The side event will showcase solutions to empower women and engage young women in sustainable aquatic food systems. It will include success stories on empowering and engaging women and how this can contribute to sustainable food systems - ensuring that the important elements for food security through the entire supply chain are included. The event will include one speaker from each part of the supply chain – consumption, processing, production, as well as an interactive debate on how to scale up the solutions. Two high-level remarks, one from a low- or middle-income country and one from a high-level income country will open the event. The event will be a truly empowering “all women event” with only female speakers and will have a particular focus on young women and youth, including on digital literacy. The session will be moderated by a young woman. The side-event will leverage the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture 2022, as well as the SSF Guidelines, focusing on small-scale and artisanal food providers. A hybrid format is intended if technicalities allow.

• Women participants will feel empowered and motivated to continue their work. Men and women participants will have a better understanding of the various roles women play along the sustainable aquatic food value chain.
• Highlight women as important to solutions in the sustainable aquatic food system.
• Solutions to improve gender equality and youth involvement in small-scale fisheries for healthy food systems are shared widely, inspiring participants to bring this home or into CFS plenary.
• New partnerships formed to continue the work of implementing the SSF guidelines.
• Increased awareness of the IYAFA 2022.

To end poverty and hunger globally, we must build agency for the approximately 4.5 billion people that depend on food systems for their livelihoods. A significant proportion of the world's hungry and malnourished depend on agriculture and agri-food related sectors. All actors must work together to promote labour and human rights, economic and social justice, living incomes and wages, adequate and nutritious food for all food systems workers, and increase opportunities for decent employment. Workers who feed the world are vital to the sustainable and equitable transformation of food systems. Effectively addressing the decent work deficits is key to advancing equitable livelihoods, resilient food supply chains, and sustainably transforming our food systems. This event will discuss the data gaps in food systems while discussing the importance of partnerships and the role of both, private and public sectors in unlocking decent job opportunities.

• Understand mechanisms to ensure regular collection, analysis, and publication of statistics on food systems workers.
• Strengthen partnerships for accelerated action towards more and better jobs for youth in agri-food systems.
• Ensure agency of food system workers via collective bargaining, social dialogue, and workplace organization.
• Accelerate nationally defined social protection floors guaranteeing essential healthcare, safe and nutritious foods, and basic income security to all, including poor, food-insecure, and migrant workers.

Gender transformative approaches represent an alternative and a complement to conventional gender approaches to more consciously and intentionally address the underlying causes of inequalities, food insecurity and malnutrition, paying close attention to discriminatory social and gender norms that lie at the center of gender inequalities. This side event will highlight the relevance of addressing discriminatory social norms to improve food security and nutrition for all through the power of gender transformative approaches, in line with SDG 2 and SDG 5. It will emphasize the importance of understanding and addressing unequal gender norms to ensure transformative change in the lives of women and girls, men and boys. Speakers will showcase concrete examples of inter-institutional work implemented by the United Nations Rome-based Agencies under the EU-RBA Joint Programme on Gender Transformative Approaches for Food Security and Nutrition (JP GTA) in Ecuador and Malawi as well as by other development actors, such as Global Affairs Canada and UN Women. They will present concrete tools and strategies that can support the implementation of national policies, strategies and global policy guidelines to identify and transform discriminatory gender norms.

1. Raise awareness about the role of social norms in creating and perpetuating gender inequality to the detriment to food security and nutrition.
2. Raise awareness about the significant transformational potential that addressing discriminatory social norms can have for achieving SDG 2 (zero hunger) and SDG 5 (gender equality).
3. Showcase examples of successful methodologies and interventions to challenge and transform discriminatory gender norms in programmes for food security and nutrition.

Philanthropic foundations are actively mobilizing and discussing how to adapt their strategies and programmes to the evolving context of the current food crisis. The lessons learned from how foundations responded to the Covid-19 and previous crises provide valuable insights on the unique resources that they bring to the food, agriculture and nutrition communities. This includes their networks of partners, grant making and convening power. Coordinating and collaborating these assets among themselves and in support of Members and other CFS participants offers a specific opportunity to deliver on common development objectives. The session will discuss how private philanthropic organizations are shaping their responses to food crises with a view to contribute to CFS through a new Philanthropic Foundations Mechanism (PFM). After an initial exposition of philanthropic organizations, CFS participants will discuss how newly-established PFM can work collaboratively with them in the context of the CFS processes and agenda. We will hear in particular from Members, the Private Sector Mechanism (PSM) and the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSIPM).

• To discuss how philanthropic foundations are using lessons from their (and other’s) Covid-response efforts to shape their response to global food crises.
• To discuss how philanthropic foundations can contribute to the CFS’ efforts to foster a coordinated global policy response to the current food crisis through a new Philanthropic Foundations Mechanism (PFM).
• To hear from CFS participants, particularly members, the PSM, and the CSIPM, how the newly-established mechanism can contribute to the CFS.

Young people of today are already the leaders of today. As we seek solutions to the current emerging global food crisis, lessons can be learned from youth-led agricultural solutions that address ongoing crises, like climate change, biodiversity loss, plant and animal pandemics, and emerging crises, including those that are conflict-induced. With this realization, investing and implementing strategies to attract and enable youth to meaningfully engage, earn a decent livelihood and invest responsibly in agrifood systems is fundamental towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and the sustainable and resilient agrifood system transformation. This side event aims to demonstrate the practicality and potential of the implementation of the endorsed CFS policy recommendations on promoting youth engagement and employment by showcasing concrete examples of: i) youth-led solutions to the crisis, ii) investments in youth iii) multi-stakeholder collaborative partnerships between youth networks, coalitions, and governments to accelerate actions towards a better food future. Outcomes of the side event will be bundled into a map of collaborative impact suggestions and shared publicly and on the organizers’ websites to help guide young individuals, youth networks, and governments in their collaborative approaches to boost youth ag impact consistently and to keep the dialogue going.

The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) negotiations Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition (GEWGE) provided an opportunity for the CFS to enhance its understanding on the broad dimension of gender and to start including not only women and girls, but also those who have historically faced discrimination due to their gender identity and/or sexual orientation under its scope to advance global food security and nutrition. Recognizing the impact of multiple and intersecting forms of discriminations on the enjoyment of key human rights, such as the right to food, is an essential pre-condition to design effective gender-responsive policy measures that simultaneously advance gender equality and enhance food security and nutrition. However, the negotiations have shown that there is still work to do for the CFS to fully consider the different dimensions of gender equality, including the recognition of diversities of women and girls, in order to achieve truly inclusive policy outcomes that ensure all persons, with no exception, can live free of discrimination, hunger and malnutrition, and violence which impact their right to food.

This side-event intends to continue raising awareness on the right to food through an intersectional gender equality lens by highlighting key aspects of the text of the GEWE voluntary guidelines where these considerations were particularly important, including notable achievements and missed opportunities. It also intends to explore aspects that proved to be highly sensitive during the negotiations of the Guidelines. The side-event aims to facilitate a discussion on the relation between gender equality, the right to food and the mandate of the CFS, seeing the current GEWE guidelines, its negotiation and implementation processes as further stepping stones towards the realization of true gender equality in food systems.

This side event has been cancelled.

The invasion of Ukraine has sparked a third food price crisis in 15 years. World food prices reached record highs in March 2022 and remain at critical levels, hitting food insecure countries and populations hard. Food systems around the world have proven highly vulnerable to these shocks, through their dependency on costly chemical inputs and highly-specialized commodity production, over-reliance on imports of staple foods, and the ongoing cycles of poverty, climate change and conflict that leave millions of people on the brink of hunger. Countries around the world are now taking steps to mitigate the crisis and build the resilience that is urgently needed to protect against future shocks – from farmer-managed seed systems to the replacement of chemical inputs with agroecological practices. This event will hear about the pioneering responses governments are developing and deploying, and how we can ensure coordinated, comprehensive action at the global level.

• Showcase innovative responses to the food price crisis that mitigate immediate impacts and kick-start longer-term transformation of food systems;
• Identify opportunities to cut dependency on synthetic fertilizer in the face of rising costs – and the challenges in diversifying production systems;
• Raise awareness of the importance of peasant seed systems and conducive regulations as levers for building resilience and transforming food systems.

With 70% of global food consumed in urban areas, the role of cities is becoming important for food systems transformation.. The role of cities was recognized during the Food Systems Summit and as result, the Global Urban Food Systems Coalition has been established. At the same time, technology and demographics transform the local food systems landscape as the sharp dichotomy between rural and urban areas progressively disappears. Meanwhile, many cities are at the forefront in mainstreaming food systems in local policy. However, quite often local governments are not recognized as key players in food systems management at national level. In global fora and platforms related to food (such as the CFS) but also national ones, the representation of local governments is non-existent. Moreover food does not resonate in the strategies of decentralization of power to local governments. How do we change this? The debate at the side event aims at identifying ways in which national governments and global platforms can better support cities and local governments. Such recommendations may include transformed multi-level governance structures to reflect urban and territorial food systems but also the enhanced representation of urban and local actors in global multi-stakeholder bodies such as the CFS.

• Local governments recognized as key players for achieving sustainable food systems transformation among CFS stakeholders but also in the committee’s governance as expressed multiple times by the CFS Chair.
• A multi-level food systems governance recognized as a central component to strengthen local governments engagement in the implementation of food systems national pathways.
• National governments and other stakeholders showing the way on how to strengthen the ecosystem of support to local/territorial/city-region/urban food systems stakeholders.
• Raise awareness on the importance of strengthening alliances and coalitions on urban and territorial food systems avoiding duplication.

Global agricultural supply chains are frequently associated with human rights violations – particularly upstream, when large-scale commercial production is established on land previously used by smallholders or indigenous populations. In response, various frameworks that target the country of production, such as the VGGT, or investors, here the CFS-RAI, are being implemented. In addition, new human rights due diligence regulations target the supply chain to hold downstream buyers and importers accountable. Finally, again with the objective of holding actors accountable, a range of monitoring initiatives are continuously working on the provision of relevant data and increasing transparency. While these different approaches address human rights concerns related to global agricultural production, they are directed at different stakeholders, are currently at different stages of implementation, and thus little aligned. This means that important synergies remain unused. For instance, implementing the VGGT in upstream producer countries, would help comply with human rights due diligence and eventually protect smallholder and indigenous land rights. In addition, data initiatives on human rights violations need to be matched with frameworks and regulations to hold actors effectively accountable. The side event aims to show pathways how these synergies can be leveraged to address human rights violations in global agricultural production.

1. Initiate a dialogue between different stakeholders who tackle human right violations in global agricultural supply chains and global land acquisitions.
2. Insights and concrete policy recommendations on how to leverage synergies between the VGGT, responsible investment guidelines, and human rights due diligence approaches in global agricultural supply chains.
3. Increasing the effectiveness of data and monitoring initiatives for the implementation of these frameworks and regulations.

This side event has been cancelled.

New food systems, grounded in food sovereignty, economies of wellbeing, climate justice and human rights are possible – but a lot of work and political will is necessary to realize them. In this panel, youth from around the world will present visions for the future of food systems, and assess the CFS’s Promoting Youth Engagement and Employment in Agriculture and Food Systems policy product and its possibility to contribute to realizing this future. Topics covered will include, (a) the need for land and power redistribution, (b) creating enabling environments for agroecology and diversified food production, (c) shortening supply chains and supporting local and territorial markets, (d) climate justice, (e) restitution and reparations to historically marginalized peoples, including Indigenous Peoples, (d) confronting narratives of digitalization and entrepreneurship, (f) ensuring dignified livelihoods for all youth and (g) realizing the human rights of youth, in all their diversities. Panelists will present their vision for food system transformation, and address the following questions: can the CFS policy product on youth support food system transitions? What are the policy recommendations’ strengths and where do they fall short?

• CSIPM Youth vision for the future of food systems
• CSIPM Youth assessment of the Promoting Youth Engagement and Employment in Agriculture and Food Systems negotiation process
• CSIPM Youth assessment of the Promoting Youth Engagement and Employment in Agriculture and Food Systems policy product

In recent years, there has been increasing awareness about the importance of leveraging the law-making, budget-allocation, oversight and representational mandate of parliamentarians for food and nutrition security. Engaging with parliamentarians helps put FSN at the highest level of legislative, political and budgetary agenda. Recognizing the cross-cutting nature of FSN, a number of parliamentary alliances that go beyond the traditional standing committees in charge of food security have been established at the national, sub-regional and regional levels in different parts of the world. They have played significant role in adopting legislation that define rights and responsibilities, and put in place coordination and accountability mechanisms for FSN. With a panel of parliamentarians to be moderated by FAO, the side event seeks to discuss the achievements and challenges of parliamentary networks in promoting the FSN agenda through legislation at different levels. It aims to promote experience sharing among parliamentarians on how to contribute to effective FSN law-making, and to bring the relevant work of parliamentarians to the attention of CFS stakeholders for further collaboration.

• Parliamentarians will have shared their experience on leveraging their law-making mandate for FSN with parliamentarians from other countries/regions and with other CFS stakeholders
• Opportunities for CFS to engage parliamentarians and their legislative mandate for FSN will have been strengthened
• The capacity of parliamentarians will have been strengthened in terms of their role in adopting effective legislation and multi-stakeholder collaboration for FSN

There is an urgent need for more responsible and climate smart investment in agriculture and food systems in Southeast Asia. In this regard, ASEAN Member States have adopted Regional Guidelines on Promoting Responsible Investment in Food, Agriculture and Forestry (ASEAN RAI) as well as Regional Guidelines for Promoting Climate Smart Agriculture. The challenge is to ensure that governments, investors and other key stakeholders follow these guidelines, and that investments in agriculture and food systems in the region benefit the farmers, businesses and citizens (including the most vulnerable) of Southeast Asia. In line with these regional guidelines, a range of innovative multistakeholder approaches have been developed to assist governments, businesses and other stakeholders to adopt responsible and climate smart investment practices. This Side Event will explore these approaches from the perspective of key stakeholders, and provide examples of actions undertaken to improve investment in agriculture and food systems in the region.

• Improve awareness and understanding of innovative regional approaches to promote responsible and climate smart investment in agriculture and food systems in Southeast Asia and of the methodologies, tools and metrics developed to support these approaches
• Provide a platform to exchange experiences and perspectives on the roles of different stakeholders in Southeast Asia in promoting responsible and climate smart investment and the importance of multistakeholder approaches for coordinating these roles
• Provide a better understanding of the importance of private sector engagement for responsible and climate smart investment in agriculture and
• Improve awareness of the impact of responsible and climate smart investment

The current food systems and climate crises are deeply interconnected. In 2017, the UNFCCC Conference of Parties recognized this linkage by setting up the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA), the only sectoral programme to focus on agriculture and food within the climate space. Since then, the topic has gained increasing attention, reaching its peak at the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), which helped to raise awareness in the global community on the need to radically reform not only agriculture but our food systems to address the climate challenge. At COP 27 decisions must be made on the future of the KJWA and broadening its scope to food systems is urgently needed. While today there is increased understanding and commitment across food systems stakeholders on the need to transform food systems, the actions identified during the KJWA and UNFSS processes lack integration. This event will engage speakers and the audience in a discussion around areas of convergence and synergies between the KJWA outcomes and the national pathways of food systems transformation which came out of the UNFSS. The session will also explore the role that stakeholder including CFS can play in bringing the post-summit process and the KJWA outcomes together.

1. Identify complementarities and synergies between the national pathways and KJWA and discuss mechanism to bring the two processes together;
2. Sharing ways to engage key stakeholders in climate and food systems discussions on the way to COP 27;
3. Exchange on ways to bring all stakeholder on board for a better understanding of food, climate and resilience nexus;
4. Explore the role that CFS and other stakeholder can play in bringing the post-summit process and the KJWA outcomes together;
5. Reflect on how CFS policy products can contribute to implementing the UNFSS national pathways.

In 2021, the G7 launched the Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative convening 22 global food and agriculture companies to pledge to improve the environmental, social and nutritional impact of their operations and supply chains. Companies have pledged improvement as measured by the World Benchmarking Alliance's Food and Agriculture Benchmark, which builds on and looks at the implementation of several CFS products, including the CFS RAI. At this side event there will be an open call for other companies (outside the G7) to join the initiative, as well as the launch of the first report assessing whether companies are living up to the pledge made. The report provides an independent monitoring mechanism to review company progress and embed accountability. It will highlight leading business practices and identify the wider actions needed from businesses and governments to make progress towards realising healthy, sustainable and equitable food systems transformation.

1. Invite new companies to the Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative;
2. Identify actions that need to be taken by businesses and governments to make progress towards realising healthy, sustainable and equitable food systems;
3. Prioritize these actions based on the feedback from the audience.

Extreme weather, pandemic-related disruptions, and now Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have sent food prices to record highs, giving rise to a hunger and food access crisis. These seismic shocks are shaking our food system, exposing its inefficiencies and vulnerabilities and the need for improved risk management approaches that match the complexity of current and future challenges, building from the Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition, and other frameworks. In this side event, we will explore how we can build off existing global governance mechanisms and frameworks to better monitor and manage food system risks in face of compounding crises and disruptions and mobilize commensurate policy responses so that instead of lurching from crisis to crisis, and sticking to short-term fixes, we lay the foundations for a truly resilient system for the long-term. We will examine current mechanisms to manage the systemic risks and how they can be strengthened to build long-term resilience. We will explore how implementation of current agreements and mechanisms can be accelerated and what more is needed to build collective stability for the food system. Ultimately, this side event will tackle the question of how best we can enhance international governance of food system stability in the 21st Century.

1. Understanding of the short and long term factors that destabilise food systems, including climate change, conflict, covid-19 and rising cost of living
2. Understanding of how these risk factors are governed, the gaps in the global responses and the need for coordinated political responses to promote international food systems stability
3. Proposition of a Global Food Systems Risk Management Mechanism that is poised to manage the systemic risks facing the food systems in the long-term
4. Understanding of what a Global Food Systems Risk Management Mechanism could look like and how a multistakeholder process could be supported by CFS

The CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition, are an inter-governmental and multi-stakeholder policy tool. Their objective is to develop appropriate policies, laws, investments and institutional arrangements, to address the causes of hunger and malnutrition in all its forms with a Food System approach. The CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition recommend governments to promote evidence-based food and nutrition labelling, including Front-of-Pack labelling (FOPL). In Latin America and the Caribbean, one in four adults suffer from obesity and the prevalence of overweight in children under 5 years old, is above the global average (FAO, 2022). FOPL schemes are one of the evidence-based policies that address overweight and obesity, improving the quality of information and the food environment, as well as promoting healthier food choices. In LAC, already ten countries have enacted FOPL regulations and five of them implemented these policies (Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Peru and Ecuador). The side event seeks to share, and discuss evidence and best practices in the implementation of FOPL in LAC, as recommended by the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition, from different countries and from the perspective of several stakeholders.

Sharing evidence of FOPL in the context of CFS’ VGFSyN, from different countries in LAC and from several stakeholders (i.e. governments, parliamentarians, civil society and academia).

The 2021 UN Food Systems Summit recognized Indigenous Peoples’ food systems as game-changers for sustainability. The critical role of Indigenous Peoples in climate mitigation, conservation and reversing land degradation has been strongly acknowledged by the IPCC (2019), IBPES (2019) and UNCCD (2022). UNFCCC COP26 recognized that direct engagement between Indigenous Peoples and governments is key to finding sustainable and resilient ways to meet the Paris Agreement commitments. Indigenous Peoples are already stewarding nearly one-fifth of the total carbon sequestered by tropical and subtropical forests (218 gigatons), (RRI, 2019). Unfortunately, despite the importance of Indigenous Peoples’ lands and territories for biodiversity, climate mitigation, and sustainable food systems, Indigenous Peoples’ rights over their lands have been historically disregarded. For the global community, the cost of insecure rights of Indigenous Peoples on their lands and territories in form of lost opportunities for climate mitigation, conservation, ecological restoration and sustainable food systems is immeasurable. In this context, within the framework of the 10th anniversary of the VGGT and the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, this side-event will provide an opportunity to discuss emerging issues related to collective rights to lands, successful interventions and the relevance of instruments, such as the VGGT.

• From the perspective of Indigenous Peoples, take stock of the impact that the VGGTs have had on the protection of collective rights to lands, territories and natural resources.
• Portray how the guarantee of collective rights relates to the sustainability of Indigenous Peoples' food systems.
• Discuss the relationship between Indigenous Peoples' contribution to climate change mitigation and collective rights, highlighting Indigenous youth and Indigenous women's perspectives.
• Identify good practices where the application of the VGGTs has had a positive impact on securing Indigenous Peoples' collective rights to lands, territories and natural resources.

The WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger Brazil (WFP CoE) is a global hub for knowledge exchange, capacity building, and technical assistance to aid countries to reach zero hunger. Over the last 10 years, the WFP CoE Brazil has supported more than 80 countries, using South-South Triangular Cooperation to showcase positive experiences in the development of food and nutrition security policies. To increase adaptability, the WFP CoE Brazil has been focusing on providing support through virtual exchanges since 2019. This remote assistance methodology was crucial for the continuity of services during the pandemic, enabling a flexible and cost-effective provision of technical assistance to more than 17 countries in the last two years. In this session, two remote assistance initiatives will be showcased: the Virtual Study Visit: Brazil, developed in partnership with the Government of Brazil, and a joint project with FAO to connect smallholder farmers to school feeding programmes. The Virtual Study Visit: Brazil was launched in July 2021 and consists of online workshops and a series of videos that simulate an immersion in the Brazilian National School Feeding Program (PNAE). In the past year, 5 countries have already tested this new methodology, with positive results for South-South engagement and advocacy for school feeding among governments. Another example of how this methodology is already enabling quick and cost-efficient initiatives is a new joint project between WFP and FAO to generate evidence and provide technical support to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin América, with the goal of highlighting good practices in sustainable value chains for nutrition and strenghtening the link between school feeding and smallholder farming. In this session, WFP and FAO will share their experience identifying and supporting global good practices in the use of local procurement in school feeding programme, in order to showcase opportunities for South-South exchanges and in support of the School Meals Coalition. This event aims to present these successful initiatives and foster a discussion about the opportunities and challenges of using digital tools to promote South-South cooperation around food security and nutrition.

• Share knowledge on the Brazilian experience in remote support for school feeding programmes.
• Introduce the joint WFP and FAO project to strengthen country capacity in Home-Grown School Feeding, particularly through synergies between local food, agriculture, and smallholder farmers, encouraging inclusive procurement and short value chains for better nutrition.
• Promote a discussion on opportunities and challenges in the use of digital tools for South-South Cooperation.
• Identify how to leverage innovative solutions developed during the pandemic context to complement the face-to-face work of development policies.

Action is needed throughout the global food system to meet climate, biodiversity, and health objectives. There is substantial evidence at the global scale of the need for such food system transformations but much less attention has been paid to how transformations towards more healthy and sustainable food systems might play out at the national level. Global targets and goals are necessary to provide a roadmap for change and draw attention to the urgent need for food system transformation but implementation of these targets and goals must take place at the national level. More importantly, global-level analyses can mask important differences between national level food systems and the challenges and opportunities for transformation in each country. This event will present a new report that explores the place-based nature of food system transformation and what strategies may be more effective and hold greater relevance in certain countries than others. Using the report and multiple examples from around the world, this event will add to a critical conversation around how food system transformations will vary at the country level.

1. To explore the place-based nature of food system transformation using four countries as case studies.
2. To examine how the CFS Voluntary Guidelines can help guide food system transformation at the national level.
3. To establish collaboration and connect the dots between organizations to scale impact at the national level.

Food systems are under transformation in many countries to alleviate the impact of conflicts and diseases, including COVID-19. While many governments committed to address the exacerbated crises of climate, biodiversity loss and pollution, policy efforts are underway to make food systems more efficient, resilient and inclusive. The UN Food Systems Summit 2021 resulted in National Pathways and urged countries and their stakeholders to adopt a context-specific food system approach in their policies and action. The GEF-7 Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration Impact Program (FOLUR) envisions a world where producing food creates sustainable environmental benefits and flourishing landscapes, a world where youth empowerment and gender equality are success triggers. FAO is working with the World Bank (leading FOLUR) and other partners in twenty-seven countries with a focus on productive landscapes and selected value chains (livestock, cocoa, corn, coffee, palm oil, rice, soy, and wheat) to achieve global environment benefits and SDGs. To this end, FOLUR has been developing a food systems assessment methodology and a sustainable landscape production toolkit, which is aligned with the 10 Elements of Agroecology Guiding the Transition to Sustainable Food and Agricultural Systems. The event will focus on how to accelerate the National Pathways through FOLUR.

The event will position FOLUR as an accelerator to the SDGs through the National Pathways, and will show how to upscale opportunities in GEF-8. Participants will learn how:

• Adopting a food system approach prevents (a) shifts of burdens between areas of concern, (b) leakages of emissions between countries, (c) deforestation and other land use transformations
• The food system assessment methodology empowers policy makers in spotting trade-offs and synergies with other sectors when designing investment plans and effective policies on sustainable production and consumption
• The sustainable production landscape toolkit facilitates integrated landscape management and land use planning

According to the 2022 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI), acute food insecurity is on the rise. The number of people affected by hunger has grown by about 150 million since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, between 702 and 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021. The drivers of acute hunger are rooted in a multi-layered crisis that includes climate change, conflict, and COVID-19. At this time of urgent need and strong global commitments transformative investments targeted at smallholder farmers are more relevant than ever. Evidence shows that smallholder farmers can support their own income and productivity growth when they come together to combine their efforts. Producer organization-led investments provide smallholders with greater ownership, allowing them to make more effective decisions about their businesses. By coming together and leveraging their collective bargaining power, they are able to forge stronger links among actors along the agriculture value chain, from ‘farm to table.’ Smallholder farmers are entrepreneurs, innovators, transformers, conservers, adapters, and thought leaders. Rooted in this belief, GAFSP and IFAD have made it one of their missions to work more directly and closely with POs. This event will highlight the importance and the advantage of investing in POs to enable their members to become their own change agents, enabling them to make effective decisions about their businesses and improve their livelihoods. After an advocacy process lead by Pos/CSOs members of GAFSP SC, In 2016, GAFSP launched a pilot that provided small-scale grants to FOs and POs to lead, design, and implement projects. These projects demonstrate that when investment is channeled to smallholders, it allows for a quicker and more efficient response to crises and a more robust recovery. Building on the pilot’s successes, in 2021, GAFSP expanded its PO-led portfolio. Moreover, through its private sector arm, GAFSP invests in early-stage agribusiness projects that may not attract commercial funding due to perceived high risks in the agricultural sector. IFAD has a longstanding partnership with FOs worldwide and supports them to effectively represent their members and provide them with economic services for profitable integration into markets and value chains and engage in policy dialogue. IFAD’s approach is two-pronged: investments through sovereign loans and grants programs, and institutional dialogue through the Farmers’ Forum process and regional grants programs. Through examples, this event will speak to how PO-led investments and initiatives offer a complementary and effective delivery channel to address crises, as demonstrated during COVID-19. Moving forward, GAFSP and IFAD will continue to increase investments in smallholder communities while aligning with CFS's 10 principles for responsible investment.

• Create a space for dialogue around various financing tools/modalities, including small-scale grants and blended financing, that support the empowerment and development of Producer Organizations (POs) and Farmers’ Organizations (FOs).
• Highlight successful initiatives/investments that focus on POs, showcasing examples from GAFSP (PO-led track) and IFAD (Grants to FO’s (SFOAP, FO4ACP, FO4A, FO4LA, etc. and RPSF Grants as Covid-19 response such as SAFE 2020 and ARISE-farmers).
• Announce the upcoming launch of a GAFSP PO-led Call for Proposals in 2022 and the IFAD Farmers' Forum and Regional Farmers’ Forum Process ongoing during 2022, results and experiences from FO4ACP.
• Highlight how direct funding to Producer Organizations such as that offered by GAFSP and IFAD are in line with the responsible investment principles outlined by the CFS.

Soil health continues to decline globally at an alarming rate despite our improved understanding of the interconnectedness of soil health, food production, climate, and biodiversity. While the development of new soil health measurement technologies has led to sophisticated and comprehensive knowledge and data management systems, the adoption of soil health improvement practices remains low in many regions worldwide. In this session, we will hear from young farmers, researchers, and entrepreneurs how field-level data and innovations can be made more accessible and actionable to accelerate the adoption of practices that will improve soil health. The session will also discuss collaborative public-private solutions that could enable the next generation to better respond and adapt to crises such as adverse weather or crop input shortages. Last but not least, it will explore how public policy can help overcome the gap between evidence and uptake of soil health improvement practices at the farm level.

1. Provide solutions that can help address the soil health data gap that farmers face.
2. Showcase cutting-edge soil analysis and forecasting technologies that can be used to monitor and better predict challenging cropping conditions and contribute to alleviating future crisis situations.
3. Elevate the visibility of existing solutions and options to governments that could contribute to their national soil health and agricultural production plans.
4. Identify enabling frameworks to promote public and private collaboration aimed at expanding access to soil health data and knowledge.

The global food production per inhabitant has continuously increased for several years, exceeding nutritional requirements. Food systems are under several simultaneous threats resulting in multiple crises related either to keeping food imports at levels ensuring food security, or to maintaining production systems highly dependent on inputs and energy. Unsustainable production systems and changes in land-use are both threatening biodiversity and affecting production diversity and nutritional quality. Increased consumption of energy-dense foodstuffs reduces food diversity and leads to malnutrition. In 2021, the EU, the FAO and CIRAD initiated Food Systems Assessments (FSA) in 50 countries to explore in a systematic and holistic way the current challenges faced by food systems. The event will be threefold: 1. short presentation of the cross-country synthesis from the FSA, 2. panel with representatives from 3 continents, 3. exchanges with the audience. The aim is to discuss: 1. obstacles to the re-diversification of food and production systems, notably in historically export-oriented regions; 2. diversified production systems but lack of diversity of diets due to affordability of nutritious food; 3. food systems strongly shaped by mono-cropping in staple food and diversified food systems rooted in indigenous regimes.

1. Share member states and civil society views on the critical challenges to produce diversified food, ensure access to diverse food and modify the consumer approach to healthy diets.
2. Provide insights on key agrifood systems trends, obstacles and risks while identifying opportunities to support the sustainable transformation of food systems towards more diverse foodstuffs and accessible healthy diets at national scales.
3. Understand how Governments, in collaboration with private sector and civil society, can prioritise, plan and formulate actions that seek to address specific obstacles while solving multidimensional challenges related to governance, institutions, policies, finance through multi-stakeholder processes.

Agenda 2063 is Africa’s blueprint and master plan for enhancing human, social and economic development and transforming Africa into a global powerhouse of the future. Essential to achieving this ambition is a healthy, well-nourished population. Findings of the Continental Accountability Scorecard show radical food systems transformation is needed to combat pervasive states of malnutrition. The 2021 UN Food Systems Summit outcomes are now carried forward through innovative national food systems pathways, supported by Coalitions such as the HDSFS. The HDSFS looks to support Member States in progressing their pathways and aligning, mobilizing and supporting action to realize the vision of a world where all people eat a healthy diet from sustainable food systems. The African Union Year of Nutrition provides the perfect platform to accelerate progress through political commitment and greater investments. This side event aims to highlight opportunities to leverage existing CFS-related resources and harness the critical role of youth, building on the momentum of the HDSFS and AU YoN and inspiring Member States to increase their commitments towards delivering healthy diets from sustainable food systems.

• Capitalize on the impetus the AU YoN creates to translate the goal of ending malnutrition in all its forms into action, to enhance human, social and economic capital through concrete, comprehensive, and coordinated policies and programmes.
• Promote the HDSFS as a multi-stakeholder platform for accelerated action and peer-to-peer learning to advance the vision of a world where all people are eating healthy diets from sustainable food systems.
• Highlight tools such as the VGFSN to guide and support the work of the HDSFS to advance implementation of national pathways.
• Foster country-level leadership, regional collaboration and global alignment as key ingredients to transform food systems for the health of people and the planet.

Halting land degradation and restoring land will be critical as the world faces up to the intertwined challenges of ending hunger, malnutrition, and poverty. Land degradation affects 20-40% of the global land area undermining the wellbeing of 3.2 billion people. Urgent action is needed to reverse the pervasive impacts of land degradation to secure food and water resources. Secure tenure is key to motivate good land stewardship at all scales. In 2019, UNCCD adopted a landmark decision on land tenure. While UNCCD is the only multilateral environmental agreement explicitly addressing land tenure, CFS has actively promoted responsible governance of tenure for nearly a decade. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the VGGT. This side event will celebrate the occasion, highlight achievements, and explore how integrating VGGT into land restoration initiatives can re-energize momentum to enhance tenure security and unlock multiple benefits for food security, poverty reduction, women‘s empowerment and prevention of natural resource conflicts.

1. Increase understanding of how secure tenure is connected with land restoration activities and contributes to improved food security, nutrition, and poverty reduction.
2. Develop a checklist of context-specific actions to integrate VGGT into LDN and restoration initiatives at national and local levels.
3. Recognize the importance of applying a gender equality and social inclusion lens for meaningful participation of all actors, especially women, youth, indigenous peoples, and vulnerable groups.
4. Explore potential partnerships to move from global policy frameworks into people-centered action through multistakeholder collaborations.
5. Discuss lessons learnt and good practices to reinforce knowledge and promote national and local innovations to advance VGGT implementation in the context of LDN.

Foresight allows stakeholders to explore alternative futures for food systems and enhance capabilities to respond and adapt. Taking a longer-term perspective supports better short-term decision-making to enhance system resilience. This session will launch the Foresight4Food “Enabling National Processes of Foresight for Food Systems Transformation (FaST) Programme,” funded by the Netherlands through IFAD. The programme will support national food system transformation pathways in five focus countries and a global hub for enhancing foresight and scenario capabilities. Examples from Africa and Asia will be presented, and participants will engage with foresight and scenario tools. The session will conclude with a discussion on enhancing foresight capabilities to support food systems transformation in varying local and national contexts, with a focus on combining participatory processes with quantitative modeling for evidence-based policymaking.

• Introduce foresight and scenario methodologies and how they can accelerate food systems transformation.
• Explore case studies from various African and South Asian countries.
• Facilitate discussion on enhancing foresight processes and capabilities for local and national food systems transformation.
• Examine how foresight can support informed dialogue between government, business, civil society, and farmers groups.