Agrifood systems involve complex challenges, whose scale and nature call for a systemic, multi-level and multi-stakeholder participatory approach across economic, social, and environmental dimensions. Multi-stakeholder collaboration therefore needs to form an essential pillar of initiatives intent on ensuring that agrifood systems transformation are sustainable. A multi-stakeholder collaborative initiative can be defined as “any collaborative arrangement among stakeholders from two or more different spheres of society (public sector, private sector and/or civil society), pooling their resources together, sharing risks and responsibilities in order to solve a common issue, to handle a conflict, to elaborate a shared vision, to realize a common objective, to manage a common resource and/or to ensure the protection, production or delivery of an outcome of collective and/or public interest” (HLPE).

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) came together to analytically appraise existing tools and approaches considered most appropriate for the sustainable transformation of the agrifood system, distilling these learnings and best practices into the publication Rethinking our Food Systems – A Guide for Multi-stakeholder Collaboration.   

On 12^th July, the Food Systems and Food Safety Division (ESF) of FAO held a meeting with colleagues across the world to share an overview of the Guide's findings and its potential application across FAO's technical work areas.

The hybrid event, moderated by Agribusiness Officer Siobhan Kelly (ESF), included opening remarks by ESF Director Dr. Corinna Hawkes, a presentation on the Guide by its co-lead author Elena Ilie, Agrifood Systems Expert, FAO, with a  panel discussion including additional co-authors Pablo Garcia-Campos, Sustainable Food Systems Specialist, FAO, and Carmen Torres Ledezma, Sustainable Food Systems Expert, UNEP, in addition to Nicolas Petit, Lead Advisor on Innovation, UNDP, and Dubravka Bojic, Programme Officer, Governance Unit, FAO. Closing remarks were provided by Jose Valls-Bedeau, Policy Officer (ESF).

In her opening remarks, Dr. Hawkes mentioned that collaborating is not easy, and that individuals and organizations must put aside their own self-interest, which is necessary for the collaboration to succeed but is hard in practice. 

Ms. Ilie provided an overview of the Guide and the tools to help initiatives determine where they are, and possible next steps needed to ensure that multi-stakeholder collaboration contributes to the sustainable transformation of the agrifood system.  Meeting participants also learnt that the development of the Guide leaned on an international steering committee, composed of experts on governance and food policy to validate the guide’s findings.

During the panel discussion, many themes came to the fore, including that the sustainable transition needed for the agrifood system will be unlikely without mechanisms that enable the inputs from stakeholders across the entire spectrum. It was also pointed out that those organizing multi-stakeholder collaborations will need to continually check that the right actors are in the room and that they have the right evidence in front of them. The panel also noted that there are power imbalances at play when working in multi-stakeholder spaces and that they need to be considered

The Guide, which was launched on 21^st of June, was a collaborative process that came to fruition with consultations among many stakeholders, including nationally in Uganda, and learnings from the three UN agencies.

While there is an emphasis on ensuring the representation of marginalized and vulnerable groups, the Guide can be adapted and applied in different formats. It can also be adapted to institutional settings, intra-institutions, or within institutions. The Guide aims to support national and international multi-stakeholder initiatives contributing to the follow-up of the UN Food Systems Summit and to the implementation of the National Pathways and related policies.

Jose Valls-Bedeau, Policy officer ESF, in his closing remarks, noted that we also learnt that the sub-national and urban processes are important and that multi-stakeholder mechanisms can contribute to changes in the system and that there are a lot of learnings that the national 'system' can garner from these experiences. He also mentioned that there is often a lack of capacity and there are critical gaps not just in terms of coordination but also in terms of knowledge and information among stakeholders, issues which need to be resolved for the end goal of transformation.

All agreed that the collaboration that took place among the three agencies was important and involved learning by doing. The work has set a foundation for a broader collaboration and for other UN agencies to join in these efforts toward agrifood systems transformation.

Watch the recording of the session here (Passcode: MULTI2023+)