or production in environmentally inefficient locations should be phased out and replaced by support promoting development and adoption of improved breeds, use of adequate and innovative feed, and implementation of integrated production systems.
Implement sustainable fishing practices that support biodiversity, ecosystem restoration, climate change mitigation, and resilience to stressors.
Shift the energy mix use in fisheries and fishing fleet towards renewable and low-carbon fuel (e.g. ammonia).
Develop and disseminate comprehensive guidelines to ensure sustainable and responsible aquaculture practices.
Invest in and adopt fish varieties with improved genetics.
Shift to low-GHG feed for aquaculture.
Limit the use of antibiotics in aquaculture and rely on solar panels and other renewable sources to power aquaculture installation.
Facilitate adoption and implementation of international instruments, coordination mechanisms and guidelines supporting responsible fisheries governance.
Foster national, regional and global governance frameworks that facilitate sustainable aquaculture development, integrate the sector into cross-sectoral policies, and enable financial investments.
Increase capacity of and access to social protection, decent working conditions, and safety at sea for fishers and fish workers.
Enhance safety standards for fishing vessels.
Promote women and youth employment in fisheries.
Ensure inclusive, sustainable and equitable access to fisheries, land and water resources for those engaging in fishing and aquaculture activities.
Improve effective fisheries management by using innovative data and information systems to support policy formulation, regular monitoring, and reporting on the state of fisheries.
Implement fisheries management plans that consider ecological, social and economic objectives, and develop data on the performance and profitability of fleets.
Encourage innovative technology adoption and investment in climate-smart aqua-business to improve operations and sustainability.
Develop innovation transfer and upscale successful aquaculture examples through cooperation programmes and public-private partnerships.
Improve access to finance for sustainable fisheries through traditional and innovative finance solutions (e.g. blue bonds).
Develop and integrate policies supporting small-scale aquaculture into global, regional and national development agendas.
Invest in research and development to breed crops that are high-yielding, resilient to pests and diseases, and adaptable to changing environmental conditions, including developing drought-resistant, heat-tolerant and pest-resistant varieties.
Change crop pattern and improve crop diversification.
Develop traditional, and under-utilized crops that provided higher nutritional value and higher adaptation capacity to climate change.
Improve farming practices for rice, to reduce methane emissions.
Improve nutrient management through increased fertilizer application efficiency by aligning fertilizer application with soil and crops needs, reducing over-application in some locations, shifting to smarter and more innovative fertilizers, and increasing the reliance on organic fertilizer wherever possible.
Promote the cultivation of leguminous as food, feed or cover crops to improve natural nitrogenous fixation, and apply nitrogen inhibitors on crops fields to limit N2O emissions.
Improve the implementation of crop-livestock integrated production systems.
Adopt integrated pest management strategies that use a combination of biological control, crop rotation, resistant varieties, and minimal pesticide use to manage pests sustainably, and limit the reliance on GHG-intensive pesticides.
Improve the management of crop residues through a circular economy approach; crop residues should be used for feeding animals, reintegrated into soils or, when no other relevant alternative exists, used to produce bioenergy.
Improve practices that preserve soil health and enhance carbon in soil through regenerative agriculture and climate smart practices.
Embrace innovative technologies like precision agriculture, remote sensing and digital farming tools to optimize resource use, monitor crop health, and improve decision-making in farming practices.
Improve weather forecasting services and early warning systems to improve efficiency and climate resilience.
Improve extension services and dissemination of information, in particular for climate-smart agriculture practices, by providing farmers with access to training, information, and extension services to improve their knowledge and skills in modern crop cultivation techniques and sustainable farming practices.
Improve market access and value addition for farmers, especially for women.
Change farm policies to promote sustainable productivity enhancement and risk management instruments, and shift policy incentives from support for adopting improved practices to support for sustained adoption over several years.
Targeted support to increase the production of specific crops or the use of chemical inputs should be phased out and replaced with less distortive interventions.
Support for high-GHG crops should be replaced with non-discriminatory payments and incentives towards enhanced practices (e.g. through cross compliance).
Improve food-based dietary guidelines including environmental considerations, and their utilization to inform the needed policy and strategy implementation.
Food-based dietary guidelines must be regularly updated to embed new evidence regarding transitions in dietary patterns, and developments within the food industry, such as the emergence of new, or novel food sources, proposed as substitutes to traditional animal products.
Using a system perspective food-based dietary guidelines can be developed/updated using the most up-to-date evidence that capture not only the country’s public health and nutrition priorities but also consider sociocultural and economic influences, and environmental considerations (e.g. GHG impacts) of food production and processing.
Improve the general information on diets and nutrition outcomes.
Improve food labelling to provide consumers with information, at point-of-purchase, about the nutrient composition and the environmental and social features associated with the production of a food item.
Efforts to harmonize or simplify the nutrition and environment labelling of food products should be coordinated by public authorities at the national, regional and international levels to improve the labels’ relevance for consumers and limit the risk of creating unnecessary trade barriers.
Improve nudges and architecture interventions that rely on automatic and intuitive decision making processes in habitual circumstances usually at the time and place of food selection, to make healthier and more sustainable food choices more effortless, appealing, timely and regular.
Protect consumers and particularly children, from invasive marketing campaigns promoting unhealthy foods and beverages (ultra-processed foods, those high in sugar/salt, and addictive substances).
Improve the offer of nutritious foods and access to local markets to increase options and opportunities for consumers to choose diverse and nutritious foods all year long.
Improve or change school food and nutrition programmes and other public procurement processes associated with food distribution to ensure that meals are consistent with updated food-based dietary guidelines and lead to healthy diets.
Change food taxes and subsidies to provide consumers with an economic and rational decision-making justification for change; food subsidies to promote healthy diets targeting low-income households are beneficial for increasing the affordability of healthy diets.
Change food taxes and subsidies for food producers (primary production and processors) to reduce the incentives to produce or utilize products that are over-consumed, and to promote under-consumed products.
Improve nutrient value where needed through fortification and biofortification, in parallel with dietary diversity.
Protect existing forests and wetlands by halting deforestation and conversion of wetlands into agricultural land, as indicated in the COP 26 Glasgow Leader’s Declaration on forest and land use. Zero net-deforestation is an immediate global goal but stopping gross deforestation, and the draining of wetlands, is needed to achieve mitigation objectives but also protect biodiversity.
Identify priority landscapes for restoration, emphasizing biomes like mangroves and peatlands with high climate change mitigation and adaptation potential.
Afforestation programmes should not lead to implantation of forest, or tree-species, in inadequate locations; incentivized afforestation efforts should not lead to destruction of natural ecosystems.
Implement forest and landscape restoration (FLR) strategies that not only reverse degradation and deforestation but also conserve biodiversity, support sustainable livelihoods, and mitigate climate change impacts. Integrate these efforts into national climate commitments and SDGs.
Develop robust monitoring systems for measuring GHG emissions, reporting, and verifying restoration activities’ impact on carbon sequestration and biodiversity.
Mobilize financial support and investment (diverse funding mechanisms, including private sector investments, green deals, equity funds, innovative finance [e.g. green bonds] and financial incentives linked to climate change initiatives [like voluntary carbon markets]) for protection and restoration.
Encourage engagement of donors and financial mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund and the Adaptation Fund to scale up restoration projects and impact.
Improve stakeholder engagement in an inclusive manner, especially listening to women’s and Indigenous Peoples’ voices, throughout the [environmental] restoration process.
Recognize Indigenous Peoples as key stewards and incorporate their knowledge, rights and participation in restoration initiatives.
Prioritize projects led by Indigenous Peoples and address challenges related to land tenure security.
Ensure equitable benefit sharing from restoration initiatives, especially towards women, respecting Indigenous Peoples’ customary rights, and providing free, prior and informed consent.
Strengthen territorial rights and governance to support participatory engagement and fair distribution of benefits.
Protect land tenure and address challenges related to land tenure security especially for women and Indigenous Peoples.
Recognize Indigenous Peoples’ rights through policies supporting territorial rights and governance.
Improve knowledge and understanding of trade-offs for low- and middle-income country smallholders when joining carbon markets so that they avoid forfeiting their agricultural growth potential.
Improve forest management to jointly maximize carbon capture and biodiversity, including for trees, and to minimize the risk of fires.
Improve the utilization of sustainable wood products to replace GHG-intensive construction materials and other inputs.
Integrate restoration efforts into productive schemes through agroforestry, sylvopasture and paludiculture.
Change farm policies to phase out subsidies and commodity price support for production occurring largely on deforested or drained land.
Improve knowledge of soil and soil health by updating existing soil maps, and develop new methods, including but not limited to remote sensing, to monitor soil health and carbon in soil contents.
Protect soil and water by reducing the use of chemical inputs.
Propagate alternative conservation methods in farming systems and prioritize input control in sensitive river basins and catchments.
Promote nature-based solutions in agriculture to address issues like pest control, water quality, biodiversity, and crop phenology.
Improve regenerative farm practices to preserve soil and enhance carbon in soils. Such practices include the reduction in soil disturbance with a switch to low-till or no-till practicesor planting perennial crops; change planting schedules or rotations with cover crops or double crops instead of leaving fields fallow; managed grazing of livestock (e.g. graze on cover crops); and application of compost or crop residues to fields.
Improve sustainable land management (SLM) techniques and implement tried and tested SLM techniques (e.g. soil erosion control, soil carbon improvement).
Manage freshwater at the river basin level to buffer against climate uncertainty.
Repurpose ageing infrastructure to consider all forms of freshwater storage, both natural and built, for multiple benefits.
Improve water management and irrigation technologies.
Modernize irrigation systems to align with farmer demand for flexible and reliable water supplies and phase out flood irrigation techniques.
Utilize innovative planning, design and evaluation technologies for real water savings per unit of production and reduced soil erosion or salination, including the adoption of drip irrigation, precision agriculture, and the reliance on digital agriculture technologies to optimize water use.
Improve the use of remote sensing and data utilization to optimize irrigation decision and timing.
Change investment focus towards smart rainfed systems when irrigation potential is limited or associated with high trade-offs.
Change energy sources for irrigation systems to clean and renewable sources; irrigation should be prioritized when adopting cleaner sources of energy (e.g. solar panel for small scale irrigation projects for smallholders).
Improve inclusive governance for land and water, and collaborative decision-making.
Establish inclusive governance models that recognize both customary and statutory land and water rights, and encourage hybrid legal systems for equitable water and land tenure regimes.
At the individual or community level, protect land rights for vulnerable groups, including women, youth and Indigenous Peoples, to address existing inequalities in access and in ownership.
Improve the coherence of policies across sectors and levels of government to address land and water-related objectives and ecosystems.
Change water-pricing policies and subsidies to irrigation, or energy for irrigation. Channelling existing subsidies towards investments in new infrastructure, promotion and adoption of water saving practices, and soil enhancement methods should be privileged, including payments for carbon in soil.
Protect food through use of improved technologies and enhanced storage facilities with limited GHG footprint, especially by deploying innovative cold storage solutions and low-scale storage solutions for smallholders.
Improve food production, harvesting and distribution practices to avoid damaging or contaminating (e.g. with aflatoxins) food products, which could end up being discarded based on qualitative criteria.
Improve the determination of optimal public procurement and public stock programmes to avoid unnecessary stocks that could lead to losses.
Foster partnerships between public and private sectors to invest in infrastructure, logistics, and technology innovations that streamline the supply chain and minimize losses.
Provide consumers and suppliers with information on options for reducing food losses or waste.
Focus [food loss and waste] interventions on locations in the food supply chain where losses or waste are the highest in terms of nutrition and the environment.
Change pricing mechanisms through public policies to avoid incentivizing food waste.
Change consumer behaviour regarding portion size and nudge towards responsible decisions by food sellers and consumers.
Improve the circular economy to ensure that that the fraction of food that could not be consumed by humans is properly used for feed, energy, or other industries.
Change food and beverage production and processing technologies to reduce ultra-processing (i.e. prioritizing minimal processing methods).
Replace traditional use of biomass with modern energy alternatives, including bioenergy used in more efficient cookstoves.
Improve the efficiency of energy use in agrifood systems at least to the average of the wider economy, [by] modernizing equipment from fishing fleets to cold storage units; adopting energy-saving practices (e.g. drip irrigation) and clean transportation solutions for short (electric- or biomass-powered trucks) and medium distances (rail); minimizing reliance on aviation, including for global value chains; and embracing better consumer-level practices (e.g. using a pressure cooker for pulses).
Improve infrastructure to facilitate integration and distribution of bioenergy within existing systems, leveraging compatibility with natural gas and industrial infrastructures.
Improve bioenergy production unit with carbon capture and storage.
Improve long-term planning for bioenergy use and adopt a performance-based approach.
Set clear long-term targets for adoption and integration of bioenergy into the energy mix, providing a roadmap for consistent progress towards clean energy objectives. Monitor implementation of this planning and revise targets based on the sector’s actual performance, including the evolution of agricultural productivity.
Improve management of liquid biofuel demand during the transition period.
Change bioenergy feedstocks to sustainable inputs and improve waste and residue collection.
Improve the production, productivity and sustainability of short-rotation woody energy crops.
Improve agroforestry systems to supply modern bioenergy; beyond dedicating short-rotation woody energy crops to modern bioenergy production endeavours, sustainably managed forest plantations and sustainable tree planting integrated with agricultural production via agroforestry systems should supply feedstocks.
Improve the life-cycle emissions balance of biofuels and bioenergy pathways, including relying on CCUS, improving facilities, and taking account of the life-cycle carbon intensities ofvarious feedstocks (including carbon sequestered in soil) to reduce GHG emissions from every litre of biofuels produced.
Improve methane capture and biogas generation from livestock production units.
Improve energy saving in primary food production units through a circular approach including a close-loop system for aquaculture, crops and livestock, including insect production.
Implement and enforce stringent sustainability criteria and standards for bioenergy production to ensure environmental protection, emphasizing responsible sourcing and production practices.
Enforce strict controls on land conversion for forestry plantations and woody energy crops to prevent land-use conflicts.
Shift energy use by food producers, in particular small-scale producers, towards renewable energy.
Change approaches to co-produce energy and food simultaneously; integrating production systems within agrifood systems (e.g. sylvopastoralism, crops–livestock integration andagroforestry), should be expanded to explore new innovations allowing joint production of food and electricity.
Improve the use and production of fertilizers, including increasing the role organic fertilizer plays when relevant, and reducing the demand for and energy requirement of traditional chemical fertilizers.
Foster global cooperation to facilitate knowledge sharing, technology transfer and capacity-building, enabling both developed and developing nations to participate in the transition to clean bioenergy.
Protect the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all.
Ensure that the rights of vulnerable groups, especially women and Indigenous Peoples, have their rights protected, restored or improved – in particular, equal rights regarding access to ownership of assets like land.
Improve education in rural communities, especially for women and girls, to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, and promote lifelong learning opportunities.
Improve the capacity of students, especially for women and girls, in low- and middle-income countries to achieve higher education in the fields of biology, agronomy, crop science, veterinary science, nutrition and soil sciences and other sciences relevant for the transformation of agrifood systems.
Improve social protection systems; strengthened social protection systems enhance the capacity to swiftly reach and assist vulnerable populations, ensure timely support, facilitate effective adaptation and recovery efforts, and ensure seamless delivery of multiple services.
Protect vulnerable groups, especially women, impacted by climate change through well designed social safety net programmes and public employment programmes that incorporate climate vulnerability in their targeting.
Ensure that women’s needs, challenges and priorities are included and budgeted for in agrifood system and climate-related policies.
Protect low-income and vulnerable groups from the side effects of mitigation or nutrition policies through adequate cash transfers and job training in case of reduction of their economic activities due to mitigation measures originating from agrifood systems (e.g. reduced production of some commodities) or beyond (e.g. energy pricing).
Change climate finance orientation to favour redirection towards social protection.
Improve social safety net programmes to consider nutritional needs, especially for women, and promote healthy diets.
Change agricultural and food policies to align with healthy diet priorities and climate actions.
Improve the financial system to reinforce risk management strategies and enhance uptake of investments.
Create risk-sharing mechanisms to support local lending and micro-credit institutions to extend lending periods, while keeping them compatible with other objectives of lending institutions.
Promote climate-smart investments through specific financial products recognized by the market.
Develop a macro-level catastrophic insurance through a global risk pooling mechanism to support countries in addressing climate, food security and nutrition risks.
Improve women’s access to financial services and weather index-based insurance.
Protect an open and rule-based global trading system and avoid unpredictable or untransparent trade policy measures.
Improve trade rules and global consultative processes to develop shared methods and recognitions for common environmental labels and certifications.
Improve knowledge exchange and learning on inclusive policies and policy reform agenda.
Improve science and policy interface; support organized dialogue between scientists, policymakers and other relevant stakeholders in support of inclusive science and evidence-based policy making for greater coherence, shared ownership and collective action.
Improve emissions measurement at the farm and project level.
Improve farmers’ and other value chains actors’ use of transparent and recognized tools to monitor their emissions.
Improve international cooperation to agree on common principles for measurement of emissions at the product and value chain level.
Improve the information regarding diet consumption by household; traditional (surveys) and modern (AI-based) solutions should be scaled up to provide more information, especially among vulnerable groups.
Improve the information regarding the nutritional contents of food; update on a regular basis the food composition table, while capturing subnational specificities.
Improve the collection of sex-disaggregated data in agrifood systems.
Address the dearth of gender and climate data.
Invest in the systematic collection and analysis of sex-disaggregated data in the agriculture and environment sectors, including the assessment on the impact of different climate actions and risks on women and girls.
Improve SDG 2 indicators to better track access to and consumption of healthy diets.
Improve the data on land tenure, aquatic resource use, and forest use and land use through remote sensing coupled with ground truthing and community engagement to guarantee access rights and monitor evolutions.
Improve measuring and monitoring of agricultural productivity while taking into account non-monetized inputs.
Improve early warning systems and their access.
Develop strong early warning systems, covering the various risks and disruptions (animal health, drought and weather events, market disruptions, famine) to foster resilience.
Protect intellectual property rights and access to data generated by farmers, fishermen and foresters.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023: Urbanization, agrifood systems transformation and healthy diets across the rural–urban continuum
FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO
2023
FAO et al.
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Regulation of food and beverage marketing (e.g., restricting advertising of energy-dense foods high in fats, sugars and/or salt in the vicinity of schools and on public transport).
Taxation of energy-dense foods and beverages high in fats, sugars and/or salt has shown clear evidence of providing disincentives for buying these foods, contributing to shifting the demand towards more nutritious foods.
Taxation can encourage product reformulation to reduce the content of the target component (e.g. sugars, salt, unhealthy fats), thus improving its nutrient profile.
Nutrition labelling, by providing information on the nutrition properties and the quality of foods to aid purchase and consumption decisions.
Supporting healthier food outlets to enable access to healthy diets.
Policy incentives are necessary to encourage shops to stock and sell greater amounts of fresh and minimally processed foods, for instance, by improving their cold storage facilities.
The availability of healthier food outlets in particular areas across the rural–urban continuum can be improved through land-use planning and zoning regulations; tax credits or exemptions; or licensing agreements.
Measures in place to restrict outlets that predominantly sell energy-dense foods high in fats, sugars and/or salt include, for example, local authority zoning measures that limit the establishment of hot food takeaways or fast food restaurants in or around schools or in particular neighbourhoods.
Nutrition education to encourage more diverse and healthier dietary patterns at the household level.
In rural areas, cash transfers can contribute to improve dietary patterns and promote diversification of food production through the alleviation of liquidity constraints. In addition, cash transfer programmes associated with nutrition education offer greater chances to improve child nutrition and health.
Ensure the safety and nutritional quality of street foods.
For street foods, important food safety actions include ensuring a supply of water of acceptable quality for food preparation, clean places for preparation and consumption of food, sanitary facilities for workers in food outlets, training for street vendors and consumer education. Interventions at national and local government levels are also required to ensure nutritional quality for street foods in each local situation.
Improving women’s status and gender equality positively influence the nutritional status of women and their families. Therefore, eliminating structural gender inequalities and unleashing women’s potential can play a fundamental role in improving access to affordable healthy diets.
Multifaceted and targeted territorial planning to address gender-related challenges to access affordable healthy diets (e.g., efficient transport systems to reduce the time between home and work; strategically locating city food outlets that supply nutritious, diverse food on routes that women take in their daily lives).
There are opportunities to invest in processing SMEs, through the identification of specific value chains and products that can both be nutritious and provide value-added livelihood opportunities for value chain participants.
Policies to enable the potential of small and intermediate cities and towns (SICTs) for growth, poverty reduction and improved access to affordable healthy diets should facilitate the flow of people, products and resources between such cities and their rural catchment areas, but also expand the reach of local agriculture to more distant markets.
Better linkages between producers, agro-industrial processors, agricultural and non-agricultural services, and other downstream segments of the agrifood value chain could provide more opportunities for SME development and, from a spatial perspective, could turn small and intermediate cities and towns (SICTs) into crucial “food exchange” nodes.
Building rural infrastructure, including quality rural and feeder roads to connect remote farms and enterprises to main road networks, is essential for unlocking the productive potential of small and intermediate cities and towns (SICTs) and their catchment areas.
Public investments (in addition to roads) to support linkages between (mainly small) farms and SMEs could include warehousing, cold storage, dependable electrification, access to digital tools and water supply.
In order to attract private sector investment, public investments need to be more targeted and part of more comprehensive national strategies for infrastructure development. For example, building “last-mile” infrastructure and logistics that enable delivery from a distribution centre or facility to the end user, opens up possibilities for producers to reach bigger markets and, in the process, creates conditions that foster agribusiness development.
Existing evidence indicates that improving market access of Indigenous producers in remote areas could lead to significant improvements in economic and livelihood outcomes.
In general, investments in connectivity between locations and components of agrifood systems in small and intermediate cities and towns (SICTs) have spurred substantial development of and investments by SMEs and the creation of spontaneous clusters of wholesale and logistics SMEs. Such clusters, in turn, induce farmers to increase their crop variety and to use more inputs.
Lower trading costs could provide the right incentives for smallholder farmers to shift their production to more nutritious foods which, considering their availability gap, could be key for making healthy diets more available and affordable for all.
Investing in improved and gender-sensitive wholesale market infrastructure (e.g. in territorial food markets) could improve supply of fresh products and facilitate compliance with food safety and quality standards by smallholder producers, incentivize producers to supplyhigher-quality foods that could bring them better returns, and increase the quantity and variety of food supply through vertical and horizontal scaling.
Improving the nutritional quality of processed foods and beverages through reformulation is essential across the rural–urban continuum: it can enhance diet quality, increasing nutrient content and reducing the intake of saturated and trans-fatty acids, sugars and/or salt in purchased foods.
Introducing maximum limits for sodium in processed foods can promote reformulation and improve the nutritional quality of food available.
Access to inputs such as seeds is key for supporting production of fruits and vegetables, and this is true across the rural–urban continuum. For example, different kinds of input subsidies (direct distribution of inputs, vouchers or targeted preferential prices) have been shown to have positive impacts in improving access to diverse and more nutritious foods at the household level.
Agricultural extension is also important in rural areas, and can have positive effects on dietary diversity and quality at household levels. However, currently extension programmes are often oriented towards staple crops rather than nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables. Changing the focus of these programmes could be essential for increasing the availability of these foods.
Investing in infrastructure is key for enhancing agrifood systems linkages across the rural–urban continuum. From a productive perspective, investing in irrigation is important for boosting fruit and vegetable production.
In cases in which the conditions and capabilities for producing diverse nutritious foods have yet to be developed, biofortification has shown to be a valid alternative method to improve the nutrient intake and dietary quality of rural populations.
The adoption of biofortified crops by smallholder farmers can improve the supply of essential micronutrients not only via own consumption, but also through commercialization in local markets and inclusion in social protection programmes including in-kind food transfers and school meal programmes (the latter in all kinds of settings across the rural–urban continuum).
The closure of the gender gap in rural areas is a key consideration for any food production policy oriented towards improving access to affordable healthy diets.
Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) has the potential to increase the availability of fruits and vegetables for urban dwellers. The inclusion of urban agriculture objectives in city planning and regulations, often in HICs, can create adequate conditions for the development of urban agriculture.
The development and use of technologies and innovations should be guided by the assessment of their socioeconomic, environmental and ethical impacts.
The application of behavioural science is an essential innovation that enables governments, scientists and the public to work together to develop evidence-based approaches to increase access to affordable healthy diets, as well as empower consumers to choose healthy diets.
Food labelling can contribute to a healthy food environment by providing information to the consumer about the content of foods, drawing consumer attention to the benefits and risks of particular nutrients or ingredients of public health concern, and motivating manufacturers to produce foods which have healthier nutrition profiles.
Promoting – while preserving – traditional foods originating from Indigenous Peoples’ agrifood systems through labelling and certification (including territorial labels, geographic indications and participatory guarantee schemes) can create niche markets and enhance awareness of the specificity of such products.
Building relationships and collective processes together with trusted representatives of the private sector, especially relevant market players, as well as governments and researchers in both social and natural sciences, can be critical in developing sustainable marketing strategies for Indigenous Peoples’ food products.
The use of whole genome sequencing can be an effective tool for identifying and tracing foodborne pathogens, and for detecting contaminants as well as outbreak investigations.
Traceability data, including through mobile applications, helps inform consumers about the origin of food sold in supermarkets, promoting transparency in pricing and making supply chains more efficient and accountable.
Online food sharing services can gather and redistribute food surpluses across local communities and supermarkets in urban and rural areas, thus helping to reduce food waste. They can also have a positive impact on food environments, especially when surplus nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables are “rescued” and redistributed.
Smartphone applications that enable users to make small donations to specific initiatives can provide support for a range of operations, from building resilience to implementing school feeding programmes to delivering food assistance in emergency situations.
The increased use of mobile phones in LMICs has contributed to the adoption of other services such as mobile money, enabling reduced transaction costs and enhanced financial inclusion. Mobile money can improve farmers’ access to higher-value markets (thus increasing their income) and to off-farm income sources as well.
Experimenting with, inter alia, technologies, policies, participatory approaches, actions and ideas can be an important source of innovation and capacity building.
Innovative approaches that enhance the capacity of SMEs to increase the availability of nutritious and safe food, improve the food environment, and facilitate the consumption of healthy diets are key.
Cold chains provide benefits in terms of maintaining food quality (including nutritional quality) and safety, reducing food loss and waste, and facilitating market access, and they are also key to maintaining the integrity of veterinary medicines and vaccines to help prevent and manage outbreaks of zoonotic diseases.
Climate-friendly refrigeration systems based on renewable energy can help cold chains become more sustainable, though challenges such as access to reliable and affordable energy need to be addressed.
Innovations in food packaging can maintain the quality, safety and nutritional value of food products, meet consumer needs and preferences, reduce food loss and waste, and reduce the cost of nutritious foods, especially across longer distribution chains.
The development of cross-collaborative engagement among producers, processors, retailers and distributors will be critical in driving the shift from the current, linear “take–make–consume–dispose” model of the agrifood value chain, towards more circular systemic approaches to ensure sustainability.
E-commerce platforms offer opportunities to increase affordability of healthy diets, by shortening value chains and increasing market access.
E-commerce platforms can contribute to women’s empowerment by enabling women to earn an independent source of income, work from home, and set their own working hours.
E-commerce has the potential to reduce the number of intermediaries and balance the power relationships within value chains, resulting in higher prices paid for producers and cheaper produce for consumers.
To ensure food safety, retailers must take measures to prevent contamination during storage, transportation and delivery. This includes maintaining appropriate temperatures for perishable goods, using safe packaging materials, and implementing proper sanitation measures.
Retailers must adhere to local and federal regulations governing food safety. Clear and accurate information about the origin, contents and expiration dates of food products is essential for informed consumer choices and to mitigate potential health risks.
While urban and peri-urban agriculture can improve food security and nutrition in and around cities, it is unlikely that it can satisfy the needs of urban populations, so its development should be complementary to that of rural agriculture and concentrate on activities where there is a distinct comparative advantage, such as production of fresh, perishable foods.
With water scarcity becoming a reality in many places across the rural–urban continuum, technologies such as rainwater storage can optimize water-use efficiency in rainfed agriculture.
The safe use of wastewater can lead to important energy savings for food production, and for cities in general. Nutrients recovered from wastewater can be used instead of inorganic fertilizers.
At the plot, farm and landscape levels, agroecological innovations can help increase farmers’ incomes, improve food security and nutrition, use water and soil more efficiently, conserve biodiversity, provide ecosystem services, and enhance nutrient recycling, among other benefits.
Blending agroecology with territorial approaches can help empower rural communities and bring agroecology to scale, for example by implementing territorial certification schemes and shorter value chains to improve access to markets and increase incomes of small-scale producers.
Organic farming systems can provide more profits with less environmental footprint and produce nutritious foods with less pesticide residue.
Vertical farms can minimize risks of foodborne illnesses and considerably reduce the need for both inputs (e.g. fertilizers and pesticides) and water (through recycling).
Consumption of biofortified crops can enhance nutritional status and promote better health outcomes, especially in rural areas in LMICs, where diets are significantly reliant on self-produced or locally procured staple crops.
Technologies and innovations must be adapted to local needs, opportunities and constraints, to ensure they are accessible to all who want to adopt them.
Increased public investment in agricultural R&D beyond the major staples to include a broader range of plant and animal species (including fruits and vegetables) is necessary to support the diversification of agrifood systems.
Policymaking processes should facilitate interjurisdictional agreements and regulations, as well as the participation of a variety (including non-governmental) of actors.
Institutional arrangements need to consider the key role of subnational governments (local and regional) as well as that of non-governmental actors.
Due to the multisectoral nature of the challenges and opportunities that urbanization creates across the rural–urban continuum, subnational governments should also be important actors for formulating and implementing coherent policies that go beyond agrifood systems (e.g. environmental, energy, health and other systems).
Reducing inequalities for food security and nutrition
High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE)
2023
HLPE
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Bolster the land and resource rights of women, peasants, Indigenous Peoples and other marginalized groups, including legal recognition and inheritance rights; protect communal and collective tenure rights to resources, including enshrining free, prior and informed consent, and promote sustainable community-based management of those resources.
Design regulations to improve the functioning of markets for land, inputs, services, and water, while protecting the vulnerable and preventing the concentration of resources.
Strengthen accountability, monitoring and the requirement for local consent with respect to corporate/international land, forest and water acquisitions.
Design and implement asset-building and livelihood programmes, such as land and livestock transfers, tailored for resource-poor, disadvantaged groups.
Monitor and limit concentration of ownership (over land, transport, wholesale, retail, etc.) in food systems.
States, intergovernmental organizations, the private sector and civil society should work across sectors to ensure more equitable access to land, forests, aquatic resources and other food-production resources, applying rights-based approaches.
States, intergovernmental organizations, private sector and civil society should facilitate the organization of disadvantaged stakeholders and build inclusive institutions and partnerships to improve representation.
Build and support farmer, fisher, peasant, food-producer, landless and migrant worker organizations; self-help groups and cooperatives; as well as labour organizations throughout food systems – particularly including women – to ensure better representation and agency. Explicit consideration should be given to inclusivity in participation and group decision-making and the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining.
Leverage the benefits of collective action to improve access to inputs, finance, information, value chain opportunities, certification/standards and market opportunities, as well as decent work, safe working conditions and a living income based on careful consideration of, and with a clear plan to address, local contexts and power asymmetries.
States, intergovernmental organizations, the private sector and civil society should make equity-sensitive investments in supply chains and in disadvantaged areas.
Invest in territorial approaches in food systems and regional development planning, including in agroecology and in local markets, strengthening regional trade and market connections to create a judicious mix of local and distant market opportunities for small-scale producers and to benefit local consumers.
Ensure that supply chains, especially local ones, are enabled to provide improved access to nutrient-dense foods for all consumers at affordable prices.
Invest in rural transport, market infrastructure, nutrient-preserving food processing and food storage, with special consideration for disadvantaged groups and places, and supporting territorial markets.
Invest in filling the gaps in access to finance among micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) along the value chain, with special consideration for groups that are traditionally disadvantaged, including small-scale producers, small-scale input providers and traders, and women, as well as those with limited current commercial orientation.
Invest in information systems across food systems, leveraging digital technologies – such as market-price information services and video based extension – to help overcome asymmetries in access to information and to spread knowledge and opportunity equitably, with consideration for upholding data privacy and data ownership.
Invest in expanding rural, non-farm employment opportunities to ensure that income-generating opportunities exist outside agriculture as alternative pathways to food security and nutrition.
Invest in civil society and government staff working more closely with marginalized communities, including enhancing their legal capacity to uphold their right to food, decent work and a clean environment.
States, intergovernmental organizations, private sector and civil society should plan and govern food environments including trade, retail and processing with an equity focus.
Undertake proactive planning of food environments in areas of rapid demographic growth to ensure equitable and affordable access to food, promoting access to nutrient-rich foods, facilitating access to local fishers’ and farmers’ markets, and restricting marketing and advertising of unhealthy foods.
Recognize the role of informal vendors in meeting the FSN needs of populations, including marginalized groups, and develop planning and policy tools to create an enabling environment to enhance their capacity to sell nutritious and safe food.
Undertake targeted interventions in food retail environments to mitigate unequal food security and nutrition outcomes, especially for populations at risk of food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition, such as children, youth and the urban poor. Depending on the specific context, these interventions may include: restricting the sale of unhealthy food products near educational premises; and promoting public procurement programmes for nutritious foods.
Implement specific measures aimed at limiting processing and marketing of unhealthy food, with the aim to promote healthy eating. These can include: introducing fiscal measures such as taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages and other unhealthy foods, while subsidizing healthy foods; and labelling the nutritional content and/or detrimental effects of ultra-processed foods to support food security and nutrition improvements among particularly vulnerable groups.
Ensure universal access to food security and nutrition-relevant services, including primary healthcare, immunization, nutrition education, sanitation and safe drinking water.
Ensure universal access to social protection as direct support for food security and nutrition among the most marginalized groups, and to enhance access to productive assets for those with food systems-dependent livelihoods.
Maximize the fiscal space available to improve basic public services, including more comprehensive and progressive national and international taxes on income, profits, land, wealth and commodity speculation, and use the proceeds to support the most marginalized and address the drivers of unequal food security and nutrition.
Contribute to ensuring access to decent work for all, including in food systems, as a key condition for a living wage and access to food. This would include implementing labour protection policies, strategies and programmes (such as those on occupational safety and health, regulations on working hours and pay, maternity protection) that protect both the labour and human rights of food system workers.
Monitor and regulate, as appropriate, corporate power asymmetries in food systems governance and decision-making, and the food security and nutrition implications of the expansion of large agribusiness and food corporations.
Ensure, through equity-impact assessments that include the representation of affected groups, that multilateral and bilateral trade and investment agreements do not negatively impact food environments and diets, including a redressal process available to marginalized groups’ representatives when complaints arise.
Ensure greater transparency in the preparation of international and bilateral trade and investment negotiations, and develop systems to support domestic decision-making, coordinated between sectors involved in food, the environment, public health, industry and trade, to ensure that issues of equity are considered and that marginalized groups have a say.
Take action toward restructuring or cancelling the debt of countries where food security and nutrition is constrained by debt.
Continue efforts to decrease subsidies on agricultural production in high-income and emerging countries, except those aiming to enhance the nutritional or environmental qualities of food production and to reduce food security and nutrition inequalities, so as to level the playing field for LMICs.
States, intergovernmental organizations, the private sector and civil society should leverage SDG 10 (‘reduce inequalities’) to address the systemic drivers of unequal distribution, access and representation, including by mainstreaming participatory approaches in policymaking and practice to amplify marginalized voices.
Ensure policies target the most marginalized people, explicitly state which groups they aim to impact, strive to remove barriers and not impose burdens on the most vulnerable, and speak directly to the 2030 Agenda approach of leaving no one behind.
Ensure that social policy pays specific attention to women’s role, time burdens and other existing burdens in ensuring food security and nutrition; envisages men taking on a greater role in food security and nutrition and addresses adequate compensation of care workers and community health workers, while avoiding arrangements that exacerbate women’s “triple burden” of care.
Create interministerial platforms on food security and nutrition, with the participation of agriculture, livestock, fisheries, forest, health, economy and finance, and trade ministries to enable the convergence of ministerial actions in food security and nutrition policy, and charge and equip these platforms to have a strong focus on reducing inequalities.
Identify and manage conflicts of interest between more powerful and less powerful groups in food systems, including where private sector interests and public policy goals conflict; and protect research against undue influence, bias and corruption.
Strengthen inclusive spaces for dialogue, participation and coordinated action at global, national and local levels that centre on building equity, including within negotiations on climate, trade and investment agreements and related policy fora.
Based on a human rights approach, states and intergovernmental organizations should embed equity principles into policy.
Identify policies and interventions that can support individuals and groups to break out of intergenerational food insecurity and malnutrition.
Leverage existing human rights instruments such as UNDROP, UNDRIP, the Right to Food, the Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition and various CFS guidance documents to strengthen equity-sensitivity of policies.
Strengthen national institutions to understand and apply human rights conventions to harmonize policies relating to food systems, agriculture and nutrition from an equity perspective.
Make redressal mechanisms available to marginalized communities when cases of inequities are identified.
States, intergovernmental organizations and civil society should take into account the context of climate, ecological, political and economic crises in all food security and nutrition-related actions.
Ensure adequate prioritization of populations most affected by climate change, conflict and other contemporary global crises in targeting policy and allocating resources.
Work across the humanitarian–development–peace nexus to address the multiple drivers and manifestations of food security and nutrition inequalities in fragile states.
Explore the option of establishing a fund, for example using the country-level funding for the follow-up to the UNFSS, to support transformation towards more equitable food systems.
Strengthen data and knowledge systems to enable improved understanding and monitoring of equity in food security and nutrition-relevant domains.
Fill data gaps (particularly related to diets, micronutrient status, food composition) by systematically collecting information to identify which groups have the poorest food security and nutrition outcomes and food system opportunities in different contexts, paying special attention to historically marginalized groups, women and disadvantaged regions.
Improve major routine public data collection and analysis efforts, sampling adequately along the major axes of inequality within each context, to enable a full understanding of inequality; and apply a more equity-sensitive approach to reporting data in global reports such as SOFI and GNR.
Integrate equity-sensitivity and incorporate diverse knowledges in food security and nutrition research.
Boost public agricultural and food systems research with strong consideration for equity-sensitivity of the research portfolio, including research tailored to marginal environments and climate-resilient technologies for small producers.
Mainstream gender, equity and intersectionality considerations into all aspects of research.
Ensure all research applies the precautionary principle to ensure no groups are exposed to harm as a result of the research, and ensure individuals and communities retain the right to decline participation.
Enable a richer understanding of the root causes and systemic drivers of food security and nutrition inequalities by encouraging and funding qualitative research to capture the lived experiences of actors in food systems. This includes facilitating the understanding and inclusion of traditional ecological knowledge of Indigenous and local communities in policymaking.
Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition: towards enhancing effective, inclusive, evidence-informed, decision making
High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE)
2022
HLPE
Recommendation
Thematic Area
The UN System should provide guidance that lays out good practices for priority setting guided by frameworks for data decision-making; and develop practical guidelines on data-informed ex-ante and ex-post policy evaluation in the FSN domain for national-level policymakers and administration.
Organizations in the UN System and national and international academic institutions should develop and promote the use of e-learning and continuing education courses in data prioritization and utilization for policymakers.
Donors, supported by international organizations and academia, should develop and use costing and cost-benefit analysis to assist policymakers to estimate the cost trade offs of decision-making using data from varying sources.
Governments (via their ministries and agencies, including statistics offices) as well as private sector agents, international organizations and research institutions, should complete a data-informed decision-making process matrix for FSN each time they are requested to address a specific challenge.
For all FSN-related legislation and policy proposals, the responsible government authority should include a detailed data annex, presenting available data sources and the analytic tools intended to be used for their treatment.
Governments should encourage empirical analysis of existing FSN microdata in administration, statistics institutes, agencies and universities; promote the hiring of statisticians, data scientists and experts in the analysis of qualitative FSN data; and create an annual forum for data-informed discussion on national FSN policies.
Optimize and, if needed, repurpose current data-related investments, while increasing collaboration between international organizations, governments, civil society, academia and the private sector, to harmonize and maximize the sharing of existing FSN data.
Organizations in the UN System should develop minimum standards that set clear criteria for optimizing the use of existing data in the area covered in their respective mandate, streamlining the processes to be followed when using data for decision-making in FSN; and prioritize all types of remote and digital data and the development of appropriate data management plans.
Governments, using standards, should review existing national data-collection systems relevant for FSN, with the aim of identifying opportunities to streamline and modernize them, and enhance their efficiency and relevance.
Academic institutions throughout the world should coordinate to consolidate existing FSN data and respond to the need for continued innovation in the areas of data science and survey-based research to address FSN questions.
Efforts should be made to modernize national statistics systems in order to establish comprehensive, coordinated FSN data systems and to sustain the collection of the disaggregated and detailed data needed over time, be accompanied by technical and financial assistance to countries with limited capabilities.
UN System organizations and donors should establish a Global Food Security and Nutrition Data Trust Fund, to which governments of eligible countries and other stakeholders interested in generating and benefiting from data (including, for example, communities and organizations of Indigenous People) can apply, in order to obtain the necessary financial resources to establish FSN data plans; conduct FSN assessment surveys for specific communities; and create and own data dissemination platforms.
International organizations that produce key FSN data should form a joint commission to harmonize and coordinate the release of datasets, avoiding the publication of competing datasets on important FSN domains (such as food commodity balances, food prices and market prospects, food security assessments, etc.).
Data initiatives should devote priority and specific attention to the transfer of ownership of the used data and methodologies to the countries involved, promoting the institutionalization of such data systems in national platforms.
Increase and sustain investment in the collection of essential data for FSN.
Governments, especially those of low- and middle-income countries where FSN data gaps are particularly large, should elaborate national plans to define priorities for FSN data collection and analysis and to improve and optimize existing national data systems for FSN. Countries that require support should be supported both technically and financially by international organizations and donors, and should follow international standards, while preserving country ownership.
UN system agencies, in their respective areas of competence, should develop specific guidance for governments and national statistics offices to streamline data collection in order to prioritize the collection of actionable data.
Donors; private entities in the information, communication and industrial technology sectors; civil society groups; and academic research institutions should invest in further refinement, validation and application of resource-saving data collection approaches, such as remote sensing, natural resource scanning by drones and digital data collection tools.
Tools and technology that streamline and simplify data collection (such as REDCap) should be used and promoted at all levels.
International organizations and academic research institutions should improve existing analytic models and develop new ones to be employed in various areas of relevance for FSN decision making, especially model-based approaches, in order to forecast future values of FSN determinants and outcomes, ensuring that such models are transparent and flexibly implemented so that they can generate predictions under clear, alternative scenarios (avoiding the use of black-box modelling).
Invest in human capital and in the needed infrastructures to ensure the sustainability of data processing and analytic capacity.
Targeted scholarship programmes be created by national governments – and adequately funded by donors – to allow young people from low-income countries, especially girls, to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
Governments should take action to expand primary and secondary education curricula to include statistics and data science early in public education programmes.
National statistics offices should offer training opportunities to all staff, of all ages, to enhance their competences in using opensource software for data analysis, and reward demonstrated achievement.
UN System organizations and international research institutions should contribute to eliminating language barriers, by expanding the set of languages in which relevant e-learning platforms are offered.
International organizations, in collaboration with academic institutions, should establish criteria for the quality of e-learning materials for data science and create a framework providing objective quality assessment and ranking of existing, open-access on-line learning opportunities, to identify the best, up-to-date courses and draw attention where quality improvement is needed.
International organizations should avoid crowding out local capacity, by making all efforts to work closely with young professionals from national public institutions whenever the need exists to analyse FSN data at national and subnational levels.
Improve data governance at all levels, promoting inclusiveness to recognize and enhance agency among data users and data generators.
Governments, international organizations, civil society, private companies and research institutions, both public and private, should comply with existing open-access principles for data and analysis tools, ensuring access to and reproducibility of relevant research results, and continually adapt to enhance data access, as open-access principles and guidance evolve.
All government data that refer to agriculture and FSN should be treated as “open by default” as recently endorsed by the UN statistical commission.
Governments and multilateral organizations in the UN System should work to improve legal frameworks that protect sensitive data and privacy, developing accountability systems for their implementation.
FAO and other UN System organizations that have a mandate for agriculture, food and nutrition, should develop a code of conduct for data generation and use, based on FAIR and CARE principles, that addresses the diversity of FSN data-governance-related issues – including power imbalances, inclusiveness, the operationalization of open access and transparency principles – for all types of actions in data generation, consolidation and utilization; and that FAO become a FAIR and CARE certifier for agriculture, food and nutrition datasets.
CFS should explore the possibility of establishing one or more data trusts for food security and nutrition, where a subgroup of CFS members can act as trustees, receiving the legal right to make decisions – such as who has access to specific data and for what purposes – on behalf of the data owners; and that such a data trust may constitute the legal basis to support the sharing of data collected with funds obtained through the global FSN data trust fund.
CFS should convene a workshop to assess the state of private data sharing in agriculture, food security and nutrition and consider exploring the possibility of piloting a data trust for food security and nutrition.
Appropriate collaborative data initiatives between governments, international organizations, civil society and private companies in the information and communication industry should be put in place to guarantee access to all relevant, non-personal, food security and nutrition data generated and stored by private agents.
Upon justified request, personal data collected and stored by private agents should be mandatorily made accessible to governmental and intergovernmental organizations for research and policy-guidance purposes, in a way that protects against misuse and violation of privacy and other individual rights.
Relevant private and public sectors actors should engage in analytical processes that incorporate the science–policy interface, through, for example, foresight analyses (e.g., Foresight4Food), DELPHI processes, or approaches that incorporate multiple analytical approaches to engage diverse stakeholders and policymakers (e.g. the INFORMAS approach for the study of food environments).
As emergency relief is phased out, rebuild the conditions to have normal functioning food systems in post conflict situations.
Transforming Food Systems: Directions for Enhancing the Catalytic Role of Donors
The Global Donor Platform for Rural Development
2022
Woodhill et al.
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Donors have a critical influence on all actors in the system, and are especially important at national level in supporting host countries to develop a regulatory and policy framework that supports integrated food systems.
Donors are a part of the global food system and must commit to systemic transformation in their own countries as well.
Donors have a critical influence on all actors in the system, and are especially important at national level in supporting host countries to develop a regulatory and policy framework that supports integrated food systems.
Donors are a part of the global food system and must commit to systemic transformation in their own countries as well.
Donors will need to pay more attention to the structural barriers and enabling conditions for change, and the associated power dynamics of differing stakeholder interests
Be more rigorous in developing a systems understanding of the context for an investment and managing in a flexible, adaptive and learning-oriented way
Support partners to work from a whole-system perspective and overcome traditional disciplinary and sectoral barriers and silos.
Invest in new institutional arrangements to support integrated cross-sector planning and policy.
Invest in processes of systems analysis, and informed stakeholder engagement, dialogue and collective problem-solving.
Donors will have to focus on interventions that create the enabling conditions for systemic change.
Develop a deeper understanding of the intervention context from a systems perspective through dialogue with partner governments and other key stakeholders.
Align donor country investments with national pathways and other national plans and strategies to ensure a balanced coverage of national priorities across the investments of individual donors.
Work domestically and collectively with partner governments on how to bring about a change in support measures for the agriculture and food sectors to better incentivize sustainable food systems.
Create shared theories of change (intervention strategies/plans) that are flexible, to adapt to changing circumstances, and that align with the dynamics of how complex systems behave.
Engage actively in national-level donor, sectoral and United Nations coordination mechanisms, and encourage such mechanisms to operate with a food systems perspective.
Support value chain development projects which create the conditions and investable project propositions for private financing.
Engage in rapid experimentation to test what does and does not work, responding quickly to lessons and accepting that learning from failure is key to systems change.
Invest in ongoing multistakeholder dialogue and analysis of the longer-term implications and impacts of food systems trends and scenarios.
Renew collective efforts across donors, the financial sector, governments and development agencies/non-governmental organizations to provide the financial and business support services needed by the micro-, small- and medium-scale enterprise (MSME) sector.
Enhance territorial approaches which tailor investments and interventions to the context and needs of specific geographic localities and their peoples
Catalyse, identify, support and scale up niche innovations that may have the potential to contribute to a food systems transition and positively disrupt existing and unsustainable models, including support for territorial approaches.
Encourage conscious efforts across all sectors to integrate the CFS Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems into investments and business practices.
Strengthen foresight and scenario processes to better understand the longer-term implications of current trends and future uncertainties for different stakeholder interests
Individually and collectively invest more efforts in learning lessons from field-level projects about food systems transformation and connect these lessons to national-level policy learning processes with particular attention to policy coherence.
Invest in focused initiatives that support the particular financing needs of women and youth entrepreneurs.
Manage interventions, projects and programmes in more learning-oriented and adaptive ways, being optimally responsive to successes, failures and unexpected changes in circumstances.
Support the replenishment of international and regional financial institutions, ensuring attention to responsible investment in food systems transformation, and particularly to family farmers and smallholders.
Donors have a particular responsibility to help ensure that food systems transformation is underpinned by attention to inclusion, non-discrimination and human rights, to ensure benefits for all.
Support national governments to develop responsible enabling business environments in the agriculture and food sectors.
Invest in enhancing the capacity of stakeholders, and in particular government ministry and agency staff to broker systems approaches to change.
Support collective efforts to further develop national food systems transformation pathways, as appropriate.
Support the development of all forms of necessary infrastructure, particularly in poorer and marginal areas, to improve the economic conditions and competitiveness of the agriculture and food sectors in those areas.
Catalyse the investment in physical infrastructure needed for a viable MSME sector, such as roads, electrical grids, and internet and mobile phone infrastructure, with a focus on areas with high levels of rural poverty and inequality.
Align with other donors to support national-level food systems policy innovation processes, including applied research, stakeholder engagement and capacity development.
Support environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive value chain and sector development by investing in the processes that enable coordination among value chain actors and the collective implementation of sustainable and equitable practices.
Invest in cross-country food systems policy learning at regional and global scales, including South-South and triangular exchange.
Invest in public-private partnerships, which can extend the reach of resilient market-based solutions to poorer producers and communities through inclusive business models.
Invest in the research, economic modelling and information synthesis needed to support policy transitions and better understand overall cost-benefits and how to manage trade-offs.
Invest in human capacity needed to innovate and diversify value chains by supporting agricultural education, advisory services, vocational training programmes and institutions, providing technical assistance and investing in technology transfer.
Support the development of alternative policy scenarios for pilot countries that could help to illustrate the longer-term benefits of possible transition pathways.
Prioritize capacity-building for MSMEs to build and expand existing localized value chains and create an enabling environment, with a specific focus on women, youth and other underrepresented entrepreneurs.
Encourage and support governments in designing policies for a better food environment and healthy and responsible consumption.
Support IT innovation focused on improving the finance and insurance needs of small-scale and vulnerable producers, including the scaling up of microinsurance schemes.
Pilot innovative credit and insurance programmes that can increase stability in value chains and decrease vulnerability of individual producers and processors.
Work to ensure coherence between donor countries’ own food systems related policies and policy change in partner countries, particularly in relation to sector support, trade and regulations governing business practices.
Support initiatives which bring private sector actors to the table with policymakers, civil society and researchers to explore sustainable food system solutions.
De-risk investment by the MSME sector and market relations between larger firms and small-scale suppliers.
Repurpose subsidies to ensure alignment with intended food systems outcomes and underlying principles.
Facilitate the co-design of policy mechanisms between the private sector (including larger firms, MSMEs and farmers’ organizations), national governments and other stakeholders.
Support research that improves the viability and efficiency of value chains for new, sustainable products that can contribute to healthier diets.
Align and coordinate on consistent metrics for food systems outcomes and ensure that data can be disaggregated by gender and age whenever possible, with special attention to the most vulnerable.
Support a shift towards new areas of research to enable food systems outcomes.
Support regional intergovernmental forums, multistakeholder networks and think tanks, as relevant, which can help to strengthen regional cooperation on food systems transformation – for example, on issues of trade, policy innovation, cross-boundary natural resources management or scientific collaboration.
Increase and target funding for the OneCGIAR and other research programmes and institutions to reflect context-specific needs and priorities.
Channel local knowledge, citizen science and indigenous genetic resources into research and innovation wherever feasible.
Keep food systems and related issues as priority issues for consideration by leaders in the G20 and G7, and forge connections with other forums and summits – for example, COP27+ and the World Economic Forum.
Support training programmes in data management to empower countries to retain full control of their own data.
Balance the keeping of data and genetic resources as a public good while creating incentives for private sector investment in sustainable food systems research.
Encourage and support the reformed CGIAR system to provide food system-wide and policy-relevant research and analysis.
Build the data management and reporting infrastructure to maximize data use and transparency, including data dashboards and other public reporting.
Encourage and support effective multistakeholder engagement processes at local and national levels, which includes building capacity to design and facilitate such processes within government and by non-state actors.
Maintain and strengthen support for civil society organizations (including producer organizations, consumer groups, women’s forums, youth groups and indigenous groups) that are working on food systems, and enable them to bring a balancing power and accountability to the interests of business and the State.
Coordinate to ensure an overall research and data agenda and that all key aspects are being adequately funded on a consistent basis over time.
Encourage and support cross-ministerial and whole-of-government mechanisms to help drive national food systems transformation
Explicitly and consistently leverage global and national accountability mechanisms related to the SDGs, and climate change mitigation and adaptation, for food systems transformation.
Increase support for foresight and scenario work to contribute to national planning efforts.
Provide resources for the voices and interests of groups that are experiencing poverty or marginalization to be effectively represented in any multistakeholder or policy development forums and processes.
Support partner countries to develop and implement universal social protection measures fit for the specific needs of those living in poverty and/ or in vulnerable contexts.
Maintain and expand unified United Nations statistical systems that can present and link food systems-relevant data.
Collaborate with the United Nations Food Systems Coordination Hub to ensure an effective follow-up to the implementation of the Summit’s outcomes.
Integrate measures to protect food production and distribution, and sustain adequate nutrition in times of crisis, including through school meals programmes.
Support institutional innovation to improve access to finance and technology transfer.
Support national agricultural research systems, national statistical capacities, and data collection and reporting infrastructure.
Maintain and strengthen support for the CFS and its High Level Panel of Experts, including by ensuring that resources are available for their policy role, substantive analytical work and effective monitoring and reporting, as well as by following the CFS’s policy guidance.
Integrate resilience and disaster preparedness programming into country strategies and projects related to agriculture, human and ecological health, biodiversity and climate.
Increase funding for research and learning on building food systems resilience to decrease vulnerability.
Help to strengthen national, regional and global early warning, foresight and scenario processes to enable more proactive responses to potential risks or emerging crises.
Ensure adequate and equitable resources for rapid emergency responses, including local sourcing of food and other supplies.
Better integrate development and humanitarian programming in a nexus approach, to build resiliency and decrease vulnerability to future crises and hazards.
Promote the institutionalization of appropriate labour standards in the governance of food systems to support equity of economic opportunity, enabling workers to earn a decent income and to ensure worker health and safety.
Support the development of innovative forms of insurance to reduce the vulnerability of farmers and MSME.
2022 Global Food Policy Report: Climate Change and Food Systems
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
2022
IFPRI
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Public investments in R&D for productivity increasing and emissions-reducing innovations should be doubled from current levels, with at least $15 billion of the increase for innovations benefiting food systems in LMICs.
R&D investment should focus on innovations for sustainable intensification in LMICs, both on and beyond the farm.
Global and regional mechanisms for knowledge sharing, such as the CGIAR system, should be enhanced and strengthened to facilitate technology diffusion that benefits countries with limited domestic research capacity.
Governments should create stronger enabling environments to attract private sector investment for agrifood innovations and to spur adoption of improved technologies and practices, including resetting distortionary market incentives created by agricultural support and trade regulations and improving regulation for safeadoption and market acceptance of new technologies.
Agricultural, food, and climate change policies should explicitly consider landscape dimensions and provide incentives for integrated landscape management through local governance, including development of multistakeholder platforms that can build support for collective action on climate change.
Land tenure and access rights to other natural resources for farmers, rural households, and communities should be strengthened to motivate investments in sustainability and participation in landscape governance.
Governments should promote adoption of clean energy sources in agrifood systems through an enabling environment and appropriate financial incentives for the use of wind and solar power and decentralized electricity grids.
Identification of productive-use locations that could jointly support energy, water, and food security can be used to attract investments that increase productivity and sustainability.
All countries should adopt national food-based dietary guidelines. These can be a key policy instrument to translate global evidence on healthy and sustainable diets into practical, culturally appropriate, and context- and population-specific dietary recommendations.
Innovation policies should prioritize R&D for nutrient-rich foods (including fruits and vegetables) to make healthy diets more affordable. Targeted consumer subsidies and removal of taxes on healthy foods will also help to lower the costs of healthy diets for low-income households.
Consumers can be encouraged to make healthy, sustainable food choices through changes in the food environment, including use of food standards, labeling, and certifications that warn of unhealthy foods and signal the nutritional value and environmental footprint of foods.
While efforts to reduce transport-related GHGs should be continued, free and open trade should be an integral part of climate-smart agricultural and food policies. Trade allows countries to obtain nutritious foods at the lowest cost and can be a key tool for adaptation in the face of weather-related shocks. Globally, trade can also promote more efficient use of natural resources and thus help reduce GHG emissions from agrifood production.
Investments along value chains for efficient and safe storage and transport of food crops and products, including low-emissions cold chains for perishable products and other measures to prevent spoilage and safety hazards, can improve access to healthy diets and reduce food waste and loss.
Increasing consumer demand for sustainably produced foods, for example through certification programs, can create incentives for changing practices along entire value chains.
Climate-positive food systems transformation will require development of context-appropriate institutions and in “soft” infrastructure inclusive of rural and urban food system actors, including equal access to digital climate services, innovative insurance tools, advisory services and actionable information, and financial services to support increased productivity and sustainability.
Women’s participation, along with that of other vulnerable groups, should be strengthened across resource governance, including in clean energy systems, water systems, landscapes, crop development, and digital innovations.
Social protection programs can provide a safety net for vulnerable groups and support sustainable food systems transformation, including the transition to more climate-resilient crops and to off-farm and urban employment.
Expanding “adaptive” social protection programs that comprise traditional social assistance, humanitarian responses, and disaster relief, and that are integrated with complementary climate investments targeted to the poor, can immediately reduce the impact of shocks and support inclusion in food systems transformation.
Improved real-time monitoring of food crisis risks is needed to take early and preventative action to protect vulnerable populations in contexts affected by conflict, natural resource scarcity, and exposure to climate shocks.
Reform of existing counterproductive incentives created by current agricultural, trade, and investment policies can mobilize both public and private finance for climate-positive food systems transformation and reorient funds toward climate finance.
Public support to agriculture, totaling an estimated $620 billion per year worldwide, should be repurposed toward R&D for green innovations and incentives to producers to adopt and invest in climate-smart technologies and practices. Such innovations should focus on increasing productivity, reducing emissions, and enhancing resilience in food production.
International development funds should be clearly targeted to meeting climate and sustainability goals, and used to leverage or crowd-in private funds from global capital markets.
Reorientation of consumer demand — through better information, food environments, and fiscal tools — will also create incentives for producers to adopt and invest in sustainable and climate-resilient practices.
Innovative mechanisms for tapping additional resources, such as publicly guaranteed “green bonds” or climate-change transparency requirements for banks and investors, should be explored to ensure climate finance needs will be met.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022: Repurposing food and agricultural policies to make healthy diets more affordable
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), United Nations Children´s Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP) and World Health Organization (WHO)
2022
FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP & WHO
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Social protection policies may be necessary to mitigate possible trade-offs from repurposing, particularly short-term income losses or negative effects on livelihoods, especially among the most vulnerable populations. Health system policies will also be key to ensure access to essential nutrition services for protecting the health of vulnerable groups, and the food and agricultural workforce, as well as to ensure food safety.
Given the diversity of each country’s political context, the repurposing support efforts will need strong institutions on a local, national and global level, as well as engaging and incentivizing stakeholders from the public sector, the private sector and international organizations. The engagement of SMEs and civil society groups will be key to balancing out unequal powers within agrifood systems.
Repurposing current public support to food and agriculture to increase the availability of nutritious foods to the consumer can contribute to the objective of making a healthy diet less costly and more affordable, globally and particularly in MICs.
Repurposing existing fiscal subsides is found to provide the largest improvement in the affordability of a healthy diet, particularly if they are shifted from producers to consumers. In this case, agriculture’s GHG emissions are found to fall, but there are potential trade-offs in poverty reduction, farm incomes, total agricultural output and economic recovery.
Shifting price incentives globally by repurposing border measures and market price controls can also make a healthy diet less costly and more affordable, albeit less than when fiscal subsidies are shifted from producers to consumers. With this option, GHG emissions from agriculture would fall, while potential trade-offs would also generally be avoided.
Repurposing current public support to food and agriculture to increase the availability of nutritious foods to the consumer can contribute to the objective of making a healthy diet less costly and more affordable, globally and particularly in middle income countries.
Shifting price incentives globally by repurposing border measures and market price controls can also make a healthy diet less costly and more affordable, albeit less than when fiscal subsidies are shifted from producers to consumers. With this option, GHG emissions from agriculture would fall, while potential trade-offs would also generally be avoided.
Where agriculture is still a key sector for the economy, jobs and livelihoods, mainly in low income countries but also in some lower middle income countries, it will be crucial to increase and prioritize public expenditure for the provision of general services support (GSS). This is an effective way to bridge productivity gaps for producing nutritious foods and enabling income generation to improve the affordability of a healthy diet. However, stepping up this type of support in these countries will require significant development financing.
Other key agrifood systems policies will be needed to complement repurposing efforts to ensure shifts in food supply chains, food environments and consumer behaviour towards healthy eating patterns. These include, for example, policies on food reformulation and fortification, regulation of food labelling and marketing, taxation of energy-dense foods and healthy public food procurement.
Social protection policies may be necessary to mitigate possible trade-offs from repurposing, particularly short-term income losses or negative effects on livelihoods, especially among the most vulnerable populations. Health system policies will also be key to ensure access to essential nutrition services for protecting the health of vulnerable groups, and the food and agricultural workforce, as well as to ensure food safety.
Environmental, transportation and energy policies will be absolutely necessary to enhance the positive outcomes of the repurposing support efforts in the realms of efficiency, equality, nutrition, health, climate mitigation and the environment.
Given the diversity of each country’s political context, the repurposing support efforts will need strong institutions on a local, national and global level, as well as engaging and incentivizing stakeholders from the public sector, the private sector and international organizations. The engagement of SMEs and civil society groups will be key to balancing out unequal powers within agrifood systems.
Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms will be particularly important to ensure accountability and to identify areas of improvement in repurposing support, provided they can be supported through data development and maintenance as well as model-based scrutiny.
Repurposing existing fiscal subsides is found to provide the largest improvement in the affordability of a healthy diet, particularly if they are shifted from producers to consumers. In this case, agriculture’s GHG emissions are found to fall, but there are potential trade-offs in poverty reduction, farm incomes, total agricultural output and economic recovery.
When repurposing public support to make a healthy diet less costly, policymakers will have to avoid potential inequality trade-offs that may emerge if farmers are not in a position to specialize in the production of nutritious foods due to resource constraints. This could be particularly the case with small-scale farmers, women and youth.
To take advantage of the opportunities that a global repurposing of border measures, market price controls and fiscal subsidies may offer in practice, countries will have to consider their commitments and flexibilities under WTO rules.
Environmental, transportation and energy policies will be absolutely necessary to enhance the positive outcomes of the repurposing support efforts in the realms of efficiency, equality, nutrition, health, climate mitigation and the environment.
Given the diversity of each country’s political context, the repurposing support efforts will need strong institutions on a local, national and global level, as well as engaging and incentivizing stakeholders from the public sector, the private sector and international organizations. The engagement of SMEs and civil society groups will be key to balancing out unequal powers within agrifood systems.
The success of repurposing food and agricultural policy will also be influenced by the political and social context, governance, (im)balances of power, differences in interests, ideas and influence of stakeholders, market power concentration, and the governance mechanisms and regulatory frameworks in place to facilitate the reform process and prevent and manage conflicts.
The Russia-Ukraine crisis: Implications for global and regional food security and potential policy responses
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
2022
Abay et al.
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Allow markets to work by removing distortions and support the most vulnerable countries and households via social safety nets, and where most needed, through humanitarian assistance.
The most effective measures to combat food insecurity will be those that aim to keep trade in food and fertilizer products open and those that target to mitigate the impacts of high food prices on the most vulnerable.
Trade and financial sanctions should exempt food products and critical agricultural inputs like fertilizer.
Countries should refrain from implementing export bans and restrictions. Export restrictions drive global prices even higher, making it even more difficult for net food importing countries to purchase food. Moreover, export bans tend to be contagious, as other exporting countries follow suit and implement their own bans.
Countries should avoid hoarding and panic buying. Panic buying can disrupt the orderly marketing of commodities and drive prices up in the short run. Supply hoarding can exacerbate price volatility and potentially be costly as prices fall over time as more supplies become available.
Countries should target social protection and food subsidies towards the most vulnerable households. Accurate targeting is crucial to ensure that subsidies go to the truly needy and not to more prosperous households that can absorb increased food costs, or households that can readily switch to lower-cost alternative foods.
Countries should provide humanitarian aid through programs such as the World Food Programme (WFP). Countries in the position to do so should ensure that WFP and other organizations are adequately funded.
Countries should suspend biofuel mandates and subsidies. While beneficial to farmers and landlords, such policies come at the expense of those who can least afford it.
Food self-sufficiency policies will exacerbate, not solve global food insecurity. Policies should not segment markets but aim at creating more opportunities for a larger number of countries—helping global markets to become more diversified and inclusive.
To the extent possible, assistance should not be tied to national export interests—organizations like WFP operate most efficiently when they are able to source food from the lowest cost suppliers.
Stock-take report on agroecology in IFAD operations: An integrated approach to sustainable food systems
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
2021
Olivera and Popusoi
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Conduct qualitative studies on the types of agroecological practices adapted to specific agroecological zones, with the purpose of identifying effective strategies to cope with the climatic risks and challenges, and food security and nutrition gaps, characterizing particular contexts.
Increase efficiency of input use and reduce use of costly, scarce or environmentally damaging inputs, substitute conventional inputs and practices with agroecological alternatives, and focus on improving agroecosystems at the farm and landscape levels.
Document the lessons learned from the one third of IFAD AE-based projects investing in innovative approaches to organize supply and demand and connect small-scale agroecological producers with food markets and consumers and provide guidelines on best practices and innovative ways that IFAD projects can increase support for such approaches.
Reconnect consumers and producers through the development of alternative food networks and focus on rethinking value addition and commercialization to improve the functioning of food systems and ultimately change societal value systems towards sustainability and ethical thinking.
Participate in partnerships with governments and other partners supporting the development of comprehensive policy frameworks and/or adjustments and reform of key regulations enabling agroecology and sustainable food systems transition.
Develop and apply results monitoring instruments to provide evidence on the impacts and benefits of agroecology-based farming and commercialization systems (e.g., income generation, resilience, food security and diverse healthy diets, empowerment and agency of women, youth and vulnerable groups, sustainability of ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation); and document effective investment practices and enabling services for institutionalization and scaling up.
Increase the adoption of integrated and holistic approaches to sustainable food systems transition, such as agroecology, in IFAD-supported projects and programs; improve project sustainability and development effectiveness by focusing on key activities supporting community ownership, responsible governance and enabling policy environments.
Seek partnerships with private impact investors and identify business cases and related financing instruments best suited for co-investing with agroecological entrepreneurs, working with small-scale producers in aggregation and commercialization.
Need to promote increased resource use efficiency to reduce and/or substitute external inputs, recycling of water, nutrients, biomass and energy, diversification and integration of different farming sectors (various crops and/or animals) for high levels of biodiversity.
Explore impact investors’ mutual interest in improving and applying results-based investment tools to assess and monitor impacts of investment contributions to sustainable food systems with the aim of mutual learning, encouragement and scaling up of investments.
Further develop the framework for agroecology (e.g., in coastal fisheries in collaboration with FAO, and work with other partners interested in refining the framework in relation to pastoral production systems).
Develop a guidance note for the design and implementation of agroecological approaches in investment projects.
Consider agroecological approaches in the design of projects aimed at promoting and strengthening diversified and integrated production and commercialization systems with Indigenous Peoples (learning from Indigenous knowledge on agroecological practices) and populations highly vulnerable to climate change and nutrition insecurity. The main objective would be to stabilize outputs and incomes and increase the production and availability of a diversity of foods accessible to low-income families.
Facilitate exchange and learning between regions among IFAD staff and government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community and private sector development partners.
Document lessons learned from IFAD AE-based projects investing in multi-stakeholder territorial platforms, where small-scale producers, women, youth and Indigenous Peoples are meaningfully involved in discussing and finding solutions to the systemic barriers to the transition of agroecological and sustainable food systems.
CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition by CFS
Committee on World Food Security (CFS)
2021
CFS
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Governments should foster policy coordination and coherence across sectors and agencies to reduce all forms of malnutrition from a food systems perspective.
Governments should include the sustainability of food systems as a priority in order to effectively align relevant sectors around a common set of goals.
Governments should integrate and promote sustainable food system strategies and actions that enable healthy diets and improved nutrition into national and local development, health, economic, agricultural, climate/environment, and disaster risk and pandemic diseases reduction policies.
Governments should consider increased and improved budgetary allocations, where appropriate, to food system activities and components, assessing and taking into account all positive and negative environmental, economic and social impacts of the various food systems activities and components, considering, as appropriate, indicators of the 2030 Agenda, with clear and transparent objectives of improving diets and nutrition, to address malnutrition in all its forms.
Acknowledging that a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable, multilateral trading system will promote agriculture and rural development in developing countries and contribute to achieving food security and improving nutrition.
Governments, intergovernmental and regional organizations should implement national, regional and international strategies to promote the inclusive participation of farmers and fishers and fish workers, including small-scale farmers, indigenous peoples and local communities, peasants and other small-scale food producers, food systems workers, including women, in community, national, regional and international markets.
Governments should identify opportunities within food systems to achieve national and global food security and nutrition goals, monitor and measure progress against targets, and indicators set out by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the WHO 2025 Global Nutrition targets.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations and development partners, across sectors at all levels, should work to enable healthy diets and improved nutrition through sustainable food systems, strengthened policy and legal frameworks and institutional capacities that address the multiple causes and consequences of malnutrition in all its forms and food-related economic, social and environmental challenges.
Governments and intergovernmental actors should facilitate an inclusive and transparent dialogue ensuring the participation of all relevant stakeholders and actors in the food system, giving special attention to small-medium enterprises and smallholder producers and to the most affected by hunger and malnutrition in all its forms.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, and civil society organizations, indigenous peoples and local communities should encourage increased commitment to action with responsible investment from the public and private sectors, and donors to support sustainable food systems that enable healthy diets, while considering synergies and trade-offs with other policy priorities.
Governments should establish or strengthen science- and evidence-based, regulatory and context-specific policy frameworks to guide private and public sector activities related to food systems and nutrition.
Governments, also in partnership with research organizations and intergovernmental organizations, with increasing research projects, where appropriate, should work to strengthen existing national statistical and monitoring systems that capture, harmonize and disaggregate data by key socio-demographic characteristics, and where possible use, and improve the availability and quality of existing indicators, including within SDGs, across all aspects of food systems and outcomes related to food security, diets, food composition, food safety, nutritional status, and gender and other relevant social factors, for improved policy development and accountability, and better targeting of public programmes.
Governments and other stakeholders should properly safeguard personal and collective data on food systems.
Governments should invest in research and sharing of knowledge on the interconnections between food, nutritional, behavioral, economic, social, and environmental dimensions and market dynamics, to better enable the assessment of the cross-sectional impacts of the policies and programmes implemented and the complexity of the interactions between supply and demand at different scales throughout the wholesupply chain.
Governments, with the support of all relevant stakeholders including intergovernmental organizations, indigenous peoples and local communities, as appropriate, should promote investment in human, system, and institutional capacity to analyze food system information in a comprehensive manner to support the planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of programmatic actions, taking into account the need of developing interdisciplinary approaches embracing technical, economic and social issues.
Governments and relevant stakeholders should strengthen full and effective participation of indigenous peoples and local communities, in particular women, girls, marginalized groups and peoples with disabilities, in the governance of food systems and nutrition by means of dialogue, as appropriate, consultation, and by strengthening community mechanisms for inclusive participation at local, sub-national, national and regional level. For indigenous peoples this should be based on an effective and meaningful consultation, through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Governments and relevant stakeholders should support capacity building and strengthen capacities including those of indigenous peoples and local communities so that they can fully and effectively participate in formulating policies and strategies regarding food systems.
Governments, development partners, civil society and non-governmental organizations and private sector should collaborate with food producers and their organizations for them to achieve decent livelihoods and to enhance the resilience of food supply chains to climate change impacts by managing risk and building preparedness and resilience and by mitigating food supply chains negative impacts on the environment.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector, civil society and other relevant stakeholders should promote sustainable agriculture such as agroecological and other innovative approaches, at different scales in the process towards achieving sustainable food systems that enhance food security and nutrition. They also should collaborate with and support farmers and other food producers to reduce the environmental impact of food systems, enhancing also biodiversity and recognizing the positive efforts of farmers that adopt sustainable practices.
Governments should promote optimization of agricultural outputs per unit of water, soil, energy, labor and land, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and natural resource degradation (including deforestation), in accordance with their Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris Agreement, and other relevant national planning instruments.
Governments should institute, where appropriate, monitoring systems (including early warning systems), quality indices (e.g. integrated diversification and agro-biodiversity targets, soil health, water quality, farm income and food price) and other food system and dietary metrics as part of the environment and climate-related target setting policies to monitor changing conditions and the effectiveness of policy responses.
Governments, research organizations, academic institutions, and universities should promote the generation and use of science and evidence-based knowledge, including indigenous, and traditional and local knowledge, that demonstrate climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience strategies for sustainable food systems and enabling healthy diets.
Governments, farmers and their organizations, private sector and other relevant stakeholders should address soil health as central to agricultural production systems, with due attention to the FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management.
Governments should encourage the use of integrated soil fertility and nutrients management practices as well as ecosystem services productivity for sustainable production, and promote the use of sustainable land management services and agricultural practices to maintain soil biodiversity and nutrient balance, reduce soil erosion, improve water management, and promote carbon storage and sequestration.
Governments should promote and improve the sustainable management and sustainable use of water resources for agriculture and food production through, where appropriate, improved regulation, integrated water resource management at watershed scale, inclusive and participatory approaches, and enhanced water cooperation approaches that involve civil society organizations, farmer organizations, peasants and other small-scale food producers, indigenous peoples and local communities, private sector, and other relevant stakeholders, that take into account the variety of water needs across different sectors.
Governments and other relevant stakeholders should protect, conserve and sustainably use biodiversity for food and agriculture to strengthen the resilience of food systems.
Governments should recognize and respect all legitimate tenure right holders and their rights including, as appropriate and in line with national legislation, the legitimate tenure rights of indigenous peoples and local communities with customary tenure systems that exercise self-governance of land, fisheries and forests, with special attention to the provision of equitable access for women, in line with the CFS VGGT.
Governments should recognize the importance of pastoralists and sustainable rangelands management and grazing systems for nutrition, healthy ecosystems, rural livelihoods and resilient food supply chains as well as encourage low inputs pastoral systems to produce healthy animal source food that contribute to reducing poverty and hunger.
Governments should, where appropriate, budget for and integrate nutrition objectives into their national agricultural and other relevant policies to achieve healthy diets through sustainable food systems.
Governments and private sector and other relevant stakeholders should encourage and promote responsible agricultural investment, and support food producers in the adoption of sustainable production practices and in the production of diverse food that contributes to healthy diets, while ensuring a decent income, livelihoods and resilience for fishers, farmers, particularly smallholders and/or family farms, and farm workers.
Supporting and encouraging sustainable crop production practices, livestock, agroforestry, animal and fishery systems (including artisanal fisheries and aquaculture).
Governments should, where appropriate integrate urban and peri-urban agriculture and land use into national and local food systems and nutrition development strategies and programmes, as well as urban and territorial planning, as a viable input into enabling healthy diets through sustainable food systems and support stable supply of safe and nutritious food.
Governments, private sector, research centers and universities and other relevant stakeholders should promote enabling environments to assist and facilitate food producers‘ access to affordable, innovative technologies and practices, including traditional knowledge, technical assistance, skill training, inclusive and sustainable business models adapted to local needs and priorities, and information about nutrition and healthy diets through sustainable food systems within agriculture and other extension technical services/programmes, to enable them to promote sustainable production, protect biodiversity, ensure food safety, and improve the nutritional quality of foods for markets.
Governments should support market information systems that provide timely, accessible, transparent information about food-related market transactions, including enhanced tracking of current and future supply stocks and price data including for local and territorial markets, where possible and appropriate.
Governments should support agricultural economic research on topics which may include trade and impacts of government policies. Further monitoring and market studies on underreported commodities including those with a major impact on nutrition and neglected and underutilized crops should also be developed.
Governments, private sector, donors and other relevant stakeholders should invest in research, knowledge transfer and innovation for producing diversified nutritious foods, such as fruits and vegetables, legumes and pulses, whole grains and roots and tubers, seeds and nuts, and animal source foods.
Governments should promote strategies, guidelines or instruments that support appropriate measures to enable healthy diets and promote nutrition within agriculture and food supply chains taking into account WHA [World Health Assembly] Resolutions 57.17 and 66.10 as well as national legislations, contexts and capacities.
Governments, private sector, and other stakeholders should, where appropriate, invest in infrastructure (e.g. storage facilities, transport infrastructure, physical markets and market information systems) and logistical support to prevent postharvest loss and waste and support the ability of food producers, including smallholders and micro, small and medium-size enterprises to deliver diverse, perishable and safe food to local, regional, international markets in sustainable ways.
Governments, private sector, and farmers and other producers and their associations should promote minimizing food loss and waste on farms, during post-harvest storage, and throughout processing, transportation, and retail. This includes demand-driven training and capacity to improve management practices and foster the adoption of appropriate technologies.
Governments, private sector and research centers should support research, monitoring, development and scaling up the use of innovative processing technologies and practices in accordance with the three dimensions of sustainable development that can retain the nutrient content of food, minimize post-harvest nutrient losses, create, where appropriate, new value added products from food processing by-products, and promote longer-term storage of food, particularly during periods of drought, flooding, and insufficient production.
Food fortification should be evidence and science-based and could be part of nutrition-specific actions, when necessary, in specific contexts, to address micronutrient gaps of public health concern, in line with national legislations.
Public policies and programs should only promote fortification when there is a firm science and evidence base and this should not detract from long-term promotion of diverse healthy diets through sustainable food systems.
Governments, according to national contexts, should foster strategies, guidelines, and instruments for nutrition labelling and support appropriate evidence and science-based measures, including considering diverse science and evidence-based FOPL schemes, (which could include interpretive and informative labeling), taking into account Codex Alimentarius Commission standards, guidelines and recommendations and other agreed relevant international and national standards, and marketing, to help consumers to make informed and healthy choices with special emphasis on the impact they have on children.
Private sector should contribute to public health goals including those set out in the 2030 Agenda aligned with national legislations, regulations, priorities and laws and with national food-based dietary guidelines by producing and promoting nutritious and safe food that contribute to a healthy diet and are produced sustainably, increasing and preserving nutrient content and should make efforts to reformulate foods, when necessary, by reducing the content of nutrients of public health concern.
Governments, where appropriate, should encourage private sector food actors, including local private sector, to work towards more environmentally sustainable and safe packaging of products.
Governments should ensure that the right to work is respected, protected and fulfilled for all farmers and other food producers and workers (including migrants and undocumented workers), that these populations are protected and safe, and that there is no unnecessary burden which could negatively impact their health status, including involvement of children in harmful tasks (e.g. child labour).
Governments should provide, and intergovernmental organizations, private sector and other relevant stakeholders should promote, where applicable, social protection programmes to food producers and workers helping them to be food secure, have decent income and wages and sufficient livelihoods, and access and afford healthy diets and adequate health services.
Private sector should improve the nutritional status of its workers and ensure their access to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation and to nutritious foods in the workplace, facilitate access to nutrition-related health services and encourage the establishment of facilities for breastfeeding.
Governments, private sector and other relevant stakeholders should promote the health and wellbeing of food system workers, including seasonal and migrant workers, and adopt measures, including early warning systems, to prevent spreading of infectious diseases, including providing protective equipment by ensuring appropriate working conditions and, where appropriate, living conditions including for seasonal and migrant workers.
Workers should be trained on how infectious disease spreads and how they can protect themselves and their coworkers and the food and the materials they handle.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector and other relevant stakeholders should engage, encourage and empower youth, acknowledging their diversity, to be actively involved in food systems by enhancing their access to land, natural resources, inputs, tools, information, extension and advisory services, financial services, education, training, markets, and promote their inclusion in decision-making processes in accordance with national legislation and regulations.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector, non-governmental organizations, and communities should invest in appropriate vocational and skill trainings, formal education, and mentorship programmes for youth to increase their capacity and access to decent work, employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, as well as in demand side enabling policies and instruments to create decentwork opportunities, to stimulate and be drivers toward sustainable food systems for the next generation.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations and private sector should promote development, rural-urban linkages, and access to information, social innovations, resource hubs, and new technologies and practices for youth along food supply chains that enhance the sustainability of food systems, improve nutrition and support social enterprises and of youth entrepreneurship (particularly in countries experiencing high rates of youth internal and external migration).
Governments, intergovernmental organizations and private sector should, in accordance to national legislations, enable youth active engagement and participation in policy-making across sectors and support the individual and collective capacities to shape food systems by recognizing their agency.
Governments should improve the availability of and access to safe and nutritious food that contributes to healthy diets through sustainable food systems, and ensure that is has a positive impact on the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security, including through trade that should be in accordance with a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable,multilateral trading system under the World Trade Organization.
Governments should take into consideration the guidance developed by FAO and WHO to ensure that in times of crisis (e.g. pandemics), the integrity and resilience of food systems are maintained, and adequate and safe food supplies are available and accessible for all people.
In times of crisis, governments should recognize the essential nature of food production, distribution, processing and to keep markets, including local markets, and trade corridors open, to ensure workers’ rights and to maintain continuous functioning of critical aspects of food systems in all countries.
Governments should take equity and equality into consideration when acting to address food environments and ensure members of vulnerable communities, indigenous peoples and local communities, peasants, pastoralists, small-scale fisher folks, agricultural and food workers, rural and urban women and youth, people with disabilities, and people facing constraints due to age and illness, have sufficient access to diverse food that contribute to healthy diets.
Governments should minimize barriers so that people can grow, transport, preserve, purchase, order or otherwise access diverse types of foods, including fresh and seasonal foods, that contribute to healthy diets through sustainable food systems in a given food environment.
Governments should examine measures to encourage farmers and fishers markets, mobile food retailers, street food vendors and other retailers that sell a variety of foods, both locally grown and globally sourced, that contribute to healthy diets through sustainable food systems.
Governments, in consultation with consumer associations and local residents, can promote local food retailers and markets to increase the number, variety, and sale of sustainably produced safe and nutritious foods, both locally grown and globally sourced, that contribute to healthy diets through sustainable food systems.
Instituting rural and urban planning policies, facilitating internet access and innovative service delivery, policies and instruments that encourage retail outlets and local, street and wet markets to sell a variety of safe, affordable nutritious foods that contribute to healthy diets through sustainable food systems, and that promote, as and when appropriate, local production, including home, community, and school food production and gardens, as well as national and international markets where appropriate.
Creating local food policy councils to give residents a voice in how best to improve availability, access and affordability of healthy diets in their communities, giving special attention to those people that are most affected by hunger and malnutrition in all its forms.
Governments should, where appropriate to national circumstances and consistent with international commitments and obligations, take measures, including policies and instruments, to support and promote initiatives that improve and seek to ensure the affordability and accessibility of healthy diets through sustainable food systems and to promote policies and programmes aiming at preventing or reducingoverweight and obesity.
Governments, with the support of intergovernmental organizations, the private sector and other relevant stakeholders, should strengthen public procurement systems by ensuring healthy diets are available, accessible, affordable and convenient in public settings and institutions, including kindergartens and other childcare facilities, schools, hospitals, foodbanks, government offices and workplaces, military bases andprisons, nursing homes, and care settings, in line with national food-based dietary guidelines, and engaging with, where available, smallholders and family farmers and vulnerable local food producers.
Governments should link the provision of healthy school meals through sustainable food systems with clear nutritional objectives, aligned with national food-based dietary guidelines and adapted to the needs of different age groups, with special attention to those most affected by hunger and malnutrition.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector and other relevant stakeholders should consider promoting home grown school meals, where food served in schools and other child care facilities is procured, where appropriate, from smallholder and/or family farmers to support local communities and provide educational opportunities for students.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector and other relevant stakeholders should facilitate the affordability of healthy diets through sustainable food systems for poor households through social protection programmes, such as vouchers for nutritious foods, cash transfers, school feeding programmes or other community meals programmes.
Governments and intergovernmental organizations should promote the readiness and resilience of social protection programmes to cope with pandemics and other systemic shocks that negatively impact food security and nutrition.
Governments, consumers, farmers and other food producers organizations should promote the availability of safe and nutritious and sustainably produced food that contributes to healthy diets including nutritious and sustainably produced food from smallholders and family farmers and fishers markets, social organizations and other community-building efforts that engage people around local food cultures.
Governments should acknowledge and monitor the influential roles of the internet, social media, and online marketing of foods, and should encourage media companies to promote nutritious, safe and sustainably produced foods that contribute to healthy diets on social media spheres.
Governments should recognize the growing trend of food purchased online and consumed away from home (including street food) and could, as appropriate to national circumstances, promote policies to encourage restaurants and online outlets to offer prepared dishes made from nutritious, safe and sustainably produced foods that contribute to healthy diets, display information about food on menus (i.e.calories, product composition, and other nutritional content as well as other relevant science and evidence-based information such as related to sustainable production and consumption, based on, where appropriate, indicators of 2030 Agenda), avoid food loss and waste, and respect food safety regulations.
Governments should promote food safety within their food systems policies and develop science-based and context-specific food safety policies and programmes that consider actions across the entire food systems – concerning production, processing, handling, preparation, storage, and distribution of food.
Governments should develop, establish, strengthen and enforce, as appropriate, food safety control systems, including reviewing, adopting, updating and enforcing national food safety legislation and regulations to ensure that food producers and suppliers throughout the food supply chain operate safely.
Governments and the FAO/WHO International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) should participate in, share and contribute, where appropriate, data and evidence to official international networks that exchange food safety information, including the surveillance of foodborne hazards and disease outbreaks and management of emergencies to improve food safety across a range of issues such as water quality, pesticide residues, food-borne pathogens, naturally occurring toxins, contaminants including heavy metals, pesticides residues, residues of veterinary drugs, residues of antimicrobials, food additives, pathogenic bacteria, viruses, toxins, parasites, zoonoses, and fraud/adulteration of food products.
Governments, private sector and other relevant stakeholders should implement a One Health Approach to food safety along the entire food and feed supply chain, where appropriate, recognizing the interconnection between food safety and human, plant, animal and environmental health particularly to prevent and mitigate all food-borne illnesses, including those from zoonotic origin, and other food-borne diseases.
Governments, in collaboration with intergovernmental organizations, should continue to develop and implement science and risk-based national plans taking into account the “Antimicrobial resistance: A manual for developing national action plans” to combat antimicrobial resistance in livestock, aquaculture, and in plants, including in feed production, recognizing and using international standards, guidelines and recommendations.
Governments, private sector, intergovernmental organizations, development partners and other relevant stakeholders should promote and enhance traceability in food supply chains, early contamination detection, and leverage the opportunities that new technologies offer for traceability solutions.
Investment by governments, private sector and other relevant stakeholders should support training for food producers, handlers and processors to implement national, science and evidence-based, risk-based measures that can provide safe food while retaining their nutrient content.
Governments are invited to acknowledge, and adapt legislations, regulations and guidelines, to assess and manage emerging and potential health risks as well as possible benefits for food security and nutrition including for new food products created by emerging technologies as appropriate taking into account, other relevant factors in the risk management process as described in Codex Alimentarius Commission Procedural Manual, scientific risk assessments and Codex Alimentarius Commission standards, guidelines and recommendations, where available, as with any new food product.
Governments, in cooperation with scientific institutions, should support and develop, where appropriate, evidence-based food-based dietary guidelines for different age groups and people with special dietary requirements that define context-specific healthy diets by taking into account social, cultural, ancestral, scientific, economic, traditional, ecological, geographical and environmental drivers.
Governments should take approaches that reduce the impact on children of inappropriate marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages as recommended in resolution WHA 63.14, in accordance with relevant multilaterally agreed rules and national legislation, where applicable and safeguarding for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interest.
Governments and other stakeholders should protect, promote and support exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary feeding up to two years and beyond, as well as encourage the establishment of milk banks and protect and support breastfeeding for working mothers, supporting and promoting maternity protection and paid parental leave.
Governments should implement measures or national mechanisms related to the marketing of commercial infant formula and other breast milk substitutes aimed at giving effect to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes, as well as other WHO evidence-based recommendations, where applicable, in line with national legislations.
Governments should promote and support science and evidence-based food and nutrition labelling, including considering diverse science and evidence-based FOPL (front-of-package labeling) schemes, (which could include interpretive and informative labelling), to support healthy diets.
Food labelling should include safeguards for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interest and be aligned with national public health and nutrition policies and food regulations.
Governments should develop policies to encourage private sector to produce more nutritious foods and design food outlets, including markets, restaurants, and other places where food is sold or served, that encourage the placement of safe and nutritious and sustainably produced foods that contribute to healthy diets.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector, civil society and non-governmental organizations and other relevant stakeholders, including medical and health practitioners, should promote the integration of science-based nutrition education and counseling practices in different settings, with safeguards for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interest, including for populations participating in maternal and child nutrition programmes and information programmes based on food-based dietary guidelines, and other policies related to food systems.
The inclusion of nutrition education and information within agriculture extension technical packages should be considered as a way to support producers in increasing the production of nutritious foods.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector, civil society and non-governmental organizations and other relevant stakeholders, including medical and health practitioners, should promote a range of activities such as social and behavior change communication (SBCC), food and nutrition education, interpersonal communication and community dialogues, and social marketing initiatives to promote breastfeeding, indigenous and traditional food cultures as a way to positively influence knowledge, attitudes and social norms, and coordinate messaging on nutrition and sustainable consumption and production across a variety of communication channels to reach multiple levels of society (e.g. mass media campaigns).
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, private sector and other relevant stakeholders should support the education of all food system actors to prioritize the reduction of food loss and waste.
Governments, civil society organizations, private sector, intergovernmental organizations, academia and other relevant stakeholders should use science and evidence-based as well as cultural, traditional and ancestral knowledge resources to promote and support education and knowledge of healthy diets, sustainable food systems, nutrition, physical activity, diversified production systems, food loss and waste prevention, intrahousehold food distribution, food safety, optimal breastfeeding and, where needed, complementary feeding, taking into consideration cultural and social norms and adapting to different audiences and contexts, including those of indigenous peoples with their voluntary consent on the sharing of their own knowledge as well as participating in broader knowledge and education.
Safeguards for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interest should be put in place.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society organizations, private sector, community leaders, social workers, health professionals, academia and other relevant stakeholders should encourage food cultures, culinary skills and nutrition education and recognize the importance of food in cultural heritage across communities.
Governments should, appropriately, protect and promote the knowledge that indigenous peoples and local communities have with regard to local traditions, ancestral customs and methods of sustainably producing food, preparing, and preserving local and traditional food that has nutritional and environmental benefits, promotes food safety, and improves livelihoods and enhances social conditions.
Universities, schools, technical and vocational education and training centres as well as teaching schools should institute nutrition education curricula for students on the areas of food studies including food technology, health and agriculture during their training.
Governments, civil society organizations, private sector, intergovernmental organizations, universities, schools, organizations of small-scale producers and workers, communication media and other relevant stakeholders should promote nutrition knowledge and culinary skills among school-age children, youth and adults (including promoting communal mealtimes, socializing around food, consuming healthy diets, and reducing food waste) in a variety of settings, including safeguards for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interest.
Governments, with the support of intergovernmental organizations upon request, should, as appropriate, implement comprehensive school and pre-school food and nutrition policies, review education curricula to incorporate nutrition and sustainability principles and sustainable practices, involve communities, especially local communities including, where possible, small-scale food producers and workers and their organizations, in promoting and creating healthy food environments and healthy diets through sustainable food systems in schools, kindergartens and other childcare facilities, and support school health and nutrition services.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector, civil society and non-governmental organizations, small-scale food producers and workers and their organizations, and other relevant stakeholders should support food and nutrition dialogues with indigenous peoples and local communities, farmer field schools and agriculture extension services by sharing the knowledge, experience and insights of individuals who are not usually regarded as members of the nutrition community (e.g. community and religious leaders, chefs, food systems suppliers, retailers and consumers, youth leaders, farmers and food producers, young entrepreneurs, small-scale food producers and workers and their organizations, health care workers, mayors and local communities).
Governments should ensure equal opportunities and promote equal participation between women and men in policy decision-making, supporting women especially in rural context, and ensuring gender equality in leadership roles in decision making bodies – parliaments, ministries and local authorities at district and community levels.
Governments and stakeholders should foster strategies to engage with men and boys to support women and girls in nutrition as a joint responsibility.
Governments should promote an enabling environment to generate social, economic and cultural changes towards gender equality with specific gender responsive policies, programmes, institutions which should include adaptation of public services to support women, and advocacy campaigns to deal with the various forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls, particularly in rural areas.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector, civil society, particularly women’s organizations and other relevant stakeholders should promote the empowerment of women and girls by supporting equitable and equal access to primary and secondary education, literacy programmes, comprehensive health services and other social services to increase household nutritional status.
Governments and other stakeholders should attach a great importance and are encouraged to promote gender equality and create the necessary conditions for women to fully realize their potential, in line with national legislation and universally agreed human rights instruments.
Governments, in accordance with national legislations, should ensure women’s equal tenure rights and promote their equal access to and control over productive land, natural resources, inputs, productive tools, and access to education, training, markets, and information in line with the CFS VGGT.
Governments, private sector, intergovernmental organizations and other relevant stakeholders should enhance women’s roles in agriculture by promoting their participation and decision-making over what and how they choose to produce crops/food.
Women should be offered equal access to extension and advisory services for crops and animal products that they produce or process, capacity-building to engage with traders, financial services (e.g. credit and savings mechanisms), and entrepreneurial opportunities across food systems.
Governments, non-governmental organizations, private sector and other relevant stakeholders should promote and increase access of women to time saving technologies that could help improve their livelihoods.
Governments should promote the design of context-specific policies to reduce digital gaps among rural women and promote cooperation schemes to facilitate rural women’s access to the application of digital tools, digital infrastructure, and technological solutions to improve their productive activities.
Governments, private sector, civil society and other relevant stakeholders should facilitate women’s equal access to entrepreneurship and employment opportunities across food systems and related activities, leveraging existing business platforms to generate adequate income, as well as increase women’s participation in decision-making on the use of household income and opportunities to build and manage savings.
Business management training, decision-making skill development, scaling of financial services and products both accessible and relevant to women’s needs, and tools to help men and women strengthen their intra-household communication.
Governments, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, development partners and other relevant stakeholders should acknowledge and advance the nutritional well-being of women and girls throughout the lifecycle, including through the provision of health, nutrition and other essential services.
Promoting and supporting that national development strategies are informed by participatory gender and age analyses, and that women and girls throughout the lifecycle, with compromised nutritional status and higher levels of deprivation, access gender-responsive socialprotection programmes and benefits.
Governments and other key stakeholder should acknowledge and vale women’s crucial contributions as caregivers, in agriculture, food production an preparation, recognizing women significant time and workload commitments, including unpaid care work and domestic chores at the household level. This should be addressed through the effective implementation of gender-sensitive and transformative policies, social protection programmes and other benefits, and the promotion of equitable sharing of domestic chores.
Governments should create an enabling policy framework, as appropriate, and supportive practices to protect and support breastfeeding, ensuring that decisions to breastfeed do not result in women losing their economic security or any of their rights. This should include promoting and implementing policies and programmes ensuring maternity protection and paid parental leave and removing workplace-related barriers to optimal breastfeeding (lack of breaks, facilities, and services).
Governments and intergovernmental organizations should pay particular attention, to protection issues, and ensure safe and unhindered access to safe, nutritious food and nutritional support to the most vulnerable groups and implement community based nutrition education activities to address malnutrition in humanitarian contexts and should foster access to productive resources and to markets that are remunerative and beneficial to smallholders.
Food should never be used as an instrument for political or economic pressure.
Governments, parties involved in conflicts, international humanitarian organizations and other relevant stakeholders should, where appropriate, ensure safe and unhindered access of all members of affected and at-risk populations to food security and nutrition assistance, in both acute and protracted crises, consistent with internationally recognized humanitarian principles, as anchored in Geneva Convention of1949 and other UNGA Resolutions after 1949.
Governments, with the support of intergovernmental organizations and international assistance and cooperation where appropriate, should ensure safe and unhindered access to safe and nutritious food and nutritional support for refugees, internally displaced people, host communities, and asylum seekers in their territory, in accordance with governments’ obligations under relevant international agreed instruments.
Governments should have, in accordance with national priorities and capacities, emergency preparedness plans in place to ensure food security and nutrition of the most vulnerable and marginalized groups as well as emergency nutrition surveillance with appropriate indicators during crises such as epidemics and pandemics, conflicts and disasters including those induced by climate change.
Governments, all parties involved in conflicts, disasters including those induced by climate change, epidemics and pandemics, and food assistance, including intergovernmental organizations, should underline and support that food security and nutrition assessments and analyses include appropriate safeguards for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interests, are undertaken throughout a crisis to inform food assistance and nutrition response as well as any components of the local food system requiring rehabilitation or improvement.
Governments should acknowledge nutrition as an essential need and humanitarian assistance should aim to meet and monitor nutritional requirements of the affected population, particularly the most vulnerable to malnutrition. Any food items provided should be fit for purpose, of appropriate nutritional quality and quantity, be safe and acceptable. Food should conform to the food standards of the host country’s government.
Governments and intergovernmental organizations should support social protection mechanisms and programmes to prevent and manage wasting, that include safe, nutritious and, where possible, locally produced food, and that achieve adequate coverage during times of crisis.
Food fortification can play a complementary role in humanitarian contexts and should be evidence-based, and context-specific.
Social protection mechanisms should be in support of local markets and accessibility of nutritious food in the longer term.
Governments should implement policies on infant and young child feeding (IYCF) in emergencies including the protection of optimal breastfeeding practices and, together with intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations, and should support the promotion, coordination and implementation of such policies on IYCF practices, and promoted during humanitarian crises.
Governments and intergovernmental organizations should support, when implementing cash and voucher assistance, that the minimum expenditure basket and transfer value promotes, nutritious and safe food, if possible, sustainably produced, that is preferably locally, or regionally procured and sufficient to provide a healthy diet for all stages of the lifecycle consulting existing guidance from WFP and other UN relevant intergovernmental organizations.
Governments in partnership with intergovernmental and other relevant organizations should, where appropriate, undertake food system analysis, develop and use early warning systems, climate information services, and food and agriculture information systems, including food price monitoring systems, that detect and monitor threats to food production, availability and access as well as food safety hazards and tampering.
Early warning systems should be integrated into broader food analysis systems including the monitoring of the availability and affordability of nutritious foods that contribute to healthy diets through sustainable food systems at the local level.
Governments and intergovernmental organizations should, as appropriate, and in line with national legislation, invest in disaster risk reduction measures that benefit those most at risk/need.
Productive assets should be protected from severe weather and climate impacts and other disasters in a way that strengthens the resilience of affected populations and their ability to cope with shocks due to conflicts and disasters including those induced by climate change as well as economic shocks.
Intergovernmental organizations and development partners should, with the consent of governments, where appropriate, involve local non-governmental organizations, private sector and other relevant stakeholders, including appropriate safeguards for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interests, in the implementation of humanitarian food assistance and livelihood programmes to support economic recovery and development, strengthen sustainable local food systems and foster the ability of smallholders and/or family farmers to access resources to bolster production and markets.
Governments should undertake efforts to ensure access to safe and unhindered access to safe drinking water for all, including those in emergency situations, and reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity.
Governments and private sector, in accordance with relevant national and international laws, should recognize the role that farmer and worker organizations play in promoting the health and wellbeing of farm and food system workers.
Support the optimal combination and reconciliation of family and work life, including through economic empowerment of women, social protection programmes, including among others child and family support payments, and parental leave, establishment of minimum wages, reduction of the gender pay gap, and quality job and pensions as well as redistribution of unpaid care work.
IFAD Rural Development Report 2021: Transforming Food Systems for Rural Prosperity
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
2021
IFAD
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Focus the food policy agenda on tailoring public investment programmes and government procurement, combined with responsible private-sector innovations and market incentives to diversify diets and make food choices healthier and more sustainable.
Reduce critical nutrition gaps by combining food (quality and price) information systems, measures for guaranteeing stable market access and gender-targeted food schemes. Depending on the context, targeting specific groups, such as minorities and indigenous peoples, may be needed.
Steer private-sector investments towards the production and marketing of high-quality food items through varied types of local food outlets that are close to consumers, provide convenience and maintain short rural-urban linkages.
Use market-based incentives and innovation programmes to support poor people’s food purchasing power and women’s bargaining power – and enable them to make better-informed food choices through training, labelling, communication and digitalization.
Promote the establishment of a supportive food environment that uses legal and regulatory regimes (with grades and standards), as well as fiscal measures, to support affordable food prices in favour of nutrient-dense foods; to enhance investments in improving food safety in competitive and transparent food markets (formal and informal); and to shape social norms and practices in favour of nutrient-rich foods and diversified diets that can be sourced from local producers and processors.
Game-changing yet realistic solutions are needed to drive the transition towards healthy and sustainable consumption patterns in a culturally appropriate manner.
Support should be given to the promotion of sustainable smallholder livestock production systems in low- and middle-income countries.
Support a shift in consumer demand patterns among poor people who are net buyers of food towards a better, affordable portfolio of nutrient-rich foods.
Novel protein development can be taken to scale through public-private investments. The potential is obvious, but it needs to gain momentum. Novel protein production can add greatly to traditional animal-derived proteins at a low environmental cost.
Reduce food losses based on the objective of doing so, and on product group and value chain segment, by combining focused technical interventions with increased services for agrologistics, finance and training, bearing in mind that the evidence base is still shaky.
Create opportunities for smallholder farmers to diversify, both for income and for improved on-farm food supplies. Smallholders should be offered extension support for a wider range of crops – along with market access, in cases where diversification is beneficial for income growth. Approaches should vary with a food system’s type and stage of development: interventions for a traditional food system need to differ from those for an emerging food system.
Enable waste recovery from food and excreta in households and neighbourhoods through a combination of awareness-raising, public or private collection services and behaviour change incentives, within the boundaries of food safety and public health.
In creating opportunities to diversify, attention to women and youth is important. This implies the promotion of more equal access to productive assets between generations and between men and women.
Enhance resilience to external shocks through the diversification of production and of markets.
Enhance a transformation towards sustainable production based on principles of circularity to move away from maximizing agricultural output to optimizing natural resource use.
Diversify food production and the composition of trade – a strategy that is more available to countries with greater agricultural potential.
Inform this shift in production with a research and development (R&D) agenda that focuses on providing evidence and advice – and support a major expansion of public and private agricultural extension services to accelerate the use of digital technologies by smallholders.
Protocols and simple input-output models should be developed that can easily map animal and animal-sources foods production systems in terms of their degree of circularity. Such models can inform accounts of pathways towards more circular food systems.
It will be necessary to synchronize the promotion of more pluriform and digital outreach through extension services and midstream service providers. Efforts to reach the enormous and diverse community of smallholders must be intensified, and all available instruments deployed.
Mechanisms should be put in place that create incentives for markets and corporations to provide animal-sourced foods for healthy and sustainable diets. Such mechanisms can be based on national dietary guidelines.
Facilitate the transition from linear to circular food systems through a basket-of-options approach.
Investments are needed in educating the younger generation on healthy diets, with unbiased information for consumers. Awareness-raising should focus on both the pros and the cons of consuming animal-sources foods in various quantities.
Support nutrient recycling in production and food systems with knowledge development, innovation programmes and market-support measures.
Integrate regional markets to develop comparative advantages in food production – a useful strategy when domestic resources are constrained.
Enhance competitiveness and improve market access for local farmers and SMEs.
Develop grades and standards, which are critical to support inclusive food systems
Greater integration of sustainable production criteria into trade practices will require both exporting and importing countries to embrace more commonly established sustainability standards to declare the standards binding and to include them in bilateral or regional trade agreements.
Enable midstream SMEs to raise agricultural productivity. In addition to midstream SMEs’ role in supporting smallholders in gaining access to quality inputs and good agricultural practices, downstream investments in processing and packaging facilities, transport logistics and cold-chain management help to guarantee continual production and consistent product quality. SMEs are therefore considered key multipliers for investment in domestic and regional markets.
Facilitate midstream SMEs in contributing to food quality and diet diversity.
Incorporate social and environmental externalities, and reinforce non-market values in trade policies.
In addition, engaging SMEs in food fortification programmes, public food distribution systems (vouchers) and school feeding programmes contributes to overall healthier diets.
Other public support to midstream SMEs includes financial incentives to comply with food safety standards and facilities to implement technical assistance programmes.
Improve labour market functioning and the business climate. Further development of agrifood midstream SMEs can support competitive conditions and contribute to a better functioning labour market.
Technical and vocational training provided to youth, adolescents and women has proved helpful in strengthening entrepreneurial activities and enabling entry into self-employment activities. Further public efforts should seek to reduce business start-up costs and improve the business climate.
Enhance midstream contributions for food system sustainability through long-term delivery contracts that support mutual relationships and co-investments with upstream or downstream partners.
ICT approaches (that is, the use of mobile phones, internet and/or data processing for market information) for smart chain integration and integrated quality logistics based on multi-stakeholder cooperation can speed up the transition to more resilient and circular food systems.
Provide market incentives for SME investments to strengthen more circular and sustainable food systems. Midstream SMEs generate substantial environmental externalities through agrochemical use and through unresolved trade-offs between packaging materials and food waste. Investments in better equipment, technical innovations and knowledge can help midstream SMEs meet sustainability standards.
Promote effective public-private interfaces to support a conducive food environment, based on clear guidance and behavioural change communication, to encourage moderate UPFs intake by disadvantaged groups and prevent excessive UPF intake, especially through global self-regulation by firms engaged in UPF supply and marketing.
Base supply chain governance on social norms, public policies and private investment. Because SMEs face challenges in standards compliance, transforming food systems requires a combination of public policies, private investments and social networks to foster adherence to norms – whether for product quality, food safety, decent labour conditions or sustainable practices. Investments are needed to improve midstream SMEs’ market access, to build their human capital and to expand their financial opportunities – all within a highly informal network-based structure
The “hidden middle” of midstream agrifood enterprises needs support to fill the “missing middle” in agrifood support services. Beyond improved access to material services, shared norms – for the establishment of mutual trust, reliable transactions and transparent relationships – are critical to reduce risks of collusion and exclusion. Food system transformation will succeed only if SMEs can overcome discriminatory norms and practices.
Policies to steer the production and consumption of processed foods and UPFs need to combine local engagement in small-scale business, affordable technologies, and supportive price and non-price incentives. In the earlier stages, attention should focus mostly on business development and market entry facilities. In the later stages, taxation and legal regulation are required to safeguard an equitable and balanced food processing sector.
The most advanced food systems need to embrace engagement in public-private partnerships and reliance on voluntary standards as leading governance principles.
Facilitate small-scale local food processing industries that provide new bottom-of-the-pyramid business and employment opportunities – especially for women and youth – and that increase access to a wider variety of food products.
Support the moderate intake of processed foods and UPFs through incentives for responsible business innovation processes and standard setting facilities for the food environment – because producers are most likely to respond positively to a combination of enabling and constraining incentives.
Increasing the access that small-scale producers have to productive assets, including knowledge and market linkages, cuts across all food system types.
Synthesis of Independent Dialogues
United Nations
2021
Blue Marble Evaluation Network
Recommendation
Thematic Area
National governments are primary actors to drive transformation and should have responsibility and accountability.
Engage collaboratively in partnerships.
Amplify and empower historically excluded voices with special attention to and engagement of women, Indigenous Peoples, smallholder farmers and other small-scale producers, and youth.
Guarantee the right to food. Conceptualizing food as a right, rather than merely a market-based commodity, would provide a unified and universal framework for food systems transformation.
Support nature-positive solutions by going beyond reducing damage to food ecosystems and, instead, making ecosystems thriving and resilient. This includes several sustainable approaches to agricultural production and human consumption of food: agroecology, regenerative agriculture, and organic farming, among other related approaches.
Transformation of food systems means major, significant, deep, and broad changes beyond piecemeal reforms, incremental change, and narrowly focused projects and programs.
Educate about food systems transformation. Education can assist in shifting perspectives and revising problematic narratives.
Sustainability entails humanity and nature thriving together, with resilience as the capacity to regenerate and adapt. Resilience supports sustainability.
Innovate and integrate what is already working. Change what needs to be changed, innovate, and adapt but also identify, keep, and build on what is working.
Treat everyone as a stakeholder in food systems. An extension of treating everyone as a stakeholder is valuing diversity and engaging inclusively which are essential to achieve equity.
Align and integrate coalitions and solutions.
Ensure openness and transparency.
Act with urgency.
Facilitate conflict resolution and negotiate trade-offs. Spotlighting the need for conflict resolution and trade-offs came with recognition that the urgency of food systems transformation means that disagreements must not become bottlenecks that stop the transition to more sustainable and equitable systems.
Build global transformation momentum across systems.
Learn and adapt through ongoing evaluation.
Generate financial resources sufficient to accelerate transformation. Massive investments will be needed to transform food systems.
Promoting Youth Engagement and Employment In Agriculture and Food Systems
High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE)
2021
HLPE
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Ensure the realization of the human right to food and the right to work in safe and healthy workingconditions for all young people and guarantee freedom from discrimination based on origin,nationality, race, colour, descent, sex, sexual orientation, language, culture, marital status, property,disability, age, political or other opinion, religion, birth, or economic, social or other status.
Implement existing global policy instruments, engage with ongoing initiatives which support policy processes that explicitly include youth as a locus of action related to well-being, food security, land rights and food systems development, and create accountability mechanisms in legislation for all of the above.
Support youth participation and leadership in rural, urban and rural-urban organizations (including workers, farmers, fishers, cooperatives and women’s organizations), incentivize union affiliation for young people, and remove barriers to participation for effective social dialogue on holistic food systems interventions.
Recognize the multiple and diverse voices that young people can bring to sustainable food systems transformations; guarantee and encourage equal, non-discriminatory and active participation of youth in formal governance mechanisms on food security and nutrition and in other decision-making fora at all levels (e.g. civil society, private sector, CFS, national and local policy making spaces).
Enhance standards of living and reduce vulnerability for youth through human rights-based social protection and safety nets in an equitable approach that includes gender and social inclusion.
Engage youth in research related to sustainable food systems and resource conservation, and strengthen opportunities for youth to participate in community-based research partnerships through the development of methodologies that integrate diverse ways of knowing and communicating.
Invest in digital infrastructure and complementary nondigital infrastructure in rural and remote areas to ensure rural connectivity; digitize the activities of public agricultural bodies; and build the digital skills of public sector workers to support change.
Incentivize the establishment and functioning of cooperatives and other organizations to facilitate young farmers’ access to productive assets such as tools, machinery, farming and fishing equipment, storage and cooling facilities, processing and post-harvest equipment, and new, adaptable technologies.
Ensure youth have access to basic infrastructure and services (sanitation, formal and informal education, health services, infrastructure, energy, information and communication technology and broadband access, extension services) in the rural-urban continuum to guarantee good standards of living for themselves and their children.
Implement comprehensive active labour market policies to increase youth employability and enhance their employment outcomes in food systems through a combination of interventions such as job search assistance, employment services, training and skills development, job matching, entrepreneurship coaching and incubators, in conjunction with demand-side measures to create employment opportunities.
Promote the development and availability of affordable and inclusive financial services (direct funds, favourable interest rates, cash transfers, targeted subsidies, microcredit and other credit programmes, start-up capital, insurance) and advisory services (extension, training) tailored to the needs of young farmers and other own-account workers in food systems.
Ensure youth-oriented policies take cross-cutting (intersectional) relationships and hierarchies into account, providing additional supports to improve equity and resources across generation, gender, class, culture, ethnicity and citizenship status.
Recognize the multiple and diverse voices that young people can bring to sustainable food systems transformations; guarantee and encourage equal, non-discriminatory and active participation of youth in formal governance mechanisms on food security and nutrition and in other decision-making fora at all levels (e.g. civil society, private sector, CFS, national and local policy making spaces).
Reform vocational training curricula to develop community-education-business partnerships based on collaborative assessments of local community needs, focusing on the entry points of most interest to youth, such as agroecological production, nutrition and dietetics, food value chains, marketing, and food systems education.
National and regional governments, civil society and private sector mechanisms should regularly review and renew youth-targeted policies for education, engagement and employment in food systems, building on the results and lessons learned from improved data sources and earlier interventions.
Use incentives to promote agroecological and other innovative practices in food systems technologies, practices and organizational modalities with the explicit intent to generate new, decent jobs and enhance the quality of existing jobs for youth.
Improve shared public infrastructure (irrigation, processing and packaging facilities, food safety measures, physical and virtual market spaces, supportive zoning and regulation, roads that link urban and rural markets, and start-up funds) for informal, newly emerging and alternative markets that promote short food supply chains to improve income and lower barriers to entry for youth producers, entrepreneurs and traders.
Support youth entrepreneurship in both individual and collective enterprises through innovative social finance and resource distribution, including through the provision of mentorship, land and infrastructure sharing opportunities, and granting programmes.
Ensure that employment and labour market policies and labour demand interventions, including public employment programmes, explicitly target young people. These policies not only can contribute to creating jobs for youth but can also directly support transitions to sustainable food systems by restoring the natural resource base, strengthening social and physical infrastructure, and contributing to territorial markets and food security.
Recognize and create an enabling environment for youth pluriactivity in food systems. Provide holistic opportunities for dignified engagement and decent work in collectives and as individuals, whether as entrepreneurs, wage labourers, or autonomous or own-account workers.
Meet the specific food and nutrition needs of children and adolescents, including through school-feeding, public nutrition and nutrition-sensitive agriculture combined with food literacy education.
Develop the digital skills and capacities of young workers, as well as of those transitioning from school to work, in sustainable and innovative approaches for urban, peri-urban and rural agriculture.
Improve shared public infrastructure (irrigation, processing and packaging facilities, food safety measures, physical and virtual market spaces, supportive zoning and regulation, roads that link urban and rural markets, and start-up funds) for informal, newly emerging and alternative markets that promote short food supply chains to improve income and lower barriers to entry for youth producers, entrepreneurs and traders.
Reform vocational training curricula to develop community-education-business partnerships based on collaborative assessments of local community needs, focusing on the entry points of most interest to youth, such as agroecological production, nutrition and dietetics, food value chains, marketing, and food systems education.
Ensure youth have access to basic infrastructure and services (sanitation, formal and informal education, health services, infrastructure, energy, information and communication technology and broadband access, extension services) in the rural-urban continuum to guarantee good standards of living for themselves and their children.
Provide supportive legal measures and regulation to facilitate the intergenerational transfer of natural and productive resources and other food systems-related enterprises (e.g., processing, retail, distribution, food literacy and nutrition education) by supporting succession and start-ups.
Provide support and insurance for community-based collective impact investment and cooperative and flexible financing programmes to support youth-led enterprises.
Support the provision of youth-sensitive and youth-specific rural and urban advisory and extension services including through new information-sharing platforms.
Enhance standards of living and reduce vulnerability for youth through human rights-based social protection and safety nets in an equitable approach that includes gender and social inclusion.
Create a supportive policy environment for youth-led start-up initiatives (e.g. tax breaks, facilitated access to financial instruments and emerging technologies, incubation hubs that help youth build their capacity to better engage markets and value-added activities of different types).
Incentivize the establishment and functioning of cooperatives and other organizations to facilitate young farmers’ access to productive assets such as tools, machinery, farming and fishing equipment, storage and cooling facilities, processing and post-harvest equipment, and new, adaptable technologies.
National and regional governments, civil society and private sector mechanisms should regularly review and renew youth-targeted policies for education, engagement and employment in food systems, building on the results and lessons learned from improved data sources and earlier interventions.
Promote the development and availability of affordable and inclusive financial services (direct funds, favourable interest rates, cash transfers, targeted subsidies, microcredit and other credit programmes, start-up capital, insurance) and advisory services (extension, training) tailored to the needs of young farmers and other own-account workers in food systems.
Recognize the multiple and diverse voices that young people can bring to sustainable food systems transformations; guarantee and encourage equal, non-discriminatory and active participation of youth in formal governance mechanisms on food security and nutrition and in other decision-making fora at all levels (e.g. civil society, private sector, CFS, national and local policy making spaces).
Strengthen labour monitoring and statistics together with appropriate metrics for more accurate reporting on young people’s employment and wage patterns, going beyond recording a single labour-force status and only primary occupations to incorporate school-work combinations, informal and migrant work, and multiple occupations.
Improve the documentation of different forms of youth participation in food systems, including through involving young people in research on adequate and healthy diets and in policy and governance spaces, to inform proactive policy development on youth engagement.
National and regional governments, civil society and private sector mechanisms should regularly review and renew youth-targeted policies for education, engagement and employment in food systems, building on the results and lessons learned from improved data sources and earlier interventions.
Support youth participation in environmental monitoring and regulation, agroecology transitions, and other actions to preserve the natural resource base (land, forests, water) for coming generations, based on a systematic review of the social, economic and environmental consequences of existing land-use practices.
Enhance standards of living and reduce vulnerability for youth through human rights-based social protection and safety nets in an equitable approach that includes gender and social inclusion.
Ensure youth have access to basic infrastructure and services (sanitation, formal and informal education, health services, infrastructure, energy, information and communication technology and broadband access, extension services) in the rural-urban continuum to guarantee good standards of living for themselves and their children.
Facilitate the transition from school to work and labour-market entry, in collaborations between the private and public sectors, including, for example, youth-targeted wage subsidy programmes in the private (formal) sector, and ensure equitable access to these programmes across gender, ethnicity and citizenship status.
Promote the development and availability of affordable and inclusive financial services (direct funds, favourable interest rates, cash transfers, targeted subsidies, microcredit and other credit programmes, start-up capital, insurance) and advisory services (extension, training) tailored to the needs of young farmers and other own-account workers in food systems.
Support educational curriculum development and reform in primary and secondary schools on needs and practices for transforming food systems, including agroecology, food literacy, food systems and health.
Improve labour law and regulations to establish thresholds and explicit protection for living wages and working conditions in all types of economic activities in food systems, taking into account informal work and the gig economy, as well as young migrant workers. This includes reducing hazardous exposures and supporting occupational health, provision of personal protective equipment, safe hours, and unemployment insurance. End the exemption of agricultural and fisheries workers from existing labour laws and protections.
Create a supportive policy environment for youth-led start-up initiatives (e.g. tax breaks, facilitated access to financial instruments and emerging technologies, incubation hubs that help youth build their capacity to better engage markets and value-added activities of different types).
Reform vocational training curricula to develop community-education-business partnerships based on collaborative assessments of local community needs, focusing on the entry points of most interest to youth, such as agroecological production, nutrition and dietetics, food value chains, marketing, and food systems education.
Develop social protection programmes that recognize and compensate young people’s unpaid contributions to food systems through their engagement in reproductive work and in volunteer and community development activities. Consider ways to legitimize and value care work, especially that performed by young women in the context of food systems (e.g. through the provision of public childcare, parental leave subsidies and other paid community service programming).
Provide support and insurance for community-based collective impact investment and cooperative and flexible financing programmes to support youth-led enterprises.
Promote the intergenerational and intragenerational exchange of information, knowledge and practices (including direct exchange of experiences) through mentorship, role models and peer-to-peer engagement in a complementary role to formal education programmes.
Strengthen labour governance to make it more youth-friendly, through support to labour inspection systems in sectors and occupations where young people are prevalent, such as temporary, apprenticeship and entry-level occupations. Support community-level monitoring and other forms of ensuring compliance to labour legislation and respect of labour rights, including through awareness, training and education campaigns and support for union affiliation.
Improve shared public infrastructure (irrigation, processing and packaging facilities, food safety measures, physical and virtual market spaces, supportive zoning and regulation, roads that link urban and rural markets, and start-up funds) for informal, newly emerging and alternative markets that promote short food supply chains to improve income and lower barriers to entry for youth producers, entrepreneurs and traders.
Encourage youth to practice agroecology and other sustainable innovations by connecting knowledge that is locally specific (traditional and intergenerational) with horizontal and formal training and education programmes, as well as advisory and extension services, to improve the resilience of agriculture, farming systems and food systems to environmental and social shocks.
Recognize and create an enabling environment for youth pluriactivity in food systems. Provide holistic opportunities for dignified engagement and decent work in collectives and as individuals, whether as entrepreneurs, wage labourers, or autonomous or own-account workers.
Support the development of incubators, digital tools and market niches, as well as certification and price premium programmes for agroecological, fair trade, organic, denomination of origin, and other ecological and animal welfare-oriented programmes to enable youth entry and engagement with sustainable food supply chains.
Provide opportunities for social innovation that recognizes and shares intergenerational and indigenous knowledge and that stimulates research and documentation related to sustainable food systems.
Support youth entrepreneurship in both individual and collective enterprises through innovative social finance and resource distribution, including through the provision of mentorship, land and infrastructure sharing opportunities, and granting programmes.
Enhance public procurement and other forms of structured and mediated markets, such as farm-to-school and public nutrition programmes, for sustainable and youth-led enterprises, using fair and transparent prices.
Support the provision of youth-sensitive and youth-specific rural and urban advisory and extension services including through new information-sharing platforms.
Promote the development, review and implementation of programmes and policies to support the rights of rural youth to access, conserve and protect land, seeds and biodiversity, fisheries, and forests by applying guidance provided in international instruments. Ensure the recognition of their legitimate tenure rights, especially for Indigenous and customary collective land ownership, including through agrarian reform.
Promote updated training programmes for professions and creation of jobs in food systems that require a wide range of skills (including digital), such as nutritionists, food educators, extension and advisory service providers and agricultural coaches, while ensuring that technological innovations do not eliminate jobs on a large scale.
Develop the digital skills and capacities of young workers, as well as of those transitioning from school to work, in sustainable and innovative approaches for urban, peri-urban and rural agriculture.
Implement comprehensive active labour market policies to increase youth employability and enhance their employment outcomes in food systems through a combination of interventions such as job search assistance, employment services, training and skills development, job matching, entrepreneurship coaching and incubators, in conjunction with demand-side measures to create employment opportunities.
Incentivize the establishment and functioning of cooperatives and other organizations to facilitate young farmers’ access to productive assets such as tools, machinery, farming and fishing equipment, storage and cooling facilities, processing and post-harvest equipment, and new, adaptable technologies.
Engage youth in research related to sustainable food systems and resource conservation, and strengthen opportunities for youth to participate in community-based research partnerships through the development of methodologies that integrate diverse ways of knowing and communicating.
A Long Food Movement: Transforming Food Systems by 2045
International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) and ETC Group
2021
IPES-Food and ETC Group
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Cracking down on corporate impunity and techno-fixes: monitor, regulate, or recall technologies that are dangerous or failing
Defending human rights, nature rights, and renegotiating the contract between state and society.
Building food policies, food policy councils, and new forms of citizen participation.
Reviewing, reforming and reconfiguring the UN’s agri-food agencies.
Making cross-sectoral collaboration the norm.
Building new partnerships to finance a quarter century of food system transformation
Levying junk food and taxing corporations fairly.
Building resilience through diversity and agroecology: Healthy soils, diverse crop varieties and livestock breed, vibrant aquatic and agro-ecosystems
Adopting an international agreement on food emergencies.
Redirecting R&D and technical budget lines to sustainable food systems.
Accelerating shifts towards territorial supply chains and ethical consumerism.
Developing new tools to block corporate commodity chains and hack closed-door negotiations
Donor Contributions to Food Systems: Stocktaking Report
Global Donor Platform for Rural Development (GDPRD)
2021
Woodhill et al.
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Greater focus on consumption patterns as drivers and the food system midstream in terms of processing, distribution and retailing.
Work in a much more integrated way across the traditional silos of agriculture, health, environment, economic development, infrastructure and trade.
Limited funding has to be used in an optimally enabling and mobilizing way.
Food systems framing requires new coordination processes, including: alignment of approaches, concepts and interventions strategies; geographical and thematic areas covered to ensure a balanced spread of resources; joint initiatives to create a critical mass of investment and reduced transaction costs; common monitoring and reporting frameworks; alignment on the types of global and regional initiatives that will be supported and for what purposes.
Adaptive, flexible, responsive, coordinated, learning-oriented and decentralized approaches to decision-making, policy and programming are required.
Given the central role of food systems to achieving all Sustainable Development Goals, the balance of total aid activity for food systems-related interventions relative to other aid priorities should be examined.
Resilience needs to be integrated into new programming.
Shift diets towards those that are better for human health and environmental health, encouraging more plant-based diets.
Despite its importance, bilateral ODA (ODA from bilateral donor countries to recipient countries) is under pressure as a consequence of COVID-19 and general development skepticism in some donor countries, which creates a need to better profile the positive contribution of ODA investments for food systems globally.
Invest in disaster reduction and preparedness rather than relying on large emergency relief programmes.
Ensure that food systems provide inclusive (fair) economic opportunities for as many people as possible, including producers, workers and consumers.
Investments in the food system can help to deliver on a wider set of development outcomes, and a food systems framing can help to identify synergistic ways of using existing aid resources.
Better understanding of resilience measures at difference scales is needed.
Dramatically reduce food loss and waste.
Careful thought and deeper analysis will be required to rebalance the food systems portfolio of aid activities with the outcomes of the FSS, with a particular focus on country-level assessment.
Limited donor funding needs to be used to help address underlying structural constraints to more equitable, nutritious and sustainable food systems.
Develop more resource-efficient and climate-smart production systems that provide for a wider diversity of healthy diets.
The current global architecture of institutions, processes and platforms has evolved in a relatively ad hoc way, and there is a need to ensure that it can respond to the emerging and future needs of a food systems approach.
Donors need to be focused on mobilizing additional investments from national governments and the private sector.
Enhance the resilience of food systems so that people and the system are less vulnerable to shocks and crises.
Renewed/continued efforts of coordination are critical for effective and efficient resource use.
Donor investments and programmes need to be designed and managed with an understanding of how complex adaptive systems behave (i.e., they have high degrees of complexity and uncertainty that do not align with linear planning and hierarchical control).
Data and reporting systems are not oriented to food systems. There is a significant data gap in being able to fully analyse development progress and funding from a food systems perspective.
Coordination of in-country investments to ensure that they align with country priorities and planning frameworks is essential.
Food systems transformation will require universal understanding and willingness for change, calling for donors to focus on the processes of change and how these can be catalysed and supported.
Cross the traditional divide between the concerns of poorer and wealthier nations. Link North and South agendas.
Greater focus on consumption patterns as drivers and the food system midstream in terms of processing, distribution and retailing.
Look much more closely at the interactions, trade-offs and synergies across the food systems outcomes of livelihoods, nutrition and environment.
Work in a much more integrated way across the traditional silos of agriculture, health, environment, economic development, infrastructure and trade.
Data and reporting systems are not oriented to food systems. There is a significant data gap in being able to fully analyse development progress and funding from a food systems perspective.
Investments in the food system can help to deliver on a wider set of development outcomes, and a food systems framing can help to identify synergistic ways of using existing aid resources.
There are a wide range of initiatives often developed as “deliverables” from global events – rationalization may be needed.
Careful thought and deeper analysis will be required to rebalance the food systems portfolio of aid activities with the outcomes of the Food Systems Summit (FSS), with a particular focus on country-level assessment.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021: Transforming food systems for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets for all
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), United Nations Children´s Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP) and World Health Organization (WHO)
2021
FAO et al.
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Coherence in the formulation and implementation of policies and investments among food, health, social protection and environmental systems is also essential to build on synergies towards more efficient and effective food systems solutions to deliver affordable healthy diets, sustainably and inclusivity.
Effective and inclusive governance mechanisms and institutions, in addition to access to technology, data and innovation, should serve as important accelerators in the comprehensive portfolios of policies, investments and legislation aimed at transforming food systems.
Systems approaches are needed to build coherent portfolios of policies, investments and legislation and enable win-win solutions while managing trade-offs; these include territorial approaches, ecosystems approaches, Indigenous Peoples’ food systems approaches and interventions that systemically address protracted crisis conditions.
It is imperative that policies, investments and actions to reduce immediate food insecurity and malnutrition be implemented simultaneously with those aimed at a reduction in the levels of conflict and aligned with long-term socio-economic development and peacebuilding efforts.
Economic and social policies, legislation and governance structures should be in place well in advance of economic slowdowns and downturns to counteract the effects of adverse economic cycles when they do arrive, and to maintain access to nutritious foods, especially for the most vulnerable population groups, including women and children. In the immediate term, these must include social protection mechanisms and primary healthcare services.
Measures of empowerment include increased access to productive resources, including access to natural resources, agricultural inputs and technology, financial resources, as well as knowledge and education, strengthened organizational skills and, importantly, access to digital technology and communication.
Based on the specific country context and prevailing consumption patterns, there is a need for policies, laws and investments to create healthier food environments and to empower consumers to pursue dietary patterns that are nutritious, healthy and safe and with a lower impact on the environment.
Challenges can be overcome through the formulation and implementation of cross-sectoral portfolios of policies, investments and legislation that comprehensively address the negative food security and nutrition effects of the multiple drivers impacting on food systems.
Non-tariff trade measures can help improve food safety, quality standards and the nutritional value of food, and minimize any unintended consequences, but they can also drive up the costs of trade and hence food prices, negatively affecting the affordability of healthy diets.
The agency dimension of food security is also key to addressing power asymmetries and reducing inequality, for example, by enhancing the participation of the rural poor in food systems transformation and its benefits.
In conflict-affected areas, maintaining conflict-sensitive food systems functions to the extent possible, while aligning actions for immediate humanitarian assistance to protect lives and livelihoods, long-term development and sustaining peace, is key to building resilience of the most vulnerable in these areas.
Policy measures, including food standards, fiscal, labelling, reformulation, public procurement and marketing policies, can shape healthier food environments.
Importance of an enabling legislative environment for food security and nutrition, with a legal framework which is composed of complex networks of interlinked legal areas and is best construed through a food systems lens to ensure consistency and coherence.
The ways we produce food and use our natural resources can help deliver a climate-positive future in which people and nature can coexist and thrive. Central to this effort are priorities to protect nature, to sustainably manage existing food production and supply systems, and to restore and rehabilitate natural environments.
Critically, the need for economic and social policies, institutions, legislation and other measures to be in place well in advance of economic slowdowns and downturns became evident, as these measures are designed to counteract the effects of adverse economic cycles when they do arrive, especially for the most vulnerable population groups, and to maintain access to nutritious foods and healthy diets.
Innovative mechanisms to reduce climate-related risks, widespread adoption of climate-smart and environmentally sound production techniques, and the conservation and rehabilitation of natural environments will strengthen the resilience of food systems against increased climate variability and extremes.
Interventions along food supply chains are needed to increase the availability of safe and nutritious foods and lower their cost, primarily as a means to increase the affordability of healthy diets. This pathway calls for a coherent set of policies and investments from production to consumption aimed at realizing efficiency gains and cutting food losses and waste to help achieve these objectives.
The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that during economic slowdowns and downturns, it is critical to keep food supply chains operational, while providing adequate support to the livelihoods of the most vulnerable, ensuring continued production and access to nutritious foods, including through enhanced social protection programmes.
Incentives should, among others, stimulate diversification of production in the food and agriculture sectors towards nutritious foods, including fruits, vegetables, legumes and seeds, as well as animal source foods and biofortified crops, in addition to investments in innovation, research and extension to raise productivity.
The persistence of socio-economic inequalities amplifies the need for systemic changes in food systems to provide vulnerable and historically marginalized populations with greater access to productive resources, technology, data and innovation to empower them to become agents of change towards more sustainable food systems.
Persistent and high levels of inequality seriously limit people’s chances to overcome hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms. Policies, investments and laws that address underlying structural inequalities faced by vulnerable population groups in both rural and urban areas are needed, while also increasing their access to productive resources and new technologies.
Comprehensive policies aimed at both the food and natural environments, reinforced by regulations and legislation, can result in behavioural changes along the food supply chain and among consumers, thus shifting dietary patterns to the benefit of human health and the environment.
Given that food systems are affected by more than one driver, and also impact on food security and nutrition outcomes in multiple ways, comprehensive portfolios of context-specific policies, investments and legislation should be formulated to maximize their combined effects on food systems transformation, while recognizing that financial resources are limited.
It is important to recall that the majority of the chronically food insecure and many of the malnourished live in countries affected by insecurity and conflict. Therefore, it is imperative that conflict-sensitive policies, investments and actions to reduce immediate food insecurity and malnutrition be implemented simultaneously with those aimed at a reduction in the levels of conflict and aligned with long-term socio-economic development and peacebuilding efforts.
The formulation of comprehensive portfolios of policies and investments starts with a context-specific situation analysis to obtain an in-depth understanding of the country context, including the nature and intensity of major drivers impacting upon food systems and the prevailing food security and nutrition situation, in addition to the identification of relevant actors, institutions and governance mechanisms.
Inputs from health systems can support and reinforce food systems transformation, for example, through the provision of essential nutrition actions in universal health coverage.
Nutrition counselling during pregnancy and support to breastfeeding and complementary feeding, alongside food system measures to regulate the marketing and promotion of breastmilk substitutes and foods for infants and young children.
Early detection and support for the management or treatment of different forms of malnutrition, which is critical in informing food systems transformation, as well as social protection needs in crisis situations.
Developing co-responsible, circular food systems through reciprocity, solidarity and safety nets that influence corporate responsibility beyond the life of a given product. Circularity and co-responsibility within food systems can ensure that externalities are absorbed in the prices and ensure that the current waste generated by the food systems is moved away from inorganic waste residues towards organic ones and thus reincorporated into the system as an input.
Supporting household incomes and livelihoods for the poorest and most vulnerable groups. Measures include boosting job creation and implementing labour market policies, such as public works programmes that can be used as short-term measures to support purchasing power in times of crisis and for developing assets that bring future returns to livelihoods; social assistance initiatives, such as cash transfer programmes that provide support to meet the most immediate needs and that enable households to invest in their productive activities; and increasing universal access to healthcare, education and social services that could safeguard against setbacks to families, nations and regions.
Indigenous Peoples´ food systems combine individual and collective rights to lands and resources. Similarly, mobile, semi-mobile and nomadic livelihoods are essential for maintaining both food generation and food production activities within these food systems.
Improving access and affordability of healthy diets through school food and nutrition programmes (among others) especially designed to improve dietary diversity, while also encouraging the purchase of fresh food from local producers. In-kind transfers, especially in places where food markets are not functioning well, could increase access to nutritious foods, in addition to food subsidies, especially those focused on nutritious foods and targeted at the most vulnerable.
More and better data allow for carrying out situation analyses covering context-specific and comprehensive assessments of which key drivers are impacting negatively on food systems and resulting in poor food security and nutrition outcomes.
In policy development and the implementation of transformative action, territorial approaches advocate for cross-sectoral and multi-level governance mechanisms, as well as coherence across different spatial levels, while focusing on linkages and opportunities between systems in a given territory.
Developing or updating national food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) through the full integration of environmental sustainability elements in each of the guideline’s recommendations, according to national contexts and using these FBDGs to guide agriculture and food policies, is one way help to drive the greening of food systems.
Systemic, inclusive approaches to food systems strengthen the links between the environment, health and food production. This includes a biocentric approach that uses new metrics to measure system performance to complement current indicators. Internationally, the One Health approach recognizes the interdependence between food, health and the environment, including biodiversity.
Indigenous Peoples’ food systems can serve as an example of how to expand current food bases in acknowledging biodiversity, enabling diverse agri-food systems, building resilience and ensuring positive human health benefits from diversified diets.
Intercultural institutions for inclusive governance can support access to safe and nutritious foods for all by combining Indigenous Peoples’ institutions, customary self-regulation and governance systems with formal institutions.
Effective and inclusive governance mechanisms and institutions, in addition to access to technology, data and innovation, should serve as important accelerators in the comprehensive portfolios of policies, investments and legislation aimed at transforming food systems.
Economic and social policies, and legislation and governance structures should be in place well in advance of economic slowdowns and downturns to counteract the effects of adverse economic cycles when they do arrive, and to maintain access to nutritious foods, especially for the most vulnerable population groups, including women and children. In the immediate term, these must include social protection mechanisms and primary healthcare services.
Measures of empowerment include increased access to productive resources, including access to natural resources, agricultural inputs and technology, financial resources, knowledge and education, as well as strengthened organizational skills and, importantly, access to digital technology and communication.
Based on the specific country context and prevailing consumption patterns, there is a need for policies, laws and investments to create healthier food environments and to empower consumers to pursue dietary patterns that are nutritious, healthy and safe and with a lower impact on the environment.
Challenges can be overcome through the formulation and implementation of cross-sectoral portfolios of policies, investments and legislation that comprehensively address the negative food security and nutrition effects of the multiple drivers impacting on food systems.
Non-tariff trade measures can help improve food safety, quality standards and nutritional values, as well as minimize any unintended consequences, but they can also drive up the costs of trade and hence food prices, negatively affecting the affordability of healthy diets.
Policy measures, including food standards, fiscal, labelling, reformulation, public procurement and marketing policies can shape healthier food environments.
The agency dimension of food security is also key to addressing power asymmetries and reducing inequality; for example, by enhancing the participation of the rural poor in food systems transformation and its benefits.
In conflict-affected areas, maintaining that conflict-sensitive food systems function to the highest extent possible, while also aligning actions for immediate humanitarian assistance to protect lives and livelihoods with development and sustaining peace efforts, is the key to building resilience of the most vulnerable in these areas.
Innovative mechanisms to reduce climate-related risks, widespread adoption of climate-smart and environmentally sound production techniques, and the conservation and rehabilitation of natural environments will strengthen the resilience of food systems against increased climate variability and extremes.
The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that during economic slowdowns and downturns, it is critical to keep food supply chains operational, while providing adequate support to the livelihoods of the most vulnerable, ensuring continued production and access to nutritious foods, including through enhanced social protection programmes.
Given that food systems are affected by more than one driver and impact food security and nutrition outcomes in multiple ways, comprehensive portfolios of context-specific policies, investments and legislation should be formulated to maximize their combined effects on food systems transformation, while recognizing that financial resources are limited.
It is important to recall that the majority of chronically food-insecure individuals, and many of the malnourished, live in countries affected by insecurity and conflict. Therefore, it is imperative that conflict-sensitive policies, investments and actions to reduce immediate food insecurity and malnutrition be implemented simultaneously with those aimed at a reduction in the levels of conflict, and aligned with long-term socio-economic development and peace-building efforts.
The ways we produce food and use our natural resources can help deliver a climate-positive future in which people and nature can coexist and thrive. Central to this effort are priorities to protect nature, to sustainably manage existing food production and supply systems, and to restore and rehabilitate natural environments.
The persistence of socio-economic inequalities amplifies the need for systemic changes in food systems to provide vulnerable and historically marginalized populations with greater access to productive resources, technology, data and innovation to empower them to become agents of change towards more sustainable food systems.
Comprehensive policies aimed at both the food and natural environments, reinforced by regulations and legislation, can result in behavioural changes along the food supply chain and among consumers, thus shifting dietary patterns to the benefit of human health and the environment.
Interventions along food supply chains are needed to increase the availability of safe and nutritious foods and lower their cost, primarily as a means to increase the affordability of healthy diets. This pathway calls for a coherent set of policies and investments from production to consumption aimed at realizing efficiency gains and cutting food losses and waste to help achieve these objectives.
In addition to investments in innovation, research and extension to raise productivity, incentives should, among others, stimulate the diversification of production in the food and agriculture sectors towards nutritious foods, including fruits, vegetables, legumes and seeds, as well as animal source foods and biofortified crops.
Persistent and high levels of inequality seriously limit people’s chances to overcome hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms. Policies, investments and laws that address underlying structural inequalities faced by vulnerable population groups in both rural and urban areas are needed, while also increasing their access to productive resources and new technologies.
The formulation of comprehensive portfolios of policies and investments starts with a context-specific situation analysis to obtain an in-depth understanding of the country context, including the nature and intensity of major drivers impacting food systems, the prevailing food security and nutrition situation, and the identification of relevant actors, institutions and governance mechanisms.
Inputs from health systems can support and reinforce food systems transformation, for example, through the provision of essential nutrition actions in universal health coverage.
Nutrition counseling during pregnancy and supportive breastfeeding and complementary feeding programs are needed, alongside food system measures to regulate the marketing and promotion of breastmilk substitutes and foods for infants and young children.
The use of micronutrient supplements for vulnerable groups can be an appropriate interim measure until food systems are transformed to provide greater dietary diversity and ensure everyone has access to affordable healthy diets at all times.
Supporting household incomes and livelihoods for the poorest and most vulnerable groups. Measures include boosting job creation and implementing labour market policies, such as public works programmes that can be used as short-term measures to support purchasing power in times of crisis and for developing assets that bring future returns to livelihoods; social assistance initiatives, such as cash transfer programmes that provide support to meet the most immediate needs and that enable households to invest in their productive activities; and increasing universal access to healthcare, education and social services that could safeguard against setbacks to families, nations and regions.
Improving access and affordability of healthy diets through school food and nutrition programmes (among others) especially ones designed to improve dietary diversity, while also encouraging the purchase of fresh food from local producers. In-kind transfers, especially in places where food markets are not functioning well, could increase access to nutritious foods, in addition to food subsidies, especially those focused on nutritious foods and targeted at the most vulnerable.
Developing or updating national food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) through the full integration of environmental sustainability elements in each of the guideline’s recommendations, according to national contexts and using these FBDGs to guide agriculture and food policies, is one way help to drive the greening of food systems.
Systemic, inclusive approaches to food systems strengthen the links between the environment, health and food production. This includes a biocentric approach that uses new metrics to measure system performance to complement current indicators. Internationally, the One Health approach recognizes the interdependence between food, health and the environment, including biodiversity.
More and better data allows for carrying out situation analyses covering context-specific and comprehensive assessments of which key drivers are impacting negatively on food systems and resulting in poor food security and nutrition outcomes.
Matera declaration on food security, nutrition and food systems. A call to action in the time of the COVID – 19 pandemic and beyond
G20
2021
G20
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Increase catalytic investments for food security, nutrition, and sustainable food systems and territorial development, as part of the substantial COVID-19 emergency funding and longer-term national recovery plans and packages, in a manner consistent with WTO obligations and taking into account the voluntary Committee on World Food Security (CFS) Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems.
Enhance social-protection measures and programs, with a focus on people living in vulnerable situations, of whom large shares depend on the agriculture and food sector for their livelihoods. This includes emergency food assistance and safety nets, cash and in-kind transfer programmes as appropriate, local procurement schemes and school feeding programmes as relevant, mother and child nutrition programmes, food banks, to the extent possible based on locally produced biodiverse food and local food culture, and other interventions focused on informal sector workers, with particular attention to effective action for gender equality, youth, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations, which builds agency and empowerment.
Promote science-based holistic One Health approach by integrating it into national policies and international action as part of our collaboration, so to improve public health outcomes with a multi-sectoral response to address food safety risks, risks from zoonoses, and other health risks at the human-animal-ecosystem interface, and to provide guidance on how to reduce these risks.
Implement effective actions for the empowerment of women and youth in the rural-urban continuum [policies, technical assistance, capacity building and investments that create new decent work and agri-entrepreneurship opportunities for women and youth and support their empowerment as active participants and leaders at all levels of food systems and institutions].
Policies, research and investments should focus on protecting the interests of small and marginal farmers especially in developing countries.
Keep international food trade open and strengthen global, regional and local diversified value chains for safe, fresh and nutritious food. It is crucial to maintain global food trade open, and to keep food markets functioning.
Accelerate the adaptation of agriculture and food systems to climate change, as increased climate variability and extreme weather events impact agriculture output and are among the forces driving the rise in global hunger, while recognizing the importance of sustainable agriculture.
All relevant actors across the international financial architecture and financial ecosystem need to play a role, in line with respective mandates, in improving availability of and access to sustainable finance in the food and agriculture sector to effectively enable small scale and family farmers and fisherfolk, pastoralists, agro-enterprises, cooperatives and other operators within food value chains to invest more in sustainable food systems, particularly in developing and least developed countries.
Public policies and resources such as procurement and public development banks’ funds can help to address market failures and provide greater risk tolerance than what other financial institutions can, thus also stimulating responsible private investment and blended finance.
Accelerate policies fostering territorial and gender sensitive adaptation, promoting more integrated farming systems, climate sensitive, agro-ecological and other innovative approaches as appropriate, supporting biodiversity as a source of climate resilience, fast-tracking the implementation of the agriculture and food-systems related parts of adaptation plans, as well as promoting effective funding from climate finance to foster climate adaptation in the food and agriculture sector of developing countries in the light of different national circumstances.
Improve understanding and managing of climate risks, leveraging the power of the private sector and of local national and international agriculture research organisations and knowledge institutes, as well as focusing on sustainable management and use of natural resources that are essential to food systems.
Improve inter-regional logistics and distributional systems along with better linkages between rural and urban areas, as well as strengthening local food economies resilience to external shocks.
Improve handling, storage, processing and preservation to enhance value chain efficiency and resilience, reduce post-harvest losses, food loss and waste and ensure food safety to increase the availability, accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods.
Science and Innovations for Food Systems Transformation and Summit Actions
The Scientific Group for the UN Food Systems Summit
2021
von Braun et al.
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Measures that incentivize the production and market supply of fruits and vegetables and related innovations enhance consumption and can increase the income of small holders.
Approaches to create demand for healthy diets and nutrition must be explored. At the same time, we have to be careful not to put all of the blame for poor nutrition on consumer behavior.
External costs associated with climate change, biodiversity loss, and adverse health effects need to be considered. True cost accounting approaches are to be pursued in the whole food system, and related capacities built up in the corporate and public sectors.
Cautious approaches are warranted to develop price and non-price instruments, including regulatory-based instruments, to help deal with such externalities. Fostering positive externalities of the food systems such as by carbon farming and biodiversity-enhancing land use should be considered and tested where justified.
If food prices were to reflect true costs, food healthy diets may become unaffordable for low-income consumers, and social safety nets would need to be put in place.
Science-intensive and promising opportunities such as scaling up sustainable cold chain technology to make perishable foods (especially vegetables and fruits; potatoes) more available and affordable and at the same time reducing food loss and waste must be pursued, along with complementary investments in infrastructure to reduce transportation and other related costs and thereby reduce food prices.
More research is needed to identify the most adequate healthy diets and their affordability and environmental sustainability across different contexts.
A potentially very significant contribution to deepened insights in health aspects of diets is the “Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI)”, a global effort to create a public database of the bio-chemical composition and function of the food that we eat using the latest mass spectrometry technologies and bioinformatics.
The Added Value(s) of Agroecology: Unlocking the potential for transition in West Africa
International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) and ETC Group
2020
IPES-Food
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Agroecology as a crisis response: As disease and climate threats multiply, agroecology can be positioned as a systemic solution to prevent and build resilience to future shocks.
Integrated food policies: Reforming the governance of food systems is a powerful vehicle for advancing agroecology in West Africa and beyond.
Alliance-building and collective action: A vocal, visible, broad-based, and unified agroecological movement is essential for advancing change on multiple fronts and unlocking transition in West Africa.
Food sovereignty, territorial development, and a new economic paradigm: As economic orthodoxies are questioned and new priorities and paradigms gradually take root, favorable conditions for agroecology could start to emerge.
Ending hunger, increasing incomes and protecting the climate: What would it cost donors?
Ceres2030. International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and International Food Policy Research Institute
2020
David Laborde et al.
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Any delay in spending will not only have human costs but will also increase the total monetary costs. Early spending, on the other hand, allows investment in interventions that take more time—like research and development (R&D)—but have a bigger payoff. It also allows downstream (processing) and upstream (farm inputs) investments to be spread over time.
Empower the excluded through interventions related to social protection, institutions such as farmers’ organizations, and education through vocational training.
Interventions provided directly to farmers, including farm inputs, R&D, improved livestock feed, and irrigation infrastructure.
Interventions to reduce post-harvest losses, including storage, to improve returns from sales, and to support the mix of services provided by SMEs, such as cooperatives, traders, and processors.
Donors need to contribute an additional USD 14 billion per year until 2030 to end hunger and double the incomes of small-scale producers. This is achieved while maintaining greenhouse gas emissions for agriculture below the commitments made in the Paris Agreement.
Donors currently spend USD 12 billion per year on food security and nutrition and therefore need to double their contributions to meet the goals. However, ODA alone will not be enough. Additional public spending of USD 19 billion per year on average until 2030 will have to be provided by low- and middle-income countries through increased taxation.
Additional public investment from donors and low- and middle-income countries will prevent 490 million people from experiencing hunger, double the incomes of 545 million small-scale producers and their families on average, and limit greenhouse gas emissions for agriculture to the commitments made in the Paris Agreement. The additional public spending will also spur an extra USD 52 billion in private investment per year on average in primary and processed food sectors from both small- and large-scale producers.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020. Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
2020
FAO, IFAD , UNICEF, WFP and WHO.
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Address the factors that drive up the cost of nutritious foods by supporting food producers – especially small-scale producers – to get nutritious foods to markets at low cost, making sure people have access to these food markets, and making food supply chains work for vulnerable people – from small-scale producers to the billions of consumers whose income is insufficient to afford healthy diets.
Enact policies in support of sustainable food consumption and food waste reduction directed at both consumers and retailers to encourage healthy diets with sustainability considerations.
Pursue “Double-Duty Actions” that simultaneously address undernutrition (stunting) and obesity, including interventions, programmes and policies implemented at all levels of the population – country, city, community, household and individual – as well as school food programmes and policies to promote food environments to provide healthy diets.
Avoid taxation of nutritious foods. Policy interventions that tend to depress prices of agricultural commodities not only reduce farmers’ incomes and incentives to produce, but also reduce the affordability of healthy diets for some of the most marginalized populations, the rural poor. Therefore, policies that penalize food and agricultural production (through direct or indirect taxation) should be avoided, as they tend to have adverse effects on the production of nutritious foods. Subsidy levels in the food and agriculture sectors should also be revisited, especially in low-income countries, to avoid taxation of nutritious foods.
Rebalance agricultural policies and incentives toward more nutrition-sensitive investments throughout the food supply chain to reduce food losses and enhance efficiencies at all stages. Nutrition-sensitive social protection policies will also be central to increase the purchasing power and affordability of healthy diets of the most vulnerable populations, as well as policies that foster behavioral change towards healthy diets.
Reducing food prices by addressing low productivity in food production may increase the overall supply of food, including nutritious foods, and raise incomes, especially for poorer family farmers and smallholder producers in low-income and lower-middle-income countries. Analyzing diversification toward the production of horticultural products, legumes, small-scale fisheries, aquaculture, livestock and other nutritious food products may also be an effective way to reduce food prices by supplying diverse and nutritious foods in markets.
Reducing pre-harvest and post-harvest losses in quantity and quality at the production level in the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors is an important starting point to reduce the cost of nutritious foods along the food supply chain, as this decreases the overall availability of these foods – while possibly contributing to environmental sustainability as well.
Strengthen market organization by analyzing the overall quality and efficiency of existing infrastructure and improving national road networks, as well as transport and market infrastructure, which are critical in getting produce from the farm gate to markets at reasonable costs, promoting context-specific policies.
Valuing the hidden costs (or negative externalities) associated with different diets could significantly modify our assessment of what is “affordable” from a broader societal perspective and reveal how dietary choices affect other SDGs. The health and environmental consequences of unbalanced and unhealthy diets translate into actual costs for individuals and society as a whole, such as increased medical costs and the costs of climate damage, among other environmental costs.
National food and agricultural strategies and programmes should step up investment in R&D to raise productivity of nutritious foods and help reduce their cost, while enhancing access to improved technologies, especially for smallholders, to maintain adequate levels of profitability.
Nutrition-sensitive social protection policies are most appropriate to provide better access to nutritious foods to lower-income consumers and thus increase their affordability of healthy diets. There is a need to strengthen nutrition-sensitive social protection mechanisms and ensure they can support micronutrient supplementation where needed, as well as create healthy food environments by encouraging consumers to diversify their diets to reduce dependence on starchy staples, reduce consumption of foods high in fats, sugars and/or salt, and include more diverse, nutritious foods. Other policies include cash transfer programmes, in-kind transfers, school feeding programmes and subsidization of nutritious foods.
Strengthen food industry regulations to help ensure easier and more affordable access to healthy diets by reducing the content of fat, sugar and salt in foods or increasing access to foods fortified with micronutrients. Recommended regulation measures include the introduction of legislation to ban the use of industrial trans fats, encouraging the reformulation of processed foods, the introduction of improved nutrition labelling (including simplified front-of-pack labelling) and the use of fiscal or agricultural policies to replace trans fats and saturated fats with unsaturated fats, in addition to policies that limit portion and package size.
Access to knowledge in improved and more sustainable farming techniques, including climate-smart production methods, are key to increasing productivity and maintaining profitability, and producing marketable surpluses at reduced costs, while increasing the resilience of food systems.
Policies aimed at reducing poverty and income inequality, while enhancing employment and income-generating activities, are key to raising people’s incomes and the affordability of healthy diets. There are important synergies between policies enhancing employment and reducing income inequality for increased food security and better nutrition, including social protection.
Ensure that Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS) are installed in the food industry based on the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles to manage food safety risks and prevent food contamination.
Policies, legislation and other interventions to transform food systems and create healthy food environments need to be accompanied by the provision of food and nutrition education (FNE) and behaviour change communication, in addition to the implementation of mass media campaigns to promote healthy diets. Policy options include integrating effective FNE into national plans and programmes to influence consumer awareness and foster nutritious food choices and behaviours.
Monitor health inequalities at national and subnational levels to identify geographic areas and subpopulations where prevalence is highest, with intervention priority to the most affected areas and population groups, often adolescents, women and children living in poorest households in rural areas but also urban areas.
Promote breastfeeding, regulate marketing of breastmilk substitutes, and ensure access to nutritious foods by infants to prevent adverse perinatal outcomes in undernourished women. Through balanced energy and protein supplementation, increased daily energy and protein intake, and optimizing breast feeding through early initiation and exclusive breastfeeding practices, as well as various social protection programmes, may increase food security and reduce women’s risk of becoming undernourished due to periods of pregnancy and lactation.
Clean and sufficient drinking water, proper sanitation, drains for wastewater and proper management of solid waste are key interventions in deprived areas to aide against infectious diseases and malnourishment.
Social protection schemes can improve access to food products that are rich in protein, vitamins and minerals that would otherwise not be accessible to poor households. Programmes targeted toward low-income households are more effective when coupled with additional interventions or conditions such as health and nutrition services and good sanitation practices.
Explicitly tailor policies to raise awareness and influence consumer behaviour in favour of healthy diets, with important synergies for environmental sustainability. Promote healthy eating habits through subsidies on grocery store purchases of nutritious foods, such as fruits and vegetables as an effective policy towards raising the affordability of healthy diets.
Ensure trade and marketing policies balance producer and consumer interests. It is essential that governments carefully consider the impacts of non-tariff measures on the affordability of nutritious foods and avoid creating regulatory barriers to trade that negatively affect poor households’ access to a healthy diet.
Initiate and/or maintain food fortification programmes in line with international guidance to counteract worsening diet quality during the pandemic, as the consumption of unfortified food or non-perishable foods with lower levels of micronutrient could rise. Food fortification of regularly consumed foods (such as iodization of salt), and fortification of staple foods (through biofortification at the production level or through post-harvest fortification) is recommended as a cost-effective measure to reduce these deficiencies.
Strengthen food supply chains under humanitarian conditions. Coordinate action to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance and avoid widespread famine, especially for millions of civilians living in conflict situations, including women and children. Expand emergency food assistance and social protection programs to ensure access to nutritious food for the poor and vulnerable, as they have been hardest hit by the pandemic.
Focus on key logistics of bottlenecks in the food value chains to avoid unnecessary spikes in the cost of food, in particular the affordability of diversified safe and nutritious food for all.
Increase direct support to smallholders to enhance their productivity, reduce pre-harvest and post-harvest losses, and ensure access to food markets, also through e-commerce channels.
Collaboration with regional and international research and extension organizations and networks is important to strengthen capacities of national agricultural research and extension systems, and to facilitate sharing of knowledge and best practices and innovations for increased production and productivity.
Investments in R&D should be accompanied by research and extension services that make it possible for producers to adopt more sustainable production methods that conserve natural resources, in particular soil and water, as well as biodiversity.
Public investment in demand-driven research and extension should be complemented by investment in rural electrification programmes, irrigation infrastructure and increased mechanization to further raise productivity.
In parallel with R&D in food and agriculture, low-income countries need to enable and promote inclusive agricultural innovations to meet the rising food demand.
Policies and investments must focus on improving nutrition outcomes among the population for example those that facilitate diversified and integrated food and agricultural production systems, empower women and youth in food and agriculture, and provide incentives for increased production of fruits and vegetables, as well as small-scale livestock, agroforestry, aquaculture and fisheries products.
Agricultural policies that encourage a move away from monoculture towards more integrated production techniques, such as agroforestry and rice-fish farming, should be considered as this helps reduce the cost of production, increase food producers’ incomes and resilience, provide ecosystem services, and increase dietary diversity.
Food and nutrition education with a focus on food budgeting and resource management skills should be integrated into the national school curriculum, social protection and agriculture programmes, and food labelling and taxation schemes.
Combining school food environment policies (such as nutrition standards for meals) and school-based food and nutrition education can help children build the motivation and skills necessary to make nutritious food choices. Such initiatives should be included in state laws and regulations to protect them from shifting political priorities.
Enact policies at the retail and household levels, such as measures directed at the reduction of food waste, including awareness campaigns, informing consumers and advocating for behaviour change towards healthy choices through education and communication strategies that involve different media and interpersonal communication.
Enact policies at the individual level, encouraging the change of dietary patterns toward predominantly plant-forward diets with limited amounts of animal source foods, while capping the amount of dietary energy derived from starchy staple foods (e.g. at 50 percent of total dietary energy requirements).
Food Security and Nutrition: Building a global narrative towards 2030
High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE)
2020
HLPE
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Prioritize empowerment and equity to ensure that quality food and its production is accessible to all, including vulnerable and marginalized people and groups
Make equity and human rights an integral part of food security and nutrition policies
Ensure that strategies for improving the food security and nutrition of vulnerable categories, including gender, age and income consideration, are context specific
Work at multiple scales (local, national, global) to address international challenges & locally with attention to situation specific challenges
Address conflicts and policy design at multiple scales
Tailor policies to consider demographic shifts and migration patterns, which vary greatly by region.
Shift to a model of nutrition-driven and regenerative agriculture
Better recognize linkages between environment and natural resource degradation and food security and nutrition
Focus more on nutrition to inhibit disease and degradation
Better recognize how food security and nutrition interacts with digital farming, genetic engineering, food loss and infrastructure
Adopt a nutrition focus to target food loss as a major problem
Recognize that changes in the global economic system have varied impacts and varied solutions
Employ a nutrition focus to address changing diets and related drivers
Ensure coordination across sectors for effective food security governance
Redesign food production and access programmes with a nutrition focus
Strengthen the focus on malnutrition to improve the lives of vulnerable categories (e.g., those living in poverty, women)
Better capture urban-related dietary challenges through a focus on malnutrition
Create more opportunities for young farmers by enhancing quality food production
Emphasize quality food production when making public investments in agriculture
Support more vibrant smallholder activities and more diverse production and distribution networks
Refocus technology and infrastructure to achieve quality food production
Better adapt technology and infrastructure to local constraints and opportunities
States should take stronger actions to honour their obligations and duties to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food and protect agency. This affects all states in the world in a spirit of solidarity.
Empower citizens as food system participants, especially women, indigenous people, migrant workers, displaced people and refugees and other vulnerable people and communities to exercise agency over their own livelihoods and ensure access to diverse, nutritious and safe food.
Ensure that food systems are more equitable and work for the world’s most marginalized producers, consumers and workers. The global private sector has a great responsibility here.
Provide support services and social protection, including in crises and complex emergencies.
The CFS should formally strengthen the Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food, by moving from “progressive realization” to “unconditional realization.”
Implement a comprehensive transformation in the food system including food production, processing, distribution and consumption in order to address outstanding food security and nutrition challenges.
Support transition to agroecology and other innovations for sustainable and resilient food production methods, to gradually overcome the overuse of natural resources for food production.
Take measures to reduce food losses and waste by at least half, especially postharvest losses in developing countries and consumer food waste in industrialized countries.
Support diverse food production and distribution networks, including territorial market arrangements.
Take responsible trade measures to maintain food price stability, especially in situations of public health and food emergencies.
Improve public investment in infrastructure for markets, storage and other necessary food system components to support deconcentration of production and distribution networks and bring more diversity for resilience.
Invest in public good research to ensure equitable access to new technologies, inputs and services in food systems and agriculture.
Strengthen national and regional strategic food reserves.
Provide public training and support for small-scale and family farmers, especially in agroecological and sustainable production and marketing, and especially in rainfed and harsh environments.
Ensure market access, both upstream and downstream, at remunerative prices for smallholder producers through government procurement programmes (e.g. public distribution and school feeding).
Take strong measures to immediately address wealth, income and social inequality, which has profound implications for FSN.
Protect the essential ecosystem services that underpin sustainable food systems.
Ensure food trade is equitable and fair for countries that depend on food imports, for agricultural exporting countries, for producers, including small-holders and for consumers.
Improve policy coordination in all relevant sectors including, for example, agriculture, environment, economy, energy, trade and health to improve policy responses to issues such as food availability, malnutrition, food safety and disease.
Restrict the use of agricultural crops for non-food production (e.g. biofuel).
Promote and support adaptation to climate change to build resilience.
Take significant steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the food system in areas of the world where agricultural production contributes most to climate change.
Take measures to improve agricultural resilience against pests and diseases that may threaten the food supply and public health.
Take measures to protect existing and especially threatened agricultural biodiversity.
Encourage more sustainable agriculture in the most vulnerable ecosystems, including, for example, mountain and dryland environments, small island developing states and low-lying coastal areas.
Recognize increased water scarcity and take immediate measures to rationalize and optimize use of scarce water resources, as well as water management, in agriculture and food systems.
Develop and support more robust climate finance mechanisms that really work and target small-scale food producers (e.g. farmers, livestock keepers, fishers, food processors).
The CFS should take a lead role in coordinating the global food security policy guidance in response to COVID-19 and its aftermath.
Social protection mechanisms, including national and international food assistance, for the poorest and most vulnerable people during, and in the aftermath of, the COVID-19 pandemic, must incorporate provisions on the right to food, in terms of quantity and nutritional quality.
When developing action plans for minimizing the impact of COVID-19, governments need to take into account the broader interactions with food security and nutrition.
Support local communities and citizens to increase local food production and consumption.
Collect and share data, information and experiences on the status and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food systems and draw lessons learned.
All relevant UN agencies must urgently develop a rapid response mechanism at global scales for food in order to support poor and vulnerable people.
Facilitate the supply of nutritionally diverse, minimally processed staple foods such as fresh, seasonal and local fruits and vegetables.
Facilitate the supply of a culturally acceptable, diverse basket of foods of both plant and animal origin to ensure sustainable diets (i.e. both healthy and environmentally sustainable).
Facilitate biodiversity conservation through sustainable use by promoting the production and consumption of nutritionally-rich neglected and underutilized food species and local varieties.
Provide incentives for improving the nutritional quality of processed foods and their promotion in food retail and advertising, as well as disincentives for non-adherence.
Establish and/or improve nutrition and food system education at all levels and promote nutrition awareness campaigns to foster behaviour change.
Create economic structures and support services to encourage and support better nutrition for pregnant and lactating women, exclusive breast-feeding for infants up to six months and complementary feeding of children up to two years.
Reframe the right to food as freedom from hunger and all forms of malnutrition – underweight, overweight, obesity, micronutrient deficiencies and non-communicable diseases – reaffirming the importance of “safe and nutritious food” along with freedom from hunger.
Reduce the prevalence of childhood undernutrition by addressing its direct (food insecurity) and indirect causes (hygiene, clean water, civil strife, unsafe food supply, etc.).
Promote food system solutions to address the pandemic of overweight and obesity.
The agriculture sector should engage the health and environment sectors in establishing policies and programmes that are nutrition-driven and environmentally sustainable.
The health sector should engage the agriculture and environment sectors in addressing overweight/obesity and malnutrition in all its forms, and illnesses associated with food- system-related chemical and microbial exposures.
Initiate and strengthen social protection programmes for vulnerable groups, such as school feeding programmes, that address the quality and quantity of foods and diets to prevent malnutrition in all its forms.
Ensure more equitable access to land and productive agricultural resources for small-scale producers who remain vital providers of food and food security in much of the less industrialized world.
Encourage investment in rural infrastructure development, agricultural services and access to markets, in order to mitigate rural to urban migration.
Develop policies that are targeted to helping people living with poverty in rural and urban areas to access nutritious food and healthier food environments.
Ensure that FSN policies and programmes connect growing rural and urban food needs, including in small- and medium size towns, to sustainable livelihoods in the countryside that appeal to young people.
Support private and public sector investment in, and state-facilitated development of, peri-urban and urbanagriculture in order to bring fresh foods, especially perishable horticultural products that are rich in micronutrients, closer to markets.
Provide timely, adequate and nutritious emergency food relief for people affected by conflicts, including displaced people.
Ensure the availability of clean and adequate water and sanitation to facilitate food production, preparation and utilization in conflict and post-conflict situations.
Revitalize development and governance capacity and expertise in areas relevant to sustainable FSN during conflict and in post-conflict situations.
Enhance FSN governance and coordination at the global level to strengthen and renew commitment to multilateral cooperation.
National governments need to implement existing CFS and other UN guidelines related to FSN governance.
CFS and its member states should consider making their commitments legally binding through an appropriate multilateral agreement.
A financial mechanism supplemented by public and private contributions should be established to support the proposed multilateral agreement and the implementation of national FSN strategies and policies.
National governments should support existing efforts to ensure representative participation in FSN governance, e.g. creating or strengthening participatory and inclusive FSN national committees.
CFS and states need to collect and report data on the implementation of food system policies and initiatives at different scales (local, national, international) and develop systems for auditing and accountability.
Encourage the development of a global initiative to model the global food system to predict future shocks and to forecast the likely impact of different solution pathways for sustainable food systems.
Assess knowledge gaps and research needs to address various challenges to inform policies to achieve food system transformation, such as the interconnectedness of food systems with all relevant sectors and systems.
Develop a better understanding with enhanced research into critical and emerging issues that affect all six dimensions of food security.
Strike an appropriate balance in food systems research between public and private sectors, including participatory research programmes that incorporate traditional knowledge.
2020 Global Food Policy Report: Building Inclusive Food Systems
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
2020
IFPRI
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Catalyze investments that strengthen food supply links so that smallholders have greater market access and food transporters, distributors, processors, and retailers can thrive.
Create an enabling environment for positive private sector contributions to making food systems inclusive, and manage trade-offs among different policy goals
Ensure that food system transformations do not disempower women by increasing workloads or reducing decision-making power, but rather create a virtuous cycle of inclusion and empowerment to benefit women and men
Include women and consider women’s needs and preferences in the design of institutions, including property rights, financial institutions, and access to information and education
Tailor food system policies so that they create opportunities for marginalized people while addressing key challenges such as unhealthy diets and climate change
Collect and evaluate more data relevant to women’s empowerment within food systems, including on capacities, motivations, and roles in the value chains
Address inclusion at the global policy level, using awareness of inequality to spur discussion on the need for large-scale investments in research and programming to build inclusive food systems
Encourage private sector initiatives to foster women’s empowerment, including adoption of standards for gender equity, women’s empowerment, and women’s leadership
Identify the needs of marginalized people early on and give them a voice in research and policy – and program design processes
Recognize the contributions that excluded people already make to food systems with their time and labor through policies that empower them to secure more equal benefits
Increase women’s decision-making power and control over resources and assets (such as credit, land, training, transport and technology) within the household and communities
Raise women’s voices in key processes such as negotiations with market actors, research decisions, and political processes
Enable smallholder engagement in dynamic food supply chains by addressing issues that hinder participation. Policies and regulatory frameworks should ensure land tenure security, access to credit, training and technical assistance, and resilience-enhancing social protection
Continually adapt policies as food systems evolve to ensure they promote healthy diets
Combine technological innovations, institutional capacity, and infrastructure investments – such as use of information and communication technology, food quality certification, and cold-chains to catalyze positive systemic change at the national level
Provide long-term refugees access to land and livelihoods to help them achieve food security while also strengthening local economies
Invest not only in education but also broadly in sectors such as transportation and energy infrastructure to create inclusive food system opportunities
Make much greater investments in data collection and analysis across the entire food system, particularly for the “hidden middle,” to underpin policies for inclusive value chains
Protect agriculture, food production, and rural livelihoods before, during and after conflict
Promote inclusive food supply chain development by leveraging the transformations already taking place in downstream food supply chains, particularly the expansion of small and medium-sized enterprises and growth of off-farm employment
Take action at the national level so that the local context-including the status of specific populations, economic structure, and cultural norms – can be taken into account in shaping inclusive food systems and improving diets
Focus on broad-based growth, not just on youth, to create an economic environment in which food system businesses can thrive and generate jobs for both young and old.
Reverse traditional thinking about food systems by starting from the consumer, focusing on diets and consumer demand. Better collection of data on changing diets, especially consumption of processed foods, and development of nationally appropriate dietary guidelines can inform strategies to address rising obesity and persistent malnutrition
Create more vibrant rural economies and support policies and initiatives aimed at enhancing youth’s long term economic prospects, which in turn will cultivate trust in government among young people
Rebuild local agriculture and food value chains to help conflict-affected people move beyond subsistence agriculture, rejoin exchange markets, adopt climate-smart practices, and become resilient to economic and climatic shocks
World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains
World Bank Group
2020
World Bank
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Foreign direct investment: Adopt supportive investment policy and improve the business climate. Attracting FDI is important at all stages of participation. It requires openness, investor protection, stability, a favorable business climate, and, in some cases, investment promotion.
Labor costs: Avoid rigid regulation and exchange rate misalignment
Access to inputs: Reduce tariffs and non tariff measures; reform services
Standardization: Harmonize or mutually accept standards
Intellectual property rights: ensure protection
Improve access to finance by improving access to banks and equity finance
Promote political stability
Improve policy predictability and pursue deep trade agreements
Standards certification: establish conformity assessment regime
Deepen traditional cooperation to address remaining barriers to trade in goods and services, as well as other measures that distort trade, such as subsidies and the activities of state-owned enterprises.
Market access: Pursue trade agreements.
Market Access: Deepen trade agreements to cover investment and services. Trade agreements expand market access, and they have been a critical catalyst for GVC entry in a wide range of countries
Advanced skills: Educate for innovation and open to foreign talent
Advanced logistics services: invest in multimodal transport infrastructure
Trade infrastructure: reform customs; liberalize transport services; invest in parts and roads. Improving customs and border procedures, promoting competition in transport and logistics services, and enhancing port structure and governance can reduce trade costs related to time and uncertainty, mitigating the disadvantages associated with a remote location.
Technical and managerial skills: Educate, train and open to foreign skills
Basic ICT connectivity: Liberalize ICT services; invest in ICT infrastructure
The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2020. Agricultural markets and sustainable development: Global value chains, smallholder farmers and digital innovations
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
2020
FAO
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Disruptive effects on food value chains due to the COVID-19 pandemic require enhanced international cooperation and market transparency, as well as measures that facilitate the movement of food without compromising food safety and workers’ health, including the establishment of trade corridors and the temporary re-evaluation of technical trade barriers.
To minimize barriers to trade that might arise from divergent national regulations, global standard‑setting bodies such as the Codex Alimentarius Joint FAO/WHO (World Health Organization) International Food Standards Programme aim at harmonizing standards at international level. The use of international food standards worldwide helps protect consumers and reduce trade costs by making trade more transparent and efficient, allowing food to move more smoothly between markets. Both the WTO SPS and Technical Barriers to Trade Agreements strongly encourage WTO members to build on international standards, guidelines and recommendations as the basis for their national measures.
Private standards often complement public regulation, for example, by referring to sustainability attributes such as environmental protection or ethical sourcing. Moreover, private standards may also fill the gap created by missing public regulation or enforce more stringent requirements than foreseen in national regulations.
Lower trade barriers can promote global value chains and contribute to growth in agriculture and the food industry. Every time products cross borders, they are subject to import tariffs, which escalate along global value chains and hinder value-added creation.
Trade policies that foster open markets should be complemented by measures that improve the capacity to compete in modern global value chains. These include investments in infrastructure, effective regulation and, most importantly, measures targeting the upgrade of skills for farmers and workers.
Global value chains, when combined with sustainability certification schemes, can help align global efforts to address sustainability challenges. Harmonizing sustainability standards and certification across countries can facilitate their application to agri-food global value chains.
Access to quality internet in terms of bandwidth and better speed is crucial for international trade. There is a need to focus on improving the quality of digital infrastructure in the developing world, where bandwidth speed can be diverse across countries and subscriptions.
Technological progress has led to improvements in infrastructure and logistics and thus lowered transportation costs. It has also contributed to declining communication costs, which also influence trade and promote the global integration of value chains. By helping reduce inefficiencies in value chains, technological progress may also contribute to more sustainable food system outcomes.
Increased awareness on the contribution of trade and global value chains to growth and food security is important in addressing the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Policies that promote international trade add to efficiency gains and strengthen resilience to shocks.
GVC‑related trade has a stronger positive impact on productivity and income per capita compared to bilateral non‑GVC trade. Participation in GVCs may enable greater competitiveness, better inclusion in trade and investment flows, and improved access to technology and knowledge, all of which help to upgrade towards higher value‑added activities.
Opening global markets can bring benefits to all trading partners and can create important spillover effects through the transmission of technology and the transfer of know‑how. Opening markets is more likely to result in significant benefits if complemented by other policies that underpin competitiveness, such as measures that improve governance and infrastructure, upgrade skills, remove rigidities in labour markets and facilitate the reallocation of labour between sectors. However, there are concerns about the short‑term effects of opening trade, especially the impacts on income distribution and inequality.
To reap the benefits of GVC participation for economic growth, appropriate trade policies on both the import and export sides are critical. Opening to trade and removing market‑distorting policies could enhance the unbundling of production processes internationally, and thereby promote GVC participation. Through various mechanisms, opening to trade stimulates economic activities in general and can facilitate food system transformation, including the emergence of a domestic food industry
Productivity increases, in conjunction with more trade and competition, bring about increases in the availability of safe and nutritious food and drive its price down, resulting in improvements in access to food. For many people, this process results in improved food security and better diets, since it increases access to foods rich in micronutrients such as fruits, vegetables and animal‑sourced foods.
In response to COVID-19, governments moved to strengthen food safety nets and social protection mechanisms to maintain access to food. Specific government measures could also address the impact of income reductions through subsidies, tax breaks and transfers to those affected. These measures are indispensable to preserve the gains realized in the reduction of food insecurity levels over recent decades.
Regional trade agreements can stimulate global value chain participation, as well as spur institutional and policy reform. But as many vulnerable countries continue to rely on global markets, international efforts should also promote multilateral trade.
Continuous research and analysis on the potential impacts of digital technologies on agricultural and food markets, their structure and their functioning are crucial to anticipate disruptive effects better and to promote sustainable outcomes.
Understanding the challenges that arise from digital technologies and addressing the risks associated with their use require enhanced collaboration and consensus among all stakeholders, including governments, the private sector and the farmers themselves, to improve governance mechanisms.
Government policies are crucial to underpinning market participation. They should target rural areas with measures to improve health and education services, upgrade infrastructure and foster labour markets, supporting an enabling environment that is conducive to business.
Inclusive business models, such as contract farming, can address the constraints farmers face in entering markets and value chains. In developing countries, such an approach can be facilitated by effective farmers’ groups and requires multifaceted and coordinated actions by the government, the private sector and civil society.
Agricultural and food markets can be harnessed to deliver sustainable development outcomes. Promoting and widely applying voluntary sustainability certification schemes can address trade‑offs between economic, environmental and social objectives.
Effective public‑private partnerships, good regulations to crowd‑in the private sector and policy coherence are needed to improve digital infrastructure and skills in rural areas and to facilitate the uptake of digital technologies, especially in agricultural and food markets of developing countries.
The impact of increased GVC participation is likely to vary depending on policies that promote the mobility of production factors, especially labour, and on conditions that allow economic activity to expand, such as investments in human capital through better skills, improved infrastructure and effective regulation.
Money Flows: What is holding back investment in agroecological research for Africa?
Biovision Foundation for Ecological Development and IPES-Food (International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems)
2020
Biovision and IPES-Food
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Focus on core practices and principles (e.g., closing natural resource cycles, agroforestry, diversification of crops and livelihoods, inter-cropping and crop rotation, push-pull technology, system of rice intensification, circular economy, co-creation of knowledge, localised food web, gender equity, inclusive decision-making) in order to introduce agroecology to new actors in a way that emphasises its practical applicability and compatibility with existing organisational goals and strategies.
Multi-stakeholder dialogues built on evidence-based arguments can help bring together different perspectives, as long as they are developed in an inclusive manner. In order for research to have a real-world impact, implementing agencies, civil society organisations, farmer organisations and private sector actors need to be involved at various stages. However, the role of the private sector, including potential vested interests, should be openly discussed and scrutinized, particularly in relation to blended finance models.
Focus on operational elements of agroecology as first steps in a well-sequenced transformation strategy, encouraging broader uptake to exploit windows of opportunity for spreading agroecology in different institutions and settings by drawing on the context-specific nature of agroecology. Building some element of system redesign – including the socioeconomic and political components of agroecology – into projects, at least in subsequent phases, can provide a guarantee of meaningful engagement with food system transformation.
Use entry points such as climate change adaptation, human and environmental health, biodiversity conservation, natural resource management, equity and social inclusion to establish dialogues with wide-ranging stakeholders around the multidimensional benefits of agroecological research for development.
Invite policymakers and funders to visit projects and get first-hand information about the added value of agroecological research projects; engage policymakers in sustained dialogue to challenge and counter the other perspectives influencing their thinking.
Emphasize agroecology’s contribution to normative commitments like the SDGs and the Paris Agreement as well as to protecting biodiversity through phasing out synthetic agrochemicals.
Initiate an alliance to formulate principles and guidelines for agroecological research and to monitor practices.
Organise equitable and inclusive multi-stakeholder dialogues based on evidence from agroecological research; enroll champions or figureheads who can help to enhance credibility and build alliances.
Increase the visibility and credibility of agroecological success stories by publishing in peer-reviewed journals and highlighting successful outcomes related to conventional measures and concerns (e.g., productivity, livelihoods) as well as the broader suite of impacts.
Support organisations in their journey towards agroecology by assisting them to build increasingly systemic approaches into subsequent phases of their programming.
Organise awards for particularly innovative agroecological research collaborations rather than for individual scientists.
Capture the benefits of agroecology by measuring food system outcomes holistically, equipping donors and research institutes with the tools to identify agroecological AgR4D and measure its outcomes.
Develop a suite of indicators that can be used by donors and research institutes to understand whether existing projects are ‘agroecological’, building on the Agroecology Criteria Tool (ACT). Support the development of holistic performance measurements for agroecology and metrics for capturing project alignment with the SDGs, building on (inter alia): the ACT, FAO’s Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE), the growing body of work on ‘true cost accounting’ and specific metrics like the land equivalent ratio.
Extend the analysis of AgR4D money flows to other regions and institutions, including the CGIAR system, and undertake peer reviews to ensure coherent approaches throughout funding portfolios.
Improve transparency and accountability as to how AgR4D projects are funded, how they are monitored and how their impacts are measured, e.g., through an extended common reporting system.
Build bridges between different parts of the research world with stronger incentives to involve different stakeholders and different forms of knowledge in research design beyond traditional discipline-specific incentives (journal publication and career opportunity).
Change must begin in training and education.
Shift towards long-term funding models.
Give primacy to African research institutions and support bottom-up approaches.
Showcase agroecological success stories in a way that highlights the economic viability and scalability of agroecology, as well as the feasibility of carrying out systemic agroecological research projects.
Impacts of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition: developing effective policy responses to address the hunger and malnutrition pandemic
High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE)
2020
HLPE
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Given that the majority of agricultural development assistance projects support conventional or industrial agricultural approaches, work to support more projects that encourage agroecology and other sustainable forms of agriculture.
Include support for individual and community responses, such as home and community gardens.
Include food system workers and agricultural producers’ organizations in COVID-19 decision processes at national and international levels.
Ensure food system workers’ rights are recognized and integrated in national legislation; promote and enforce compliance with established norms.
Ensure food systems workers have access to full protection from hazards and risks (in terms of personal protective equipment, distancing measures, clear health and safety guidelines, paid sick leave, adequate sleeping, eating and sanitary facilities, quarantine shelters).
Pay special attention to migrant workers in the food system to ensure they are protected from health risks, have access to health services and social protection.
Provide policy space and support to countries seeking to improve their domestic food production capacity within their ecological boundaries in the medium and longer-term.
Recognize the role of the CFS as a lead body in coordinating an international governance response to the impact of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition
Create a task force led by the CFS to track the food security impacts of COVID-19.
Establish a reporting system for CFS member states to share information and experiences with respect to the impact of COVID-19 on FSN in local and national contexts.
Develop a global campaign to educate and inform the public on nutrition-sensitive practices to prevent and manage COVID-19 infections at household and individual levels.
Design food assistance programmes that offer adequate access to healthy food, not just sufficient calories
Whenever possible, provide alternatives to school lunch programmes when schools are closed.
Allow for adequate access to health care, including access to mental health services, in the design and implementation of social safety nets.
Provide adequate emergency food aid, wherever possible with local and regional purchase of foods for food assistance
Provide debt relief to governments struggling to maintain necessary social safety nets
Maintain robust social safety nets recognizing that household food expenditure rise and fall in relation to other expenditures (e.g., on housing, health care, education etc.,)
Ensure sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, as well as animal production and forestry, are integrated in policy responses to COVID-19 so as to reap their full potential in terms of nutrition and livelihoods.
Implement mechanisms to protect farmers and small-agricultural producers from uncertainties and income losses, such as specific insurances, transfers and inputs distribution
Encourage countries to build up better long-term grain storage capacity
Carefully review policies that may unjustifiably privilege formal retail food outlets over more informal markets that provide points of connection between small producers and lower income consumers, including periodic rural markets and street vendors.
Consider adopting stronger regulation, including competition policy, to empower small and medium agri-food enterprises (SMEs) to participate in national, regional and global supply chains.
Invest in more agroecological research-action projects.
Invest in enhanced territorial market infrastructure at the regional, national and local levels.
Support the development of an agroecology curriculum at schools of agriculture in a range of countries.
The Financing Landscape for Agricultural Development: An Assessment of External Financing Flows to Low- and Middle-Income Countries and of the Global Aid Architecture
Duke Sanford World Food Policy Center
2020
Bharali et al.
Recommendation
Thematic Area
More donor investments in global public goods (GPGs) for agriculture are needed, in which the availability of better data (e.g., needs, results, financing, best practices) will be critical to strengthen programming, monitor progress and develop stronger country-investment cases, which in turn could help attract more funds for the sector. More funding for R&D may also be critical to drive technological progress with better policy frameworks and investment guidance to ensure that the existing funding is used in the most efficient way.
More data is needed on the type of agricultural projects countries are investing in domestically, as well as effective tracking mechanisms with a harmonized and comprehensive set of metrics to measure results and impacts on reaching SDG2 targets.
Donors should provide more ODA to African countries as the prevalence of undernourishment is projected to rise more than 25% by 2030. Additionally, there is a need to find new ways of working with African countries based on more investments in data, policies and results frameworks.
Going forward, existing grant funding should be used in a more strategic way. Grants should be used to leverage and de-risk private investments through blending mechanisms and public, private and producer partnerships to create an enabling environment for the agriculture sector to grow inclusively. Focus should be on ensuring these investments grow, while also using the funds more efficiently and in a more targeted way, in particular, with an intent to leverage as much private sector funding as possible or to pave the way for private sector investment. Grants should also be used to finance global public goods, and solely in support of the poorest countries.
Develop a global financing roadmap as a concerted effort to mobilize additional resources for SDG2 from public and private sources for agricultural development, convening a broad stakeholder group of donors, LMIC governments, multilateral financiers, technical agencies, POs, and other key stakeholders, as well as developing a common results framework to track progress against the SDG2 target and an accountability mechanism to ensure commitment-makers live up to their commitments.
The added value of innovative financing mechanisms—as introduced by the health sector—should be further explored by the agriculture sector, including targeted taxation schemes and incentive-based approaches such as advance market commitments (AMCs). Other promising approaches include using grant funding to crowd-in domestic financing, as well as utilizing the role of the public sector for de-risking investments.
ODA should be used more strategically to incentivize increased domestic funding. Multilateral organizations must ensure stronger co-financing commitments from middle-income countries (MICs).
A larger share of agriculture ODA should be provided by multilaterals to reduce fragmentation and ensure better alignment and coordination through their broad governance structure. Donors should ensure that the way they are funding the various multilateral agencies does not lead to mission drift, added redundancy, and ring-fencing of their own initiatives. Also, multilateral agencies should resist the temptation to pursue the proliferation of special initiatives just to suit some donor’s earmarked interest.
Further coordination and harmonization efforts are needed between the Rome-based agencies (RBAs) and between international financial institutions (IFIs) and the larger UN System.
Focus on facilitating country-level coordination and collaboration as it offers more opportunities for donors and agencies to coalesce around government priorities through local coordination groups in an effort to decentralize collaboration. Also, project co-financing among the multilateral organizations (and potentially bilaterals) as an effective way to seek harmonized approaches and reduce transaction costs for recipient countries.
In-depth partnership with CSOs, grassroots organizations, and POs must be expanded throughout the full project cycle (including M&E) to drive sustainable impact. While government consultation is often extensive, change needs to happen locally, and POs and CSOs must be more involved – not just in project design, but in implementation and evaluation (with evaluation being set up early on in the project).
Graduation from aid strategies vis-a-vis middle-income countries should ensure that, as countries improve their income status, scarce grants and concessional loans are freed up for the benefit of the poorest for conflict-affected countries.
Enhanced technical assistance, institutional strengthening, and learning from evaluations will be critical in supporting countries in their investment decisions.
Creating a Sustainable Food Future: A Menu of Solutions to Feed Nearly 10 Billion People by 2050
World Resources Institute (WRI)
2019
WRI
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Adopt emissions-reducing rice management and varieties
Increase communication and outreach (amplify the voice of champions, facilitate peer-to-peer learning, use technology to directly communicate with farmers)
Political commitment: Restoring peatlands, like most other infrastructure projects, has high potential to arouse opposition from some parties, even if the benefits to the public are clear and the project has the support of the vast majority of those directly affected. Efforts to move forward must be sensitive to issues of equity and seek participation and consent but should respect majority support.
Improve infrastructure (e.g., roads, electricity access)
Increase agricultural energy efficiency and shift to non-fossil energy sources
Target reforestation and peatland restoration: Reforestation at a scale necessary to hold temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius (i.e., hundreds of millions of hectares) is potentially achievable but only if the world succeeds in reducing projected growth in demand for resource-intensive agricultural products and boosting crop and livestock yields.
Convert unmarketable crops into value-added products
Improve forecasting and ordering
Intuitive presentation of outcomes for land-use modelling tools. A useful planning tool needs to present outcomes for each scenario in units that make intuitive sense to people as far as is practicable, for example, in tons of crops per hectare, dollars of profit (if economic analysis is included in the model), and tons of carbon released.
Properly identify “marginal and unimprovable” agricultural lands for reforestation
Improve agriculture extension services
Facilitate increased donation of unsold food
Monitoring and updating agricultural land expansion tools to determine whether predictions prove accurate, to reprogram the tools as necessary, and to update results as the world changes.
Integrate more native species in reforestation efforts
Improve harvesting techniques
Increase financing for innovation and scaling of promising technologies
Reduce emissions through improved manure management.
Reduce enteric fermentation through new technologies: Recommend that governments provide incentives to the private sector by promising to require use of compounds if and when they prove to mitigate emissions at a reasonable cost.
Actively support farmer-assisted regeneration
Improve access to infrastructure and markets
Reduce emissions from manure left on pasture: Increase research funding, Create private regulatory incentives
Focus on realistic options to sequester carbon in agricultural soils
Better peatlands data and mapping
Improve storage technologies
Adopt emissions-reducing rice management and varieties
Conversion-free supply chains: Mobilize buyers, traders, and financiers of agricultural commodities to purchase or finance only commodities not linked to deforestation or other ecosystem conversions.
Resources: Restoration requires resources both to fund the physical restoration and, usually, to compensate in some way existing users of the land for their forgone uses
Introduce energy-efficient, low-carbon cold chains
Reduce emissions from fertilizers by increasing nitrogen use efficiency
Strengthen understanding: Evidence of which practices truly work for farmers and help to restore productivity is weak in much of Africa. Data about the costs and benefits are mostly lacking for both technical and social outcomes and obstacles. One way to improve understanding is for donor agencies to build this kind of technical and socioeconomic analysis into their project budgets for monitoring and evaluation.
Regulations: Governments should establish, and enforce, strong laws protecting peatlands from further drainage or conversion
Improve handling to reduce damage
Change food date labelling practices
Conduct consumer education campaigns (e.g., general public schools, restaurants) to reduce food loss and waste in the home or business of the consumer, including restaurants and caterers
Create partnerships to manage seasonal variability (e.g., bumper crops)
Make cosmetic standards more amenable to selling imperfect food (e.g., produce with irregular shapes or blemishes)
Consume imperfect produce.
Increase capacity building to accelerate transfer of the best practices to reduce food loss and waste
Reduce portion sizes.
Governments, therefore, need to devote more resources to improving educational opportunities for girls, family planning, and reducing infant and child mortality.
Reengineer manufacturing processes during industrial or domestic processing and/or packaging to reduce food loss and waste
Finance: Structure domestic and international financing to simultaneously support yield gains and natural ecosystem protection and/or restoration.
Increased farm mechanization to reduce labor intensity while increasing production
Improve supply chain management during industrial or domestic processing and/or packaging to reduce food loss and waste
Support institutional and policy reforms to reform outdated and counterproductive forestry legislation, establish more secure land tenure and management rights over trees, and strengthen local institutions to improve natural resource governance.
Improve packaging to keep food fresher for longer, optimize portion size, and gauge safety
Pursue new models for increasing soil carbon in depleted croplands.
Reprocess or repackage food not meeting specifications
Adequate funding to develop and maintain a proper land-planning tool.
Provide guidance on food storage and preparation
Improve consumer cooking skills.
Land-use planning: Develop and use “living” analytical tools in the form of detailed land-use plans that prioritize areas for agricultural yield enhancement including “climate-smart” road networks and other public infrastructure) and protect natural ecosystems.
Share genomic advances
Leverage new technologies
Increase research on orphan crops
Scientists and agronomists to conduct more detailed analysis of realistic, potential increases in cropping intensity.
Shift consumption away from animal-based foods with four strategies: Minimize disruption; Sell a compelling benefit; Maximize awareness and Evolve social norms
Manage demand: Slowing demand growth requires reducing food loss and waste, shifting the diets of high meat consumes towards plant-based foods, avoiding any further expansion of biofuel production, and improving women’s access to education and healthcare in Africa to accelerate voluntary reductions in fertility levels.
Spur technological innovation: Opportunities include crop traits or additives that reduce methane emissions from rice and cattle, improved fertilizer forms and crop properties that reduce nitrogen runoff, solar-based processes for making fertilizers, organic sprays that preserve fresh food for longer periods, and plant-based beef substitutes.
Moderate ruminant meat consumption: Closing the land and GHG mitigation gaps requires that, by 2050, the 20 percent of the world’s population who would otherwise be high ruminant-meat consumers reduce their average consumption by 40 percent relative to their consumption in 2010.
Boost breeding budgets
Improve plant-based or cultured meat substitutes
Leverage government policies (procurement, taxes, subsidies and stronger policy coherence)
Phase out mandates and subsidies
Integrate programs to support intensification with a greater focus on feed quality
Eliminate bioenergy produced on dedicated land from low-carbon fuel standards
Increase investment in technological innovation and transfer
Exclude bioenergy produced on dedicated land from renewable energy standards
Use spatial planning to optimize aquaculture siting
Reform accounting of bioenergy
Introduce policies to reward sustainable intensification
Maintain blend wall limitations
Establish aquaculture monitoring systems
Raise productivity: Increased efficiency of natural resources use is the single most important step toward meeting both food production and environmental goals
Establish national and international goals for livestock efficiency gains – particularly ruminant systems – and develop technical programs to implement them
Link agricultural intensification with natural ecosystems protection: To ensure that food production is increased through yield growth (intensification) not through expansion, and that productivity gains do not encourage more shifting, governments must explicitly link efforts to boost crop and pasture yields with legal measures to protect forests, savannas, and peatlands from conversion to agriculture
Develop analytical systems to track and plan ruminant efficiency gains
Require production-related climate mitigation: Management measures exist to significantly reduce GHG emissions from agricultural production sources, particularly enteric fermentation by ruminants, and from manure, nitrogen fertilizers, and energy use. These measures require a variety of incentives and regulations, deployed at scale. Implementation will require far more detailed analysis and tracking of agricultural production systems within countries.
Protect natural landscapes
Adopt competitive programs to encourage new technology.
Adopt regulations immediately to require improved manure management on all new farms, as well as on all medium and large concentrated livestock farms that currently use wet manure management systems,
Build spatial databases of large concentrated livestock facilities.
Progress at the necessary scale requires large increases in R&D funding, and flexible regulations that encourage private industry to develop and market new technologies.
G20 Niigata Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting: G20 Agriculture Ministers’ Declaration 2019
G20
2019
G20
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Facilitate smooth and timely adoption by producers and stakeholders, including collaboration with non agro-food sectors, in order to maximize their full potential in raising productivity and sustainability of the agro-food sector.
Encourage innovation in agriculture through the utilization and access of advanced technologies, such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics among others.
Recent progress on technology and other forms of innovation including organizational and financial, make it necessary for farmers to acquire a wider range of knowledge and skills in order to enable them to embrace and responsibly utilize new technologies and innovations. It is therefore necessary for an environment where farmers, including new and small scale farmers, regardless of age, gender or geographic location can have access to knowledge and skills.
Overcome obstacles which prevent women from being equal contributors to and beneficiaries of FVCs. In particular, the promotion of women’s empowerment through equitable access to innovation and skills training is important to the sustainable development and growth of the agro-food sector.
Continue efforts to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) through balanced and multi-sectoral approaches, tackling this issue through “One Health” national action plans, including terrestrial and aquatic animals and agriculture throughout the food chain.
Promote innovation and skills training for attracting new entrants, especially youth, to the agro-food sector. Skilled people, in turn, will contribute to further innovation in the agro-food sector if they acquire entrepreneurial skills, are more directly involved in the research and development process, and have improved access to the financial system and extension services.
Highlight the role and responsibility of international organizations in improving and promoting global food safety and nutrition for protecting the health of consumers.
Emphasize the importance of local, regional and international FVCs in adding domestic value, noting that the larger share of farmers’ income is typically derived from their domestic markets in most countries.
Support the implementation and the application of internationally accepted principles and good practices where appropriate, including Committee on World Food Security (CFS)- Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security, CFS-Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems, and OECD-FAO Guidance for Responsible Agricultural Supply Chains.
Sustainably developed FVCs that increase efficiency and productivity, and in particular, reduce food loss and waste, can contribute to the fight against food insecurity, increase natural resource efficiency and reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emission.
Recognize the importance of learning through exchange of good practices, accumulating knowledge for all concerned stakeholders, within the G20 and beyond.
Facilitate ongoing international efforts to improve trade rules affecting agriculture, noting that measures inconsistent with international rules and obligations may undermine the efficient functioning of FVCs, calling on all countries to respect their obligations in this area.
The challenges the agro-food sector is facing must be tackled more than ever by the collective action of all relevant players, locally, nationally and internationally. Encourage collaboration of all stakeholders, including industry, civil society, academia, policymakers, and international organizations.
Reaffirm the importance of comprehensive approaches to risk assessment, management and communication in FVCs, to strengthen the stakeholders’ capacities to manage risks. At the same time, underline that transparency in food markets can enable farmers to earn better incomes and help mitigate food price volatility.
Acknowledge the importance of the efforts so far to reduce, prepare for and manage risks, emphasizing the need for an effective policy environment in which all stakeholders of the agro-food sector can choose optimal risk management measures.
Enhance information sharing and supporting activities of international organizations including the OIE and of implementing OIE standards, in particular, those that are relevant to tackling transboundary animal diseases such as African Swine Fever and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza.
While respecting applicable legal frameworks for data privacy, there is a need to set a foundation for access and use of data by all including those on production and markets as well as with an appropriate digital infrastructure, in order to enhance the potential of ICT and digital technology, while fostering international cooperation.
Encourage joint research and development processes through private public-academia collaboration, nationally and internationally.
Welcome approaches such as Agro-ecosystem Living Labs that involve farmers, scientists and other interested partners in the co-design, monitoring and evaluation of agricultural practices and technologies on working landscapes.
Need for worldwide outreach and stocktaking exercise.
Need for innovation toward sustainability of the agro-food sector
Need for focusing on agro-food value chains toward inclusive and sustainable growth of the agro-food sector
Need for collaboration and knowledge exchange to address global issues
Continue to support initiatives proactively, including through voluntary financial contributions, especially in those cases most in need, such as AMIS, as well as with timely and reliable information where so required, to ensure their continued work.
Consider that continuous promotion of responsible agricultural investment plays an important role in improving sustainability of the agro-food sector.
Reaffirm the importance of capacity-building for developing countries on food safety and nutrition and enhancing collaborative efforts in this area.
Encourage on-going discussions in inter-sectorial or interdisciplinary fora such as Tripartite Plus (WHO, FAO, OIE and UNEP), Codex, IPPC, and other United Nations related bodies including the General Assembly, acknowledging the role of the agro-food sector in ensuring the “One Health” approach is effective on a global basis.
Recognizing that well trained people are one of the most important assets for the future, knowledge and inputs are encouraged from non-agricultural sectors in human development and lifelong education for all.
Develop respective FVCs in an inclusive and equitable manner, to the mutual benefit of all participants including family farmers, smallholders, women and youth, by empowering them to make the most use of innovation and knowledge, taking note of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming.
Encourage cooperation with civil society and private actors to prevent food loss and waste at the processing, retail and consumer level, and sharing practices and technology regarding the reduction of pre-and post-harvest losses with developing countries.
Welcome the work of the Technical Platform on the Measurement and Reduction of Food Loss and Waste.
Recognize that FVCs can also help revitalize rural areas along with other activities such as agrotourism and promotion of local produce which contribute to increase product value added and income for farmers.
Countries’ own farm structure, hard and soft infrastructure in production, processing and distribution, expected roles played by producer’s organization and consumers’ buying behavior need to be taken into account in order to achieve effective and sustainable growth of the agro-food sector.
Implement resilient FVCs in light of increasing extreme weather, degradation of natural resources, outbreak of pests and diseases and excessive price volatility.
Underscore the role of the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS), the Group on Earth Observations Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) and the Platform for Agricultural Risk Management (PARM).
Recognize the important role that scientific assessment plays to inform policy setting, including those of climate change and adoption of innovative technologies, and welcome the work by the Meeting of G20 Agricultural Chief Scientists (MACS) that strengthens research collaboration for scaling up and out, and accelerating adoption of climate-smart technologies and practices for sustainable agriculture.
Welcome the adoption of the resolution in the United Nations General Assembly on the International Year of Plant Health, 2020, and welcome the activities of MACS that facilitate research collaboration to tackle transboundary plant pests.
Raise awareness of the importance of plant health to all.
2019 Rural Development Report: Creating opportunities for rural youth
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
2019
IFAD
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Integrate development and climate policies and investments in order to address impacts of climate change.
Social marketing for healthy eating choices
Need to seek the digital dividend
Need to address second-generation nutrition problems
Improved roads, ports and market infrastructure need to be coupled with expanded private-sector-driven access to mobile connectivity.
Need to complete the extension of their electrification and sanitation networks into remote rural areas
Governments should address pockets of persistent rural poverty with a mix of targeted development initiatives, social safety nets and youth-specific investments
Youth-specific investments in areas where rural poverty persists need to focus, among other things, on building and strengthening rural people’s cognitive and non-cognitive skills so that they will be better prepared to seize the opportunities that are opened up as their countries attain more advanced stages in the transformation process
Vocational training and apprenticeship programmes for young people
Simplification of business registration procedures
Value chains investments designed in collaboration with the private sector
Need to address youth unemployment, which is much higher than in the less transformed countries in the other three country categories
Programmes aimed at building non-cognitive skills, including team-building and practical problem-solving
Youth-focused microfinance, savings groups and cash transfers for business start-ups
Rural-rural and rural-urban road infrastructure
Digital enabled and demand-driven agricultural extension initiatives featuring peer-to-peer learning
Leveraging programmes to encourage NGOs to experiment with youth-centred entrepreneurial programmes
Programmes promoting access to land for entrepreneurial young farmers
Rural electrification for productive activities
Policies for the promotion of land rental markets
Investments need to target physical infrastructure especially roads
Establishment and maintenance of the Enabling Youth Employment Index (AfDB)
Positive youth development programmes that provide mentorship
Access to workspace and infrastructure for rural and smalltown households and for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
Intergenerational land transfer programmes
In least transformed countries, reducing fertility rate and improving farm productivity and the connectivity of rural areas are of central importance in addressing low productivity and a lack of agency
Technical assistance to microfinance institutions to help them to innovate, deliver and document financial services for young people
Programmes to help youth re-enter farming activities after having spent time outside rural areas
Rural water, health and sanitation
Improvements in land registration and transactions systems
Need to increase the level of agricultural productivity for the 67% or rural youth who live in the highest-productivity areas and areas offering diverse and remunerative opportunities
Need to dramatically speed up demographic transition starting with the youth including investments in productive and reproductive spheres
Regulatory structures to promote mobile communications coverage in rural areas
Support for the growth of secondary cities and rural towns, including linkages to rural areas
Interventions designed to respond to multiple youth constraints be conceived of as multi-component, comprehensive programmes so as to be more effective in improving youth development outcomes
Active labour market policies for the unemployed
Investments in reproductive health (including family planning) education and services for young girls
Improved wholesale markets
Agroecological and other innovative approaches for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition
The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security
2019
The High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) on Food Security and Nutrition
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Lay or strengthen, as appropriate, the policy foundations for agroecological and other innovative approaches to contribute to sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition.
Undertake comprehensive and inclusive assessments of the sustainability of agriculture and food systems, paying due attention to all positive and negative environmental, economic, social externalities, trade-offs and synergies, as the first step to developing context-specific transition pathways, in a coherent manner, as appropriate and in accordance with and dependent on national context and capacities.
In cases where comprehensive assessments show that sustainability can be improved, develop context-specific policies and plans to move towards, and to improve, sustainable agriculture and food systems through inclusive processes based on the results of such assessments; ensure the participation of all relevant stakeholders: particularly women, youth, indigenous peoples and local communities, and people in vulnerable situations, and sectors.
Promote the integration of agroecological and other innovative approaches in policies and plans that address agriculture and food system challenges in a given context by strengthening the resilience of food systems, thus contributing to the three pillars of sustainable development within the 2030 Agenda; those policies and plans should make agroecological and other innovative approaches affordable and accessible, respond to local employment needs, contribute to equity and respond to the needs of all actors, in particular people in vulnerable situations.
Implement, monitor, evaluate and continually improve context-specific agriculture and food systems’ transformation policies and plans, with the inclusive participation of relevant stakeholders, giving particular attention to the people in vulnerable situations , recalling that transformation of food systems should be encouraged in a coherent manner, as appropriate and in accordance with and dependent on national context and capacities.
Promote science and evidence-based public mechanisms to assess the effects and impacts of agroecological and other innovative approaches on key aspects of sustainable agriculture and food systems related to food security and nutrition, resilience, food safety, producers’ revenues, the environment and public health, the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security, and the reduction of food losses and waste.
Using science and evidence-based approaches, re-direct public policies, budgets and public and private investments, to agroecological and other innovative approaches, as well as sustainable practices and innovations, as appropriate, that reduce economic, environmental, and social negative impacts, including externalities, and lead to improved economic, social and environmental outcomes, while considering all externalities, trade-offs and synergies and contributing to the three dimensions of sustainable development and the achievement of the SDGs.
Strengthen public policies to harness market mechanisms to enable sustainable agriculture and food systems by considering economic, environmental, and social, including public health, externalities, trade-offs and synergies.
Encourage policies to promote sustainable production and consumption patterns that support, maintain, or enhance conservation and sustainable use of natural resources, and resource use efficiencies, including through supporting circular economies and other sustainable approaches and systems, while enhancing livelihoods and offering economic opportunities and growth, in collaboration with all relevant stakeholders.
Promote the development of policies and the implementation of joint actions among all relevant stakeholders for the reduction of food losses and waste including, when promoting agroecological and other innovative approaches, in order to achieve sustainable development.
Strengthen the policy coherence and synergy between the promotion of healthy diets through sustainable food systems and the support for agroecological and other innovative approaches.
Ensure that farmers, including peasants, family farmers and other people working in rural areas, in particular small-scale food producers, have equal access to, and control over land and natural resources, in accordance with national legislation, that are the essential basis for any form of sustainable agricultural production, by adopting appropriate regulations at the national level, consistent with the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (CFS-VGGT) and other relevant frameworks.
Promote the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security and enable individual and collective actions that address the four dimensions of food security (availability, access, stability and utilization) and nutrition at different scales, taking into account to the principles of equality and non-discrimination, participation and inclusion, accountability and rule of law.
Strengthen policies, programmes and actions that eliminate structural barriers to address root causes of gender inequality, in particular by considering that laws and policies to support inter alia equal access to natural resources, finance and public services, respecting and protecting women’s knowledge, as well as eliminating all forms of violence, including gender-based violence and discrimination against women, and promoting women’s empowerment.
Enhance policy coherence and coordination of agroecological and other innovative approaches across sectors consistent with para 26 of the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition (CFS-VGFSyN).
Establish, improve and apply comprehensive performance measurement and monitoring frameworks to encourage the adoption of agroecological and other innovative approaches for sustainable agriculture and food systems that enhance food security and nutrition.
Apply scientifically grounded and comprehensive performance metrics and indicators of agriculture and food systems based on SDG indicators and supplemented by complementary frameworks under development, as appropriate, including, but not limited to: the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE); the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture systems tool (SAFA) and the Self-evaluation and Holistic Assessment of climate Resilience of farmers and Pastoralists (SHARP) tool to track progress towards agroecological and other innovative approaches, and for related policy implementation and investment decisions.
Undertake assessments that adequately consider the environmental impact of food systems, including food losses and waste, and continue to refine calculation methods that consider the environmental impacts of food systems.
Undertake holistic assessments of employment and labour conditions in agriculture and food systems, disaggregated by gender and age, in support of: i) decent labour policies and regulations for sustainable agriculture and food systems; ii) improved livelihoods, health and social and legal protection of farmers and other food system workers, particularly migrant workers and people in vulnerable situations.
Encourage data collection (differentiated by factors including gender and farm size) and analysis at national level, documentation of lessons learned and information sharing at all levels to support evaluation of the performance of agroecological and other innovative approaches.
Foster the transition to resilient and diversified sustainable agriculture and food systems through agroecological and other innovative approaches.
Raise awareness about the importance of diversified production systems that integrate livestock, aquaculture, cropping and agroforestry, as appropriate, to enhance resilient livelihoods and promote sustainable production for healthy diets.
Strengthen public policies, responsible investment and research in support of agroecological and other innovative approaches.
Provide producers, and in particular small scale producers and women, with public policies and private investments, for diversification and integration of their production, including providing support during the process of transitioning, in a coherent manner, as appropriate, according to, and dependent on national context and capacity, to more sustainable food systems.
Strengthen policy instruments and coherence for the conservation of biodiversity for food and agriculture, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources and support the important past, present and future contributions of producers and researchers for the development, conservation and improvement of biodiversity, taking into account, as appropriate, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the recommendations of the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, (for those states which have ratified those Treaties).
Promote an integrated One Health approach, including through agroecological and other innovative approaches, that fosters cooperation between the human health, animal health and plant health, as well as environmental and other relevant sectors, to address antimicrobial resistance, strengthen food safety, enhance resilience and minimize, control and strive to prevent the emergence of diseases of animal origin and the potential and not necessarily correlated pandemics.
Promote healthy diets through sustainable food systems, including through the implementation of agroecological and other innovative approaches in order to improve food security and nutrition.
Promote measures to improve animal welfare, in line with OIE standards, including through the implementation of agroecological and other innovative approaches.
Raise policy makers’ and public awareness, using a science and evidence-based approach, about the risks of pesticides and other agrochemicals, to human, animal and plant health and the environment.
Promote, based on agroecological and other innovative approaches, alternatives to chemical pesticides and the greater integration of biodiversity for food and agriculture. Promote the removal of highly hazardous pesticides, in line with recommendation 7.5 of the WHO/FAO International Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management and depending on specific context and national capacities.
Promote the human rights of all and recognize the importance of the values and interests of peasants, indigenous peoples, local communities, family farmers, and other people working in rural areas, and the importance of strengthening their ability to avoid exposure and poisoning from hazardous agrochemicals.
Drawing on the International Code of Conduct for the Sustainable Use and Management of Fertilizers, the Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management, and consistent with national strategies and contexts, recognize the value of, and strengthen support for, agroecological and other innovative approaches that promote recycling, optimizing, or reducing, as appropriate, the reliance on external inputs, and facilitate the regeneration of soil health.
Recognize the value of agroecological and other innovative approaches in tackling the increasing challenges posed by antimicrobial resistance, and in supporting the implementation of national action plans in line with the WHO Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance, taking note of the recommendations of the UN interagency coordination group on antimicrobial resistance, where appropriate.
Govern territories and landscapes at appropriate levels and in an inclusive way, with particular attention to people in vulnerable situations, so as to respond to local needs. This includes enhancing the provision of ecosystem services and managing trade-offs between them, protecting biodiversity-rich habitats, and responding to the local impacts of global emergencies; in particular by supporting social innovation and strengthening inclusive public bodies, such as local food policy councils and multi-stakeholder landscape and watershed management platforms.
Strengthen responsible investment and innovation in micro, small and medium sized enterprises that support sustainable agriculture and food systems and retain value locally.
Create an enabling environment for young people to remain in, or move to, rural areas by: i) protecting their rights and livelihoods; ii) creating decent work opportunities, including through applying agroecological and other innovative approaches; and iii) by addressing specific challenges for young people such as access to land, in accordance with national legislation, mechanization and technologies, credit and information, educational and entrepreneurial opportunities, and by investing in rural infrastructure and services to reduce gaps between rural and urban areas.
In collaboration with relevant actors, including the private sector, promote local, national, regional and global markets, and their interconnections, as appropriate, that enhance food security and nutrition, strengthen supply chains in particular local ones and demonstrate concrete contributions to sustainable agriculture and food systems, that do not impact negatively on livelihoods.
Increase the resilience of food systems in facing crises, by promoting diverse market arrangements that have greater flexibility in the face of disruptions, promote an open, transparent, non-discriminatory, predictable, rules-based trade including in the sectors of agriculture and sustainable food systems, and protect farmers and consumers against food price volatility. This involves recognizing the special challenges faced by small scale producers in addressing existing relevant challenges in food supply chains at all levels.
Strengthen local, national and regional markets (through appropriate measures such as processing hubs, transportation infrastructure and adapted food safety regulations in line with international standards (IPPC, Codex and OIE) to link urban communities and rural territories through sustainable food production systems that support rural livelihoods, including by capturing a high proportion of the value of production locally.
Support market and social innovations that strengthen linkages between urban communities and food producers, in particular small-scale producers and family farmers that provide sustainably produced healthy, safe and nutritious food to all consumers while providing living wages and decent livelihoods to producers. This could include Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), participatory guarantee systems (in compliance with public policy and safety standards), and relevant product differentiation systems.
Support innovative public procurement of food from small-scale producers and local small and medium enterprises and micro-enterprises in public policies regarding, among others, school feeding programmes, other safety nets, food assistance and public preparedness mechanisms, prioritizing low-income and food insecure people. Preference should be given to sustainably produced food that contributes to healthy diets while supporting local and rural development objectives.
Realize the full potential of digitalization for sustainable agriculture and food systems through capacity building and cooperation and technology transfer on voluntary and mutually agreed terms, in particular for developing and low-income countries, and include safeguards for data privacy and for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interest.
Promote agroecological and other innovative approaches including, as appropriate, through the use of digital technologies and other Information and Communication Technologies as an entry point for the involvement of youth, women, indigenous peoples and local communities in agriculture and food systems.
Strengthen innovation platforms and promote digital technologies and applications that enhance sustainable agriculture and food systems to facilitate wider networking, taking into account traditional and ancestral knowledge, consistent with context-specific needs of small scale producers and family farmers.
Harness digital technologies to establish and strengthen more direct links between producers and consumers offering opportunities for economic diversification, including through brokering sustainable finance initiatives, market opportunities and solidarity economy initiatives.
Promote context-specific policies to bridge the digital divide between and within countries, as well as between rural and urban areas, by reducing currently existing technical, legislative, economic and educational barriers, and promote cooperation schemes to facilitate access to the application of digital tools, digital infrastructure, and technological solutions to improve rural attractiveness in particular for young people and women.
Strengthen research, innovation, training, and education and foster knowledge co-creation, knowledge sharing and co-learning, on agroecological and other innovative approaches.
Strengthen agricultural knowledge, information and innovation systems by enabling that research, extension/dissemination and education/capacity building to be integrated in an inclusive, participatory, bottom-up and problem-oriented manner in order to find holistic solutions to food system challenges based on agroecological and other innovative approaches, while not discouraging research and adoption of existing technologies and practices that contribute positively to sustainable development.
Develop and support problem-oriented transdisciplinary research, and encourage giving value to local and indigenous knowledge in participatory innovation processes across the range of contexts experienced by producers and other stakeholders in agriculture and food systems.
Deepen the horizontal exchange of knowledge and experiences between producers and other relevant actors of food systems at the local, national, regional and international levels.
Promote, as well as enable, responsible investment in participatory research and innovation on agroecological and other innovative approaches addressing especially the specific needs of people in vulnerable situations with their active engagement. This might include a focus on the local dimension of global challenges.
Promote advisory and agricultural extension services, and strengthen training programmes to improve the implementation of agroecological and other innovative approaches, which could include ecological and environmental-friendly alternatives to agrochemical use as a mean to achieve food security and nutrition while protecting the environment. This should cover all agricultural sectors, using a holistic approach and using methods such as farmer field schools (FFS) and producer-to-producer networks.
Take appropriate measures to promote the human rights of all and recognize the importance of the values and interests of peasants, indigenous peoples, local communities, family farmers and other people working in rural areas, particularly in maintaining, expressing, controlling, protecting and developing their knowledge, including traditional knowledge, taking into account its specificity, for example through knowledge systems embedded in agricultural heritage systems, while recognizing the critical role of rural and indigenous women in the context of food security and nutrition.
Support innovation platforms for transdisciplinary research that foster co-learning between practitioners (e.g. producer organizations) and researchers; these may include producer-to-producer networks, communities of practice, “transdisciplinary labs”, and decentralized centers of excellence.
Support the horizontal sharing of knowledge and experiences building on existing producers’ organizations and networks, including processes designed specifically by and for women, youth, indigenous peoples and local communities.
Encourage explicit coverage of achieving sustainable agriculture and food systems in curricula of educational institutions at all levels, and integrate hands-on, experiential learning.
Promote nutrition education including through the implementation of agroecological and other innovative approaches as part of a range of activities to support healthy diets, in line with recommendation 3.5.1.h of the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition.
Undertake analysis and provide scientific evidence to assess the benefits and potential risks of digital technological applications to contribute to agroecological and other innovative approaches and promote a participatory transdisciplinary approach of all relevant actors, recognizing the relevance of the FAO International Platform for Digital Food and Agriculture to these discussions and assessments.
Enable transdisciplinary science and capacity building, valuing the knowledge and participation of all relevant stakeholders, particularly indigenous peoples and local communities and sharing of knowledge among them, including in the setting of research priorities.
Include safeguards for the identification and management of possible conflicts of interest and against power imbalances.
Take appropriate measures to promote the human rights of all and recognize the importance of the values and interests of peasants, indigenous peoples, local communities, family farmers and other people working in rural areas, particularly in maintaining, expressing, controlling, protecting and developing their knowledge, including traditional knowledge, taking into account its specificity, for example through knowledge systems embedded in agricultural heritage systems, while recognizing the critical role of rural and indigenous women in the context of food security and nutrition.
Support innovation platforms for transdisciplinary research that foster co-learning between practitioners (e.g. producer organizations) and researchers; these may include producer-to-producer networks, communities of practice, “transdisciplinary labs”, and decentralized centers of excellence.
Support the horizontal sharing of knowledge and experiences building on existing producers’ organizations and networks, including processes designed specifically by and for women, youth, indigenous peoples and local communities.
Encourage explicit coverage of achieving sustainable agriculture and food systems in curricula of educational institutions at all levels, and integrate hands-on, experiential learning.
Recognize researchers who engage in transdisciplinary research.
Promote nutrition education including through the implementation of agroecological and other innovative approaches as part of a range of activities to support healthy diets, in line with recommendation 3.5.1.h of the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition.
Support capacity development for producers, in particular small-scale producers, as well as policy makers and all other relevant actors, on agroecological and other innovative approaches to support innovation processes suited to their contexts and needs, and link these with social protection programmes where appropriate.
Promote the co-creation of knowledge in a systemic and holistic way for the development and strengthening of the sustainability of food systems.
Encourage, in line with national contexts and regulations, increased resource allocation in public research and responsible investments in private research, with appropriate safeguards for the identification and management of possible conflicts of interest, innovation and development activities at national, regional and international levels promote evidence-based balanced investment towards enhanced support for agroecological and other innovative approaches addressing the specific needs of people in vulnerable situations.
Strengthen public research to address the needs of farmers and all other people working and living in rural areas, in particular women, youth, elders, indigenous peoples and local communities.
Support inclusive, transparent, participatory and democratic decision-making mechanisms at all levels in agriculture and food systems (for example, national inter-ministerial food security and nutrition committees and municipal food policy councils).
Facilitate the use of social media and digital networking to promote producers’ leadership and engagement in relevant processes and to increase availability and access to affordable and reliable networks.
Support processes that facilitate and prioritize the active participation of people most at risk of food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms and people in vulnerable situations, including women, youth, indigenous peoples and local communities, in decision-making that affects them at the local, national and global levels, through the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security.
Promote the empowerment of women, particularly small-scale food producers and family farmers, and their organizations, by supporting collective action, negotiation and leadership skills, to increase access to and equity in the control over land and natural resources, according to national legislation.
Increase access to, inter alia, education, appropriate extension and financial services, methodologies and technologies that are adequate for women, youth and elders, and full participation in related policy processes.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019: Safeguarding against economic slowdowns and downturns
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
2019
FAO
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Policies and social mobilization to address the multiple challenges facing populations who are discriminated against of excluded (based on ethnicity, caste or religion) including: Legal, regulatory and policy frameworks to promote social inclusion; National public expenditure; Improving access to and adequacy of public services (sometimes exclusively targeted to these population group; Empowering institutions and their organizational capacity and participation in decision-making processes; Increasing accountability to protect human rights; and Working to gradually change discriminatory attitudes and behaviors
Policies to boost domestic production of food such as: Free or subsidized input distribution; Import-tariff or value-added tax cuts on fertilizers and technology production; Government-funded agricultural research and extension activities and Subsidies for the adoption of new technologies and irrigation
Policies and investments to achieve structural transformation that diversifies the economy away from commodity dependence, while fostering poverty reduction and more egalitarian societies including: Transforming agriculture and food systems such that the type of commodities produced contribute to improved access to more nutritious foods; Policies that facilitate trade should also help achieve nutrition objectives; Integrating food security and nutrition concerns into poverty reduction efforts, while increasing synergies between poverty reduction, hunger and malnutrition eradication
Media campaigns to promote healthier food options
Accessible fresh food markets
Voluntary certification schemes for restaurants selling healthier meals
Grants/tax breaks for vendors to provide healthier options on their menu
Ban/restrict sugar-sweetened beverages in schools
Taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages or on foods high in salt, fat and sugar
Restrict sale of fast food around schools through zooning policies
Provision of free access to safe piped drinking water
Restrict marketing of breast-milk substitutes
More dedicated and comprehensive policies and development approaches are required that specifically target women’s economic empowerment and nutrition including: Access to reproductive health services and nutrition services; Care services; Skills training and access to employment and Maternity protection and social protection
Policies aimed at stabilizing food prices (Could include – Restrictions on exports of staple food items; Use of food stocks to boost the food supply; Consumptions subsidies for certain essential food items; and Import tariff and consumption/sales tax cuts
Nutrition labelling of pre-packaged foods
Basic investments in the quality of diets; quality of health; education; and water, sanitation and hygiene can improve childcare and feeding practices, maternal nutrition, dietary choices of consumers and food preparation
Facilitating trade of food products allows poor consumers to access food commodities at lower prices
Food-based dietary guidelines
Basic infrastructure and roads, particularly in rural areas and the development of markets in urban and peri-urban areas facilitates physical access to food
Breastfeeding promotion
Menu labelling
Food coupons to vulnerable groups for fresh produce markets
Regulate levels of salt, sugar and fat in products
Promoting poor farmers’ productivity increases the production and the availability of food for the poor at the national level; however, this depends on the potential of the production frontier, type of crop and the market where agricultural production is sold.
Standards for healthy school meals
Regulate marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages for children
Ensuring universal access to health and education
Shock-responsive social protection systems can expand cash transfers (conditional or unconditional depending on the existing level of institutionality), cash for work or food for work programmes when covariate or intrinsic shocks occur
Developing risk-informed and shock-responsive systems during the times of stability
Guaranteeing funding of social safety nets (Targeted social protection programmes including conditional or unconditional cash transfers and school feeding ; and public works programmes that help reduce unemployment)
Countries need to protect incomes so as to counteract economic adversity. To enhance the contingency mechanisms, and financial capacity that policymakers need to respond, it is critical to strengthen the savings capacity when the economy is growing, using available instruments (automatic fiscal stabilizers, stabilization funds, sovereign wealth funds, macro-prudential norms and the like), so as to make countercyclical policies feasible
Actions to sustain economic growth and foster preparedness mechanisms can help improve resilience in the face of economic and climate-related shocks more broadly
Strengthening mechanisms to identify not only the poorest households, but also those which could be most affected and in need of assistance when shocks ccur
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018: Building climate resilience for food security and nutrition.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
2018
FAO et al.
Recommendation
Thematic Area
Shock-responsive social protection (including social safety nets such as distributing food assistance; subsidizing prices for foodstuffs; providing vouchers, coupons or school meals; and providing support through cash transfers or public works activities) risk transfers (e.g., climate risk insurance) and forecast-based financing
It is important to ensure better integration of global policy platforms and processes to ensure that actions across and within sectors such as environment, food, agriculture and health pursue coherent objectives.
Solutions require increased partnerships and multi-year, large-scale funding of integrated disaster risk reduction and management and climate change adaptation programmes that are short-, medium- and long-term in scope.
Access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food must be framed as a human right, with priority given to the most vulnerable. Policies that promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food systems are needed, with special attention to the food security and nutrition of children under five, school-age children, adolescent girls and women in order to halt the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition.
Water, hygiene and sanitation programmes need to ensure access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities. Lack of access to clean water, sanitation and quality health care can cause diarrhea and infectious diseases that interfere with the body´s ability to absorb nutrients. Recurrent infections and disease are serious contributing factors to wasting and stunting in children.
To achieve the WHA 2025 and SDG 2030 nutrition targets will require increased investment in nutrition interventions, scaled-up implementation of policies and programmes, enhanced policy coherence, and a greater number of national commitments.
Prevention of wasting requires addressing the underlying causes of malnutrition. Breastfeeding support and nutrition counselling for families – particularly regarding how to improve the quality of complementary foods and feeding practices – and early care for common childhood illnesses are essential.
Social protection and safety net programmes need to ensure access to healthy diets for children and families left behind by mainstream development.
Longitudinal research is necessary to understand the potential effects of food insecurity on nutritional outcomes throughout the life cycle, from before and during pregnancy to infancy and into adulthood.
Experience-based metrics of food insecurity like the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), and awareness of the different pathways from food insecurity to malnutrition, can contribute to the design of more effective interventions and policy coherence across sectors.
It will not be possible to end all forms of malnutrition without ensuring access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round. This will require expanding the reach of social protection policies to address inequalities and ensuring that they are nutrition- and gender-sensitive in terms of: targeting; design; and in the
identification of complementary health care
and agriculture interventions to enhance
nutrition outcomes.
“Double-duty actions” have been proposed by WHO that can simultaneously reduce undernutrition and overweight and obesity. They highlight the need to be careful so that strategies to address undernutrition in early life do not exacerbate overweight and obesity later in life. Existing programmes should be redesigned and leveraged, and new interventions should be developed, to reduce the risk of multiple forms of malnutrition.
Trade, investments and agriculture policies must be nutrition-sensitive and improve access to healthy diets, rather than promoting commodity crops that provide a cheap source of starch, fat and sugar in the food supply.
Implementation of climate resilience policies and programmes means adopting and refitting tools and interventions such as: risk monitoring and early warning systems; emergency preparedness and response; vulnerability reduction measures; shock-responsive social protection, risk transfers and forecast-based financing; and strong risk governance structures in the environment–food–health system nexus.
Today, the much needed convergence and coherence of climate resilience actions by humanitarian and development actors is being promoted through another important dialogue called the humanitarian–development nexus. This considers how to bridge the needs of people across the current artificial divide between humanitarian and development responses, incorporating the concept of resilience along the continuum.
Market regulations that discourage consumption of unhealthy foods are also called for, in conjunction with policies that promote the availability and consumption of healthy food.
Science is critical for identifying appropriate solutions, including technological ones.
A focus on peoples’ assets or different types of capital is central not only to understanding the impacts of climate shocks on livelihoods and coping and adaptation strategies, but also to identifying key factors to be considered for policy design and the implementation of programmes aimed at improving food security and nutrition. A focus on assets or capital also helps to establish what resources are available and accessible in order to aid in adaptation.
Participatory, inclusive and equitable gender-based approaches must guide the entire policy/programme cycle, putting vulnerable groups at the centre of responses.
Scaled-up actions across sectors are needed to strengthen the resilience of livelihoods and food systems to climate variability and extremes. Such actions should take place through integrated disaster risk reduction and management and climate change adaptation policies, programmes and practices with short-, medium- and long-term vision.
Cost–benefit analysis (CBA) can help policy-makers explore alternative options and expected net benefits in order to determine the best allocation of resources. CBA analysis should be complemented with qualitative assessments of both barriers to adoption as well as environmental and social impacts of adaptation strategies.
Climate resilience is key and requires context-specific interventions aimed at anticipating, limiting, and adapting to the effects of climate variability and extremes and building the resilience of livelihoods, food systems and nutrition to climate shocks and stresses. When designing policies and programmes it is important to consider that adaptation has limits in some contexts. This may necessitate the transformation of systems themselves in a manner that leads to increased resilience.
Scientific climate information is key to enhancing the accuracy and the role of preparedness and adaption mechanisms, such as forecast-based financing mechanisms, weather-based index insurance and shock-responsive social protection, among others. It is important to develop accurate climate and weather forecasts to design triggers for the quick dispersal of finances or the provision of safety nets to those affected – or likely to be affected – by a climate event.
To be successful across livelihoods and food systems and to address food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition, climate resilience policies and programmes should be built around climate risk assessments, science and interdisciplinary cross-sectoral knowledge, and participatory and inclusive blended humanitarian and development approaches driven by the needs of climate-vulnerable groups. . Climate risk assessments are fundamental for understanding risks and impacts across agriculture, food security and nutrition sectors in order to adequately evaluate options and inform decision-making.
New sources of knowledge beyond formal research systems that include local indigenous knowledge are also critical for agricultural innovation systems.
Solutions require increased partnerships, enhanced risk management capacities and multi-year, predictable large-scale funding of disaster risk reduction and management and climate change adaption policies, programmes and practices.
Supporting climate resilience-building efforts requires site-specific solutions that are owned by the communities that they intend to help. A participatory, inclusive, equitable and gender-based approach is critical to bringing local stakeholders together to identify needs through a better understanding of the climate vulnerabilities and risks faced by communities and individuals. Likewise, it is important to take advantage of autonomous (i.e. local) knowledge and practices when addressing climate variability and extremes. Engaging local people and encouraging open community consultation when designing and implementing interventions helps to build community ownership and ensure long-term sustainability, while also taking into account cultural and gender issues.
A range of locally appropriate climate-resilient options should be designed and implemented through inclusive and gender-sensitive participatory processes. These should be present throughout, beginning with the initial vulnerability and risk analysis, continuing through the prioritization of choices and moving forward to the implementation of measures, taking into account the availability of local resources and the anticipated costs and benefits in the short and long term.
Building resilience to climate variability and extremes requires gender-sensitive policies, planning, budgets, technologies, practices and processes accessible to both men and women farmers. Building resilience thus requires
a solid understanding of gender-based
differences and interventions that are risk- and
gender-responsive.
The needs of vulnerable groups should be at the forefront of policy responses. Infants and young children are particularly vulnerable to climate shocks, which can diminish their food security and nutrition, thus limiting their future opportunities. Children are notably affected if, for example, such shocks undermine their school performance, decrease their earning potential, or expose them to a higher risk of diet-related non-communicable diseases later in life.
Acknowledging the risks to nutrition from changing climate variability and extremes is critical in creating more effective safety nets or social protection schemes that are responsive to climate risks. Interventions should also consider advocacy across all agencies and actors in the public, private and civil society sectors to protect and build coping and adaptation strategies for women and other vulnerable groups.
The more integrated sets of interventions are within and across sectors, the better they are in meeting household, community and institutional needs in the face of climate variability and extremes. Coordination is a prerequisite in ensuring people and institutions work across all agriculture sectors as well as other sector such as health, education, water and energy. This points to a unique opportunity to address the challenge of existing fragmented global policy processes and the need to forge synergies for better dialogue among climate, humanitarian, development, nutrition and health actors in the spirit of the universal SDGs. Nevertheless, while there is immense potential for synergies, the potential trade-offs also need to be considered.
Integrating climate and food security questions into health risk assessments is also important in providing early signals for potential outbreaks of disease, thus triggering early action. There are significant benefits to coordinating needs assessments in livelihoods, nutrition, health and other sectors to save more lives and protect and restore more livelihoods.
Systematic documentation of good practices for climate resilience should be planned at the outset of the design of any intervention. Indicators should be defined not only to monitor and evaluate impact but also to capture the process of implementation in order to understand why some solutions work over others.