Independent Dialogue
Geographical focus:
No borders
Main findings
Building on experiences shared by representatives of agencies leading the programs, stakeholders from government, private sector and civil society reflected on challenges and opportunities in moving towards the multiple objectives of ensuring resilient and environmentally sustainable food production, while also addressing livelihoods, food security, and health and nutrition goals. Defining the key criteria and parameters of a sustainable food system was highlighted as an important but largely under the radar issue. The dialogue consistently highlighted several issues that are key to advancing
... Read moreintegrated solutions and serve as enabling conditions for transforming food systems. They include the following: • Platforms for stakeholder engagement and as “space” or “hubs” to influence change, foster collaborative action, and deploy knowledge resources and tools for supporting transformative action. This is key to fostering engagement between line ministries (e.g. agriculture, forestry, environment, and water resources) and between government agencies, businesses, and financial institutions. The challenge is ensuring the long-term efficiency of such platforms, which requires time for building trust with professional facilitation. • Effective partnership and dialogue between all relevant actors involved in food production and supply / value chain, including government ministries and departments, private sector and investors, and technical organizations and practitioners. Such engagement is critical for influencing supportive policies, mobilizing financing, and establishing institutional frameworks as levers to drive transformational change in the food sector. • Investing in smallholder producers to empower them and create opportunities for them to access to benefits and incentives. Frequently, the results of economic policies or subsidies in the food sector do not reach small holder farmers, who are often in need of dependable streams of finance/investment as well as technical support. Women and youth should be a major priority for such investments given their critical role in food systems globally. • Knowledge sharing and learning particularly amongst farmers, fishers, and smallholders at the base of the food production system. It was stressed, however, that while new experience and knowledge is an important ingredient to achieving sustainable food systems, what is being learned and transferred must also be relevant to the context within which producers are operating. • Investing in sustainable resource management and regenerative production practices that deliver benefits for people and the environment. These include agroforesty and agroecology for crop and livestock production, as well as protecting key ecosystems such as watersheds or coral reefs and mangroves. Local and indigenous knowledge can be as an important source of know-how for resilient food production practices. The Dialogue concluded with a call for integrated solutions and “radical cooperation” as key to harnessing limited GEF resources to support food systems transformation. This should be an important aspect for consideration by the Food System Summit Action Tracks as well as the cross-cutting levers. Read less
Action Track(s): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Keywords: Data & Evidence, Environment and Climate, Finance, Governance, Innovation, Policy, Trade-offs, Women & Youth Empowerment