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Participants held varied yet largely cohesive ideas throughout this dialogue. However, the main areas of divergence occurred when discussing: financial interests vs sustainability - sustainability but at what cost? 'If I can't make payroll I need to cut corners somewhere'; old habits vs new ideas and philosophies; lack of vision and flexibility within traditional culinary institutions who haven't introduced sustainability best practice education; contextual barriers; and lack of education. Other points that came out requiring further discussion were: 1. Chefs struggle with a consistent supply ... Read moreof biodiverse plant ingredients, due to lack of demand. Chefs need to create the demand for the sourcing/ growing of these diverse earth friendly ingredients. Farmers will make sure there is consistent supply if there is demand and they are able to earn a livelihood. 2. Customers don’t want to change their eating habits, most chefs struggle to convince customers to try a plant-based or a biodiverse dish. 3. Consumers need to know and be reminded of what is happening. What needs to be done. What are the options to contribute, to consume, to act (they are many) and also understand that the winning game must be built, together. 4. That it is a process. It is not all or nothing 'in practice' at once. There is the adaptation process which will require flexibility. However, it must start with a clear vision and goals, admitting the factual situation we are in and committing to contribute to the shift. It is clear that the planet, nations and the food system itself needs to change before it goes into a collapse and suffering in the world will increase for all. 5. The system is unequal and unfair. Not everyone has access to safe and affordable food that is nutritious and of their choosing. With enough food to feed the entire planet multiple times over, this is abhorrent. There must be policy change. There must be change in our consumption patterns that is legislated from the top down. There must be shifts in farming practices, especially at the big ag level. Financial incentives need to be directed towards actions that adhere to climate and people-friendly practice, rather than subsidising certain crops. Read less

Question 1: What actions (by chefs) in the next 3 years do you believe will have the greatest impact at a macro (global) level? A) For chefs to investigate and know intimately the journey of their ingredients: Who grows, harvests, sources and packages them? How do they get to farm to fork. Choose ingredients with as few intermediaries as possible between you and the farmer. Depending on the geography of the participant, the issues faced were different. For the European countries there are significant weather challenges, as it is impossible to grow food in the winter season where they have to r... Read moreely more on preserved food. Whilst in Ghana, for example, they can grow food all year around. The challenge highlighted here was the tendency by local chefs finding it more prestigious to use foreign ingredients. Chefs can take the following actions to enable they know where their ingredients come from: use their purchasing power - buy only locally produced foods in season. Avoid air-freighted foods. Challenges associated with this included: how big your restaurant size or community is, to be able influence what local farmers grow. In Austria for example one chef participant shared how in the region where he lives they pay more attention to their local community and they are conscious of how they grow their food In West Africa, however, it was shared that demand is high for rice, but only if it imported from Asia. Consumer demand drives a lot of what products are imported. Ways actions could be assessed: - Evidence of sourcing patterns across food chains showing a reduced carbon footprint - Higher demand for locally sourced ingredients - Policy change from governments on how far food is allowed to travel before it is not allowed or higher taxes on goods implemented, if they travel over a certain distance - Menus changing in restaurants according to the seasons - Consumer demand increased on local produce, decreased on off-season, foreign produce B) Action urgently needed involving education on multiple levels: 1. Chefs - training the next generation of chefs that not only includes cooking but also regarding the impact on the environment and carbon footprint. The effects of our food choices on the planet. 2. Chefs engaging and learning from farmers, across the globe farmers work with different crops in different climates. Chefs need to understand how sustainability and farming can work together 3. Chefs un-learning – rethinking what they have done in the past and how to make it better. It was discussed how generations before us had more of a connection to food, how we have forgotten this and in fact need to also look back in history to find better ways for the future 4. Chefs changing their menus – making plants the star of the show and being creative in how we showcase a better diet to our customers. Ways actions could be assessed by: 1. Positive changes in consumer behaviour. 2. Seeing global poverty numbers falling 3. Corporations – success can be measured by seeing a change in food trends within supermarkets etc to more sustainable, better ingredients 4. Evidenced also through a marked, global shift in the way chefs approach cooking in their restaurants and cooking: from using their purchasing power right through to menu curation and consumer education. C) Actions urgently needed include the promotion of more plant based diets. ● Educating consumers, chefs, farmers, retailers and everyone who is a key driver of food systems around promoting a more plant based diet and sustainable living. ● Make plant-based chefs the stars and the dishes aspirational. ● Chef schools must include plant based dishes as an integral part of their curriculum, where these dishes take centre stage. D) Urgent action required to reduce food-waste and value natural resources ● Educating home cooks and other chefs about food processing as a way to preserve and keep the nutrition of ingredients, and also to tackle food waste. Ways progress could be assessed: - Legislation on food waste, recycling and sustainable living - Sustainable living standard policies Read less

Core findings: The need for scientifically-current, consistent, ground-breaking education for current and future chefs/cooks, was a recurring theme of this dialogue. In particular, it was highlighted that education for the following was urgent and critical: Action1 - Ingredients grown with respect for the earth its oceans - Chefs need to engage and learn from farmers, across the globe farmers work with different crops in different climates. Chefs need to understand how sustainability and farming can work together; how food choices impact the environment and our carbon footprint. The effects of... Read more our food on the planet. Action 4 - Value Natural resources and reduce waste - specifically to tackle food waste. Action 5 - Celebration of local and seasonal food - Educating home cooks and other chefs about food processing as a way to preserve and keep the nutrition of ingredients; de-bunking myths that 'foreign' food is better. Action 7 - Education on food safety and healthy diets: making plants the star of the show and being creative in how we showcase a better diet to our customers . Taking this one step further, was the need for food systems advocate aware chefs, to incorporate into their work and time the role of an EDUCATOR. Chefs must focus on creating strategies to deliver key information to their clients/customers in a way that suits their local reality, as this may vary from a small village in Kazakhstan to a huge hotel chain in the UK. No matter what a chefs circumstance, it was agreed that they all have a role to play to contextual the urgent message of fixing failed food systems, by striving to change: how consumers make choices about food (from sourcing, buying and variety); knowing where our food comes from (protecting livelihoods); how it impacts both people and planet; to advocating for all people to have access to affordable, good food. The other main finding coming from all of the break-out rooms, was that we must act now. Time is critical and a cohesive, collective effort is needed to ensure food systems transformation is accelerated. Read less

As agents of change, and to drive action, chefs need to come together in one collective, connected voice. The Chefs’ Manifesto network has taken a leading role to further focus and narrow the SDG roadmap for chefs, as well as bridging and connecting across chef networks. This has been motivated by the UN Food Systems Summit, and the urgent need to generate actions to be able to achieve the SDGs by 2030. Through conducting a survey prior to the dialogues, the aim was to learn from participants, what the top priorities are for 2021 and the Decade of Action, the results of which will inform the... Read more creation of a ‘Chefs’ Pledge’. This Pledge will be a commitment to key practical priorities that can have the greatest impact to enact change. It will aim to create collective momentum to rally greater attention and engagement of chef food systems champions, mobilising them even further as agents of change, at key global events, and especially at the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit. The survey was built from the 8 Thematic Areas in the Chefs' Manifesto, asking participants to rank what they believe will enact the greatest change to food systems transformation. Participants from over 50 countries contributed responses, the results of which can be found here: https://sdg2advocacyhub.org/chefs-manifesto/actions/chefs-pledge-results-are The 8 top actions voted globally were: 1. Get to know your ingredients: How are they grown, reared or sourced? Choose ingredients with the lowest impact on the environment. 2. Lead by example: Maintain the rich diversity of the world’s natural larder by using different varieties of plants, grains and proteins. Champion ‘wild’ variants and avoid monoculture. 3. Get to know your ingredients: Who grows, harvests, sources and packages them? How do they get to you? Investigate the journey from farm to fork. Choose ingredients with as few intermediaries as possible between you and the farmer. 4. Lead by example: through separating, monitoring and setting targets to reduce food waste. 5. Use your purchasing power: Buy locally produced foods in season. Avoid air-freighted foods. 6. Lead by example: Make vegetables, beans and pulses the centre of your dishes. 7. Be a community food champion: Showcase best practise on food safety, allergens and nutrition in your kitchens and through your menus 8. Be a community food champion: Support initiatives that provide access to nutritious meals in your communities - whether that be a soup kitchen, food bank or community garden project. From this survey, participants were invited to attend independent dialogues. The key topic was 'The top practical actions chef can take to accelerate food systems transformation', guided by the 8 top actions voted by survey participants. These 8 practical actions connect across all 5 of the Action Tracks, whilst ultimately coming back to a desire to ensure there is Good Food for All. Read less

No areas of divergence.

A. The big issue with Blended Finance is that the large asset owners are not fully involved and do not have their investment policy in place to invest in such BF schemes. Agri - Food BF scheme requires long term illiquid investments which are not aligned with their liquidity ratio. We do need to involve institutional investors at the creation of the BF structure to integrate their constraints are still missing the large financial asset owners… with new regulations, banks will have more difficulties to finance long tenor projects, especially with a high transition costs. Blended finance is me... Read morerely a transitional “product”; it needs to exit as an asset that can be traded between asset owners. Some companies are developing 'fund-of-fund' structures as well as 'liquidity guarantees' to crowd in institutional investor capital. Perhaps these can be among a suite of solutions that taps into sources that remain as of yet difficult to reach B. We do need to create platform for Blended structures, not only finance, where we can mutualize costs, data, technical assistance, promoting alternative models than the existing supply chains. This can include sharing TA around metrics. C. Replicating deals proves to be complicated. At farm level: we are working towards standardized loan products for our rural clients, that facilitate the transformation of their production method, while using risk sharing with AGRi3 as impact investor. D. As Loan products need to be tailor made to gather for smallholder farmers, market, credit access are key. As such, maybe technology will definitely help to reduce (monitoring, execution) costs (geo data, etc). Technology will also be a key driver for sustainable efficient food production. Connecting final consumer to farmer using tech could double the profit of farmer. Read less

5. How do we ensure that investable opportunities provide ambitious SDG impact? A. One of the challenges to which the participants referred the most was about science based and certificated metrics. Currently, it is very difficult to use common metrics to measure progress and some contributions of individual projects to common goals, which makes not possible their use at a high level. The ideal state that was mentioned included climate adaptation/resilience risk analysis into ESG approaches and financial risk approaches. One of the examples to reach this ideal state was the KPI directory for t... Read morehe sustainable land-use finance done by UNEP, this to exemplify how indicators can be harmonized and how to start using some metrics that could be applied to investment. Another intervention was about the importance of creating an interdisciplinary cross-cutting multi ministry approach, in order to get better metrics (what is wanted to be achieved), but also a better joint work between ministries from different countries, since currently, their work is quite fragmented. B. Also, a need for simplification to finance in the agricultural sector was one challenge that participants mentioned: many organizations do not want to invest in the sector as it is not only complicated and fragmented but also has many risks. I.e. less legal costs, standard GHG’s, biodiversity matrixes, etc. Also, make a split between blended finance and off-takers blended finance., working towards blended finance 2.0, whilst also addressing securitsation. Also, it was mentioned that sharing portfolio performance data across financial, social and environmental outcomes in emerging markets, can provide a benchmark for investors on real investment opportunities and risks. Some climate policy initiatives were also mentioned, as well as the global innovation Lab for climate finance, which seeks to develop blended finance for mitigation and adaptation. This example was highlighted as an effective way to know what type of work could be better. In this case, for example, some models have been shown as useful to bring some capital market players into investment in agriculture. The ideal state would be to coordinate with industry/national advisory boards to develop and adopt generally-accepted climate/natural capital accounting and valuation methodologies; climate-related financial risk disclosures. C. Furthermore, regarding implementation and real impact on the ground, the importance of mobilizing different stakeholders according to the sectors (including governments, financial institutions and investors) and value chains was expressed, so that, common goals can be achieved through joint work. Technical assistance needs to be done local and on the ground, in cooperation with local financial institutions. This comes close to the importance of political coherence to which several referred. Through this, it will be possible not only to reach farmers with solutions that adapt to their needs but also to be able to project positive impacts on communities in a more concrete way. D. Tapping into communities, participants talked about the importance of considering the needs of the communities with which the work is done. For example, in Africa, one of the participants stated that there is still no success story that can be replicated, and yet there are still many barriers to project implementation such as lack of technical knowledge from farmers. For this reason, it was suggested to develop joint efforts to create a success story in Africa that becomes a role model and continues to advance and scale regional and globally. Read less

4. How do we ensure that investable opportunities provide a sufficient business case? A. The Earth should no longer be ignored as a stakeholder within decision making and include the benefits of an investment to the planet as a return. Valuation of ecosystem services provided by the Earth can enable us to put the Earth as a stakeholder on the negotiating table. Factoring in climate risk within business operations can help create the business case for climate action. From a bank's perspective, commitment from the top level is needed to implement such a strategy and to integrate blended finance,... Read more where governments also play an important role. We have to realize that there is a strong economic drive, especially in poor regions, to damage the nature because out of lack of finance, lack of resources and knowledge. Providing finance to those rural areas would help, together with technical assistance. B. We need blended finance to transition to a better reality and create a food system that produces sufficient and healthy foods. Firstly, the incentives for farmers need to be upped and re-aligned. For this, banks need to take into account that different types of farmers have different interests. Lowering interest rates is not the only way, especially where interest rates are already low. Banks and investors should focus their energy on terms and conditions, including the length of the tenor, to truly appeal to farmer needs, and correlate these loans with targets on sustainability. Without a business case, there is no viable sustainability in there. - Secondly, the package of solutions to farmers may be too difficult to adopt. Solutions do not come as silver bullets, but as a package. There is a need to assess if these solutions are not too difficult for the famer to adapt to local environments, by using applied research and testing together with agricultural innovation and putting knowledge in hands of farmers. - Thirdly, in order to get these solutions to scale, we have to tailor blueprints which might require more work. Ideally, we would want blueprints at scale, noting that there are local realities for implementation. Sufficient investments needed in the 5 key drivers of change, like the Sustainable Rice Platform, noting local differences, to stimulate uptake and scale. Aggregators should take up the role to enable farmers to really uptake technology within the supply chain. C. Blended finance is an instrument, a means to an end, which should become more mainstream. However, there is also a big role to play for unblended finance which needs to be repurposed and refocused. Supply chain players need to interact differently with (new) players in their value chain by getting out of silos, even within organizations by including finance teams and getting conversation within mainstream. It is essential to have intercompany as well as intracompany collaboration. Moreover, a market-based approach is needed, working with existing lenders to make more efficient use of subsidies. Smaller deals, reduce approach and long-term capital is key. In the group there was willingness to work collaboratively, especially working to bring together different pools of capital with different objectives (social, environmental, economic) for greater impact. D. Right now, sufficient business case is limited by a focus on economic growth only, e.g. focus on non-eco friendly transactions as opposed to eco-friendly transactions, as well as the absence of sufficient demand for sustainable products and services. Financial institutions should have clear objectives to advance sustainability in addition to profitability, which can help efforts at the regional/national level to shift business models to more sustainable pathways. The private sector should also have a well-defined purpose for the public benefit in their goal. Read less

3. How can the so-called innovation ecosystems (e.g. NGO’s, UN agencies, social enterprises, international financial institutions, research organizations) efforts to scale? A. To overcome the lack of bankable projects, we discussed that science and innovation can be used for de-risking blended finance structures and delivering efficient, effective and transformative technical assistance at a pre-investment stage. This is needed to prioritize deal flow to help investors understand the risks and implement those strategies needed in terms of adaptation. To ensure impact at scale, specialized pe... Read moreople need support and work closely with the local ecosystem to create trust and get them to take the last mile, such as financial intermediaries, regional and local banks. Those are the ones supporting small-scale farmers and have trust within. This requires simplified tools to measure and assist on local scale. What is measured gets done; for which ways to measure natural capital and ecosystem benefits must be standardized to overcome the challenge of true pricing and reaching scale. We need to find simple measures for the different facets that are very context specific to examine the kinds of impacts achieved and measurements that have been adopted. B. In order to address the lack of evidence on the environmental and social impact of different blended instruments, different actors, such as the CGIAR Commission, should leverage evidence of the impact of different investment models on sustainable agricultural intensification. Research by SAFIN/Convergence should call to action to donors to focus more resources around four types of blended models that are designed to combine scale of financial mobilization and scale of development impact. Agreement among donors to streamline requirements for concessional capital to be used in blended structures in the sector and/or to use concessional capital more catalytically (more early stage, more high-risk tolerant uses). Financial institutions must structure properly from the very beginning on to avoid wrong incentives. C. There is a need to demystify markets of financial product offerings and bring more transparency to navigate the cluster offerings in the blended finance market. This can be achieved by blending actors in the innovation ecosystem by not only formal partnership arrangements in the set-up of blended structures but also, and most important, narratives and other tools to bridge expectations, languages, understandings and ways of working. Alignment between actors is crucial in overcoming the lack of shared understanding about the main financial gaps and the lack of consensus around the best fit between type of blended solution and specific uses or market situations. In order to be able to optimize the use of finance, it is essential we fix markets and the unstructured, fragmented value chains. The structures and products are too complex for investment opportunities and require process simplification and mainstreaming the sharing of information. D. Between a variety of stakeholders, there is a sheer magnitude of capacity gaps, both financial and non-financial. It is essential to build up capacity at the institutional level to ensure investment possibilities and opportunities are identified and lead to the kind of transformative impact that is needed. Institutional innovation, particularly around inclusive governance of blended finance transactions, needs to focus not only on the “hard” side of science but also on social and governance issues. Read less

2. What do value chain actors (farmers, processors, traders, off-takers) need to create sufficient investable opportunities? A. We discussed the importance of a whole chain approach that is pointed at access to markets. If you achieve access to markets, then access to finance will probably follow as they are deeply interrelated. As the sector is too differentiated, we should not hope to achieve access to finance for individuals. A way to make value chains more efficient is to cut out actors and identify champions of the value chain by private sector and financial institutions. We need to gathe... Read morer attention around business and investment opportunities, showcase these and access to finance will improve along the rest of the value chain. B. There still however remains the need to de-risk, which is urgently experience by all players. As agriculture investment is typically long-term and there is a gap in yields and the sustainable transition, farmers should be support by adjusting finance services and solutions to smaller farmers and SMEs so that they can invest in the translation as economic actors. In this respect, there is a lack of finance from (local) banks to finance agriculture as the required long-term investments are currently not possible for financial institutions. De-risking can increase bankable projects together with innovative financial solutions that make transactions possible. Finance should be seen as part of the solution and not of the problem, and should be at the forefront of dialogues. In addition, we must provide better risk profiling metrics, which are specific on the one hand and general (global level) on other hand. C. An issue we discussed is inequality resulting from the digital divide. Technology is very important for value chain traceability and transparency, thus influencing investment decisions along the chain. These technology solutions are in place, a lot of good examples we heard in our group about technology driving, better investment also for smallholder farmers, but there is still an issue of digital divide. In order to reduce inequality, we need to support smallholder farmers with the digital for financial markets, which can improve investment. - Another message to reduce inequality is blended multi stakeholder partnerships, not only blended finance. Acknowledging all players as partners, from farmers to consumers, including the midstream players, and blending them is absolutely crucial for alignment around ambitious sustainability goals. This brings us to another challenge, the huge lack of knowledge about the value chain functions, which entails knowledge on who the actors really are, understanding the role of farmers as economic actors at whatever scale they are operating and making sure that they can get a fair value for their work. D. We discussed that the food system Summit is an important starting point to understand the true nature of the challenge and agree on what it is to do no harm with investment. Clarifying, what is the stick and what is the carrot? This question is necessary to make sure that we repurpose agricultural subsidies and connect the stick and carrot approach. An example provided by this group is to incentivize blended finance for sustainable and deforestation free agriculture by governments. Hereby, off-takers and large corporates have a crucial role to send a demand signal for sustainable and deforestation free commodities. Moving forward, the Summit is just the beginning and after which we need to listen to the finance lever and work together to combine stick and carrot. Read less

1. Building blended finance at scale; how can we step up public - private financial commitments to unleash more capital? A. The discussion focused a lot around the topic of incentives. - Incentives within commercial and development Banks: it can be a challenge to convince people in a bank to take on and see through the blended finance from beginning to end because it's usually outside the business-as-usual type of transactions and it requires more time and more effort. And so, this effort has to be worth it. There's a couple of ways how incentives can help motivate staff to take those deals on... Read more. One is integrating KPIs that can make it worthwhile for the staff, from a personal perspective, for example to be promoted. But it can also be super helpful to witness another colleague successfully closing a deal and being rewarded and recognized for it within the bank. And so, one success story can lead to another, as peers are motivated to do similar things to also get the same recognition. - Incentives for corporates: it would be ideal if the shareholders would also evaluate the corporates according to criteria that are more aligned with sustainability. So, currently a lot of the ways how corporates are being evaluated centers around how much of their volume of Source Products is third-party, verified or certified. But that does not always include all things that this corporate is doing. For example, if it's providing technical assistance to the investors and trying to improve practices of farming for example, this would simply be missed in this type of evaluation and so trying to work on the ESG evaluation criteria of corporates would also provide better incentives to work towards Blended Finance to scale up sustainable food and agriculture - Incentives for the farmers. If there's no client demand from the corporate side or from the farm side, even if we can get commitments and more blended finance, it simply won't work. So, the farmer and the corporate would need to see how a better food system can also benefit them. B. We also discussed the importance of de-risking mechanisms such as portfolio guarantees and (long-term) off-take agreements. The off-take agreements are particularly relevant if you want to secure cash flows, which for smallholder farmers is a very important aspect. C. Then, we focused on addressing systemic barriers. The problem is that we're not paying the true price of food. So, neither the water cost or the carbon cost or the deforestation that we cause when we go to the supermarket. If we paid the true cost of food, that would unlock and direct public and private finance towards sustainable production at much larger scale. So, this is a thing for governments to regulate. In that sense, the EU taxonomy can be helpful, as well as new climate laws. D. Another important solution is an open letter from both public and private finance stakeholders in the lead-up to the food system Summit to basically unite behind an ambitious vision and commitment. Read less

1. Main limiting factors (a) lack of incentives for the private sector to invest in sustainable food production (b) lack of knowledge/common understanding of innovative blended finance mechanisms by all actors involved, including which type of solution works best in specific situations, how the risk sharing works and what is the return on investment; (c) difficulty in building an investment pipeline, especially when this entails reaching out to the smallholder farmers (d) investment risks are perceived higher than for BAU (e) lack of data, metrics and standardization (e.g. for measuring impact... Read mores) limit transparency on the environmental and social impact of blended finance instruments, product structuring and bankability (f) disconnection between actors within the production supply chain, between production and financial actors, between different pools of capital, and between different donors 2. Ways to address these limiting factors CREATING INCENTIVES: (1) Work towards a price of food that reflects the true social and environmental costs of production (2) Transition to a more encompassing definition of “economic return” in business cases to consider the long-term and the internalization of hidden costs to natural capital (3) Stakeholders and investors to increase pressure on food corporates reduce risks related to unsustainable production and create incentives for farmers (4) Investors to reward corporate investing in capacity building and technical assistance of farmers (5) Reduce investment barriers/incentivize farmers, e.g. by lowering certification costs for smallholders, approving longer-term loans linked to sustainability targets, lowering interest rates (6) Financial institutions to have top management-endorsed sustainability objectives and to create incentives for staff to get this type of deals off the ground (7) Governments to work across ministries to reach common goals in different sectors, to create an enabling environment for investments, and to redirect public finance support towards food systems that add instead of subtracting value through hidden costs ADDRESSING LACK OF KNOWLEDGE: (1) Incubate business models and scale-up successful experiences through technical assistance, with emphasis on the youth and on innovation, and with a geographical focus (2) Technical assistance to farmers (e.g. to analyze markets for sustainable produce, to adopt agricultural innovation and adapt it to local circumstances, to prepare a business plan to access finance, to optimize returns over 5-7 years instead of short term) (3) Technical assistance to investment officers BUILDING AN INVESTMENT PIPELINE: (1) Create more investment funds with a transformative potential (2) Develop small-size ticket financing solutions for smaller farmers, distinguish between blended finance for the farmers and for off-takers (3) Build relationships between farmers and local financial actors (4) Simplify structures and process of blended finance instruments to attract more investment opportunities/standardize contracts (5) Increase MDBs support when projects are not bankable (6) Advance innovation on institutional aspects for participatory planning of investments that can then be financed through blended solutions (7) Include investors in the blended finance mechanism’s board room, to assure that projects in the pipeline are attractive to them ADDRESSING INVESTMENT RISKS: (1) Allow farmer cooperatives/communities to receive financing to lower risks and costs (2) Direct more public and private funding towards science-based innovation to de-risk investments (3) Step-up innovation around risk mitigation & sharing solutions (e.g. climate finance lab, blended finance pilots) (4) Develop tools for climate and biodiversity risk assessment tailored to investment officers of local / regional banks MEASURING IMPACT, TRANSPARENCY, AND TRACEABILITY: (1) Low-cost digitization solutions to allow data gathering and increase transparency (2) Address the digital divide, by supporting farmers to access and use digital solutions (3) Work towards standardization of impact measurement, building on KPIs being developed by the research and innovation ecosystem, e.g. avoided emissions, water productivity, etc., but considering that measuring impact can be very costly as it may require specialized people (4) Aim for a standard impact matrix that is science-based and can be certified (5) Rely on local organizations to measure baselines and impact (after providing technical assistance) CONNECTING ACTORS: (1) Work towards a shared ambition level to push sustainable food systems to the top of the agenda (2) Build partnerships to build trust and guarantee the availability of operating loans (3) Address the fragmentation of the value chain, by mapping and addressing all actors in the value chain and make sure that all these economic agents, can reap the benefits of their investments in sustainable food production (4) Develop common narratives for all stakeholders to bridge expectations, institutional cultures and mindsets (5) Improve successful matching between investors and producers, by mapping the different sources of finance around food (6) Connect donors to work on common requirements for concessional capital in the food sector to maximize the catalytic role of concessional capital and development impacts (7) Connect farmers with tech partners to scale up agritech adoption, with aggregators encouraging farmers to adopt technology (8) Intracompany and intercompany collaboration to make the use of blended finance mainstream among corporates. 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LEVER OF CHANGE “Finance” and its links with ACTION TRACKS #1, 3, and 4: the focus of the Dialogue was on ways to scale-up blended finance (i.e. combining development finance and philanthropic funds with private sector capital) as an enabler for transitional investments needed to produce food more efficiently and sustainably to (1) feed an increasing population with changing diets, (2) achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (‘SDGs’) and (3) meet the 1.5°C ambition of the Paris Agreement. Investment opportunities in sustainable food systems are limited by three key market failures (... Read morelock ins) including (1) the lack of a deep pipeline of bankable projects; (2) high (perceived) investment risk, and lack of primary data/information asymmetries; (3) lack of efficient connection between investment needs of farmers and producing companies and different pools of capital (e.g. DFI’s, banks, pension funds, insurance capital). These market failures are exacerbated by a severe funding gap and a strict regulatory framework. One of the solutions to these failures is blended finance, which on the one hand enables governments to use limited public money to crowd in a much larger scale of private finance, and on the other hand allows corporates and financiers to have some costs and risks partly covered by public finance, boosting their investment appetite in sustainable food production solutions. This dialogue aimed to integrate the viewpoints of different types of stakeholders around blended finance mechanisms. The role that blended finance can have in the food system transformation was analysed and new ways of collaboration were discussed to truly accelerate tangible action towards the UN FSS in New York in September and beyond. Read less

There were no strong areas of divergence but there was clear recognition of the potential trade-offs between affordability and other economic, social and environmental issues. In particular it was recognised that affordability should not be achieved at the expense of poor social conditions (low wages, low remuneration to producers), poor environmental conditions (excessive land clearance, over-use of chemical inputs, intensive animal production), or adverse economic conditions (trade protectionism). Digitalisation - there was divergence on the issue of digitalisation. While some participants w... Read moreelcomed the opportunities for digital technology to create more efficient food systems, other participants considered that digitalisation could widen the inequality gap. There was consensus that we must ensure that digitalisation is inclusive of smallholders. Some potential game-changing innovations identified included e.g. digital communications for market prices. Systems - Ensuring Resilient Systems are critical for food, health, social protection etc. However, a potential trade-off was identified between designing ‘very lean’ systems, and having systems that are efficient but also have capacity to flex, adapt and respond in a time of crisis. Read less

What Actions can be used to improve Affordability? Corinna Hawkes presented five propositions about the nature of the affordability problem, and potential solutions emerging in the Action Track 1 process of the Food Systems Summit. Problem 1 is low and variable incomes of poor households: rational management of such incomes drives households to choose staples and cheap, often less healthy options. Potential solutions include women-led enterprise for neglected crops, nutritious social safety nets and school food programmes. Problem 2 is that nutritious foods that people want to eat are more exp... Read moreensive. Potential solutions include investment in infrastructure for nutritious foods and expansion of food at work actions. Problem 3 is that there may be low-cost nutritious foods available which are perceived as having low value,( e.g. millets). Potential game-changing solutions include developing an innovation platform for SME manufacturers of convenient nutritious foods. Problem 4 is the perception that nutritious foods are more costly when they may not be. A potential solution is public awareness campaigns with commercial knowhow. Problem 5 is the wide availability of appealing “ultra-processed” sugary drinks and snacks, fried street foods, oils and sugar, which people are willing to pay for even when they may be more expensive than more nutritious alternatives. Potential solutions include clearly defining “unhealthy food”, a package of food environment policies, and disincentives for unhealthy food marketing. Bringing these game-changing solutions together to achieve systems change will achieve greater collective impact. This involves changing the “rules of the game” to provide an environment which enables a nutritious food economy. Read less

There was a general consensus surrounding the issues of women’s empowerment and nutrition, however the approaches to address these did differ. Some could argue that using women’s empowerment as a method to improve households or child malnutrition, as successful as that has been in the past, could also lead to the over burden of women and in some cases and ignore the needs of the induvial women themselves. There was also discussion on the nutrition-livelihoods pathway, on whether better nutrition leads to improved livelihoods, the discussion offered that there was a positive relationship be... Read moretween improved nutrition and livelihoods outcomes, however the opposite is not always true, that improved livelihoods lead to better nutrition. There was a note of the amount of research that is available to back these statements. Read less

Examples from Liberia, Niger, Malawi and Zambia Case studies conducted by different NGOs using the Cost of the Diet methodology highlighted some of the affordability issues in different contexts. A study undertaken in Liberia by Concern Worldwide in three livelihood zones found that most poor and very poor households would need to spend more than 100% of their annual income to achieve a nutritious diet. The price of fish has a significant impact on affordability. Seasonal price fluctuations, currency depreciation/import dependency and production constraints also influence affordability. Potent... Read moreial solutions include a focus on community-level food demonstrations, home-garden production, nutrition-sensitive aquaculture and snail-rearing, promoting recipes incorporating nutritious local foods, and increased use of micronutrient powders. Save the Children (UK) pioneered the Cost of Diet and Household Economy approaches. SCF presented recent work in Malawi and Niger combining both approaches to explore the impact of covid-19 on diet affordability. The likely causes of impact are restricted movement, curfews, market disruptions, disruption of livelihoods, border closures, and food price increases. In Niger (Zinder District) grains comprised about 50% of the cost of a nutritious diet. Prices and affordability increased in January-February 2021 compared with the previous year: in February 2021 the affordability of a nutritious diet was 129% of the income of very poor households. In Malawi’s Chilwa Lake Zone the cost of a nutritious diet was 250% above average incomes of very poor households. The second wave of covid 19 was contributing to a worsening of affordability and increased malnutrition in both countries. SHA presented findings of work on affordability by Self Help Africa in their Local Development Programme implemented in two remote Districts of the Northern Province of Zambia, with high prevalent stunting rates (about 50%). The cost of an energy-only diet was estimated at 58% of average income, but the minimum cost of a nutritious diet was 14 – 18 times more expensive than the energy-only diet –far out of reach of most households. Factors influencing affordability included limited availability of vegetables in the cold season, the high cost of sources of Vitamin B12 (mostly animal-source foods), poor infrastructure and remote location, and food preferences - millet is considered a food of poor people although it is a better sources of micronutrients than maize. Read less

Discussion Panel There was extreme interest in exploring the reasons that women’s empowerment did not correlate with household’s food security indicators. The evidence shown from the research in Tigray illustrated why the WENI is important, often induvial women’s health and nutrition is overlooked when programmes focus on women as a route to improve childhood nutrition. Again, there was interest in all speakers in this group towards adaption current practices to other contexts. Throughout the webinar the discussion both from the panellist’s and the audience was used to share resources ... Read morefrom the speakers and the attendees. The presentations from Ethiopia, Niger and Tanzania showed that there are complex issues when addressing nutrition and the first step is to identify the main driver factors of malnutrition. The speaker from GOAL Global based in Niger showed innovative methods to addressing malnutrition through mass awareness by using digital technologies to spread information. Reaching communities that were further away from the sample site. All presentations added the conclusion that both separately women’s empowerment and nutrition are determined by a multitude of driving factors. What was proven to be even more complex is trying to promote both increased women’s empowerment and improved nutrition in a multi-disciplinary manner. Read less