Co-organized by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Food Tank, and Global Alliance for the Future of Food, and in partnership with the UN Food System Summit (UNFSS) Champions Network, presented seven-panel discussions (running one event each month from January to June 2021) focusing on how to transform the world’s food systems. Each virtual series explored one of the Global Alliance’s seven Calls to Action and brought together more than 25+ UNFSS Champion speakers worldwide, including world-renowned activists, journalists, business leaders, farmers, policy and technical experts, and many others. Each conversation will help set the stage and identify critical pathways to create a better future of food and strengthen our global food systems for the upcoming UNFSS in September 2021. 

This fourth event in the virtual series highlighted the Global Alliance’s call to action, Direct public sector finance and fiscal policy across the value chain towards ecologically beneficial forms of farming, better and healthier food, and resilient livelihoods and communities. This discussion overlapped significantly with Food Tank’s Action Track 1: ensure access to safe and nutritious food for all. The panel discussed how the public sector can improve food access through not just production and subsidies, but also through various parts of the supply chain, externalized impacts of the food system, and taxes and procurement policies. The panel brought together an international array of food systems leaders to issue calls for action on global food systems, elevate public discourse about reforming our food systems, and develop principles to guide stakeholders in leveraging food systems to support the SDGs. Speakers included three UN FSS Champions Network members who discussed the central role of fiscal policy to transform food systems to be renewable, healthy, inclusive, and equitable.