Women play critical roles across agriculture and food systems, on and off the farm, constituting a significant portion of the agricultural workforce worldwide. However, they often face numerous barriers such as lack of access to productive resources, financing, markets, agricultural training and education, suitable working conditions, that are underpinned by discriminatory norms and policies that limit their full potential and hinder agricultural development.

The panel discussion will build on the work of the CFS Voluntary Guidelines for Gender Equality and Women's and Girls' Empowerment in the context of food security and nutrition. It will explore how the guidelines can contribute to helping women overcome of the challenges they face in agriculture and food systems. Panelists will also highlight the importance of collecting sex and gender disaggregated data and will provide insights for the upcoming CFS workstream on reducing inequalities.

Private sector has made significant efforts in empowering women throughout the agrifood value chain and PSM members will use this event to showcase these activities throughout various crops and sectors. For example, PSM member, Nestlé is well poised to share its learnings on women’s empowerment from its activities increasing smallholder farmers’ livelihoods across dairy, cocoa and coffee production.

Agrifood systems are challenged to strengthen their sustainability, inclusiveness, transparency and resilience, often requiring significant trade-offs between economic, environmental and social goals. A strong and accessible data and analytical foundation, and participatory consultative processes are critical prerequisites for identifying policy options for Governments, civil society and private sector to consider. Though sufficient data may be available, decision-makers often lack the capacities and tools to interpret and act on them.

This joint side event, organised by the EU, FAO, the Government of Sweden and SIANI, brings together diverse actors and geographic perspectives to discuss this critical interface between data and analysis and multistakeholder processes for policy and investment decision-making. It presents insights from crosscutting regional analyses of 50 country EU-FAO-CIRAD food systems’ assessments as well as lessons on how to collate, align, and avail data efficiently and transparently for consumers, practitioners, and decision makers. The panel will also examine the challenges, opportunities and trade-offs of developing policies and investment to enhance the environmental sustainability of terrestrial and marine food systems.

The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) negotiations dealing with policy recommendations on data collection and analysis tools in the food system provided an opportunity for the CFS to enhance its understanding of how digitalization and digital technologies could dramatically change the food system in the next decades, for better or for worse.

On the one hand, this technological evolution brings opportunities for the realization of the right to adequate food and nutrition, as new ways of sharing and processing information emerge. On the other hand, there are social and ecological risks, especially for small scale farmers, youth, rural and urban consumers, and Indigenous People, as digitalization can deepen existing inequalities, lead to technological lock-ins, and use a huge amount of minerals and energy.

From the beginning, governance has been a much-discussed topic. The central question in the room is what role States should have to guarantee that the digitalization of the food system benefits the people that are most affected by food insecurity, supports small scale producers that produce the largest part of food especially for internal markets and leads to a food secure future for all, grounded in human rights, food sovereignty, biodiversity, and agroecology.

Data are critical for food security and nutrition, and essential to drive programmes and policies, to track progress towards the SDGs, to detect time trends, and to course correct in this historical moment of conflict, climate change, pandemics and other shocks. Countries need strong, agile data systems that can quickly adapt to evolving situations, and work across sectors. Yet data strategies are often fragmented, best practices are not well-documented, and lessons learned are unincorporated, resulting in suboptimal outcomes and ineffective use of limited resources.

This side-event will showcase experiences of generating and using data from three data-focused initiatives: 1) the learnings from the 50x2030 initiative to Close the Agricultural Data Gap based on a partnership between IFAD, FAO and the World Bank, aiming to strengthen the data systems in lower and lower-middle income countries to enhance decision-making for agriculture and food security; 2) two initiatives from the European Union: the European Commission-Nutrition Information System (EC-NIS) project implemented by UNICEF and WHO to strengthen the generation and capacity of nutrition data within health information systems and beyond; and the National Information Platforms for Nutrition (NIPN) initiative supported by UNICEF, GIZ and CATIE to transform data and multisectoral nutrition information systems to influence and drive programmes and policies in nine countries.

The second Global Parliamentary Summit against Hunger and Malnutrition, held in June 2023, further highlighted the crucial role of parliaments in fighting hunger and malnutrition towards the progressive realization of the Right to Adequate Food, especially in times of crises.

The Global Parliamentary Pact called for CFS to establish appropriate mechanisms for the representation of parliamentarians actively involved in the fight against hunger and malnutrition in CFS sessions and a stronger involvement of parliaments as key drivers for the implementation of CFS outcomes.

FAO has been expanding outreach to and collaboration with parliaments worldwide, proactively engaging parliamentarians and their networks within and across national assemblies.

The wealth of experience gained and lessons learned, and the progressive consolidation of networks linking committed parliamentarians all over the globe, can be capitalized to further strengthen the uptake of CFS recommendations - and their incorporation in national legislation and policies - with a more proactive approach to involve legislators along with national governments and other relevant institutions and actors.

The side event will focus on pathways to strengthen contributions to and uptake of CFS policy products by parliamentary institutions and networks, based on regional and national needs and demands.

In 2003, a series of policies and governance structures were implemented in Brazil, including the Zero Hunger Strategy, the conditional cash transfer program Bolsa Família, programs to support small farm agriculture, educational programs promoting health, such as school feeding, programs to access micronutrients, promotion of adequate and healthy eating in public environments and facilities, strengthening of primary health care, and a multi-level and multi-participatory governance system for food security and nutrition systems (SISAN), including the National Council for Food and Nutritional Security (CONSEA), whose format ultimately inspired the CFS Reform in 2009. Brazil exited the UN's hunger map; however, the dismantling of social public policies during the period from 2016 to 2022 brought the food and nutritional insecurity as the main problem to be overcome. Over 33 million people are experiencing food insecurity in the country, and to address these adversities, a resumption of various intersectoral actions is necessary. What are the challenges and how can we avoid further setbacks in the future? What mechanisms are necessary to eradicate food and nutritional insecurity? Discussions about the various forms of malnutrition and their unequal impact on the population demand assertive measures with the collaboration of international cooperation.

The future of agriculture will be driven by data, and its effective management can help deliver SDG outcomes, improving livelihoods and increasing food security and nutrition. Agricultural data and their use for better decision-making is key to digital transformation of agriculture, but farmers’ willingness to adopt digital solutions is affected by concerns regarding fragmented and unclear data governance arrangements.  This reduces the availability and accessibility of agricultural data that are valuable for agricultural policymaking, for agricultural innovation and the development of services for the sector.

The challenge is to find a balance between protecting the privacy and confidentiality of agricultural data, farmers’ economic interests in that data, while making it possible to leverage their potential for the sector’s growth and innovation, which are vital for better livelihoods and increased Data management policies must ensure the beneficiaries of data across the entire agrifood value chain stand to benefit from data shared.  Without the adequate safeguards for data of diverse types, sources and sensitivities, the value of this data can be lost.

This side event aims to share the concerns and potential of data management policies from a farmer’s perspective to promote data-driven decision-making to help farmers monetize their data and drive more climate smart interventions. Increased collaboration is needed between the multiple actors involved in this space which include: generators of data (farmers), data management entities, third party platforms, and government.

Lastly, the side event will be an opportunity to highlight the recently endorsed CFS guidelines on Data in promotion of greater use of data collection and monitoring tools, and the challenges to doing so. Best practices on data management policies exist and should be shared with all CFS constituencies in support of the uptake of CFS guidelines on data.

Advancing gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment (GEWGE) is intrinsically linked to achieving food security and nutrition (FSN). This side event will share good practices and evidence-based learning from the UN Joint Programme on Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment (JP RWEE) and the GIZ global programme on Food Security, Nutrition and Enhanced Resilience.

The event will highlight how the use of integrated multi-stakeholder interventions have been effective in tackling systemic barriers to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Learning to be shared will include the use of gender transformative approaches, gender sensitive indicators and tools for measuring improvements in women’s nutrition and women’s empowerment in agriculture. The good practices to be shared are highly relevant to the operationalization of the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women and Girl’s Empowerment and to the findings of the newly published FAO report on The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems (2023). Learning on the use of the Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women indicator (MDD-W) will be presented, along with advocacy for the integration of the MDD-W into SDG monitoring to enable global data collection and comparison.

The event will involve high-level speakers from Sweden and the EC, and programme practitioners from Nepal, Rwanda and Togo.

Climate change and malnutrition are two of the greatest challenges facing humanity today and are intrinsically intertwined. Through the strategic integration of these priorities, a comprehensive solution can be provided to concurrently address two major obstacles to sustainable development. The CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition (VGFSyN) provide a systemic, multi-sectoral science and evidence-based approach to implementing interventions to deliver healthy diets and positively impact all three dimensions of sustainable development. However, the persistent divide between the climate and nutrition communities leads to fragmentation in policy and action implementation.

This side event will present the Initiative on Climate Action and Nutrition (I-CAN) and launch two reports highlighting the latest developments in evidence base. Followed by a panel discussion and open forum discussion led by the GAFSP, to showcase examples of integrated climate-nutrition actions and strategies implemented across diverse projects driven by recipient countries, and by forest and farmers producer organizations in response to climate and nutrition challenges. This forum will also provide a platform for discussing the need of financial resources to support these strategies. The outcomes of the event will contribute to removing financial barriers for integrated action and contributing to shaping the roadmap to COP28.

Agroecological approaches are increasingly recognized as powerful levers for solving major challenges that the current agricultural and food systems face.

As the UN Rio Conventions (UNFCCC, UNCBD, UNCCD) call for the need of food system approaches to solve the global human and ecological crises we currently face, materializing the synergies between conventions will only be viable via integrated approaches and it will require investments and finance. Agroecology promotes the sustainable management of agriculture and the preservation of agrobiodiversity to climate and sustainable land management policies.

Thus, boosting finance in agroecology would greatly accelerate the food system transformations necessary to achieve Rio Conventions’ targets on climate, biodiversity and desertification simultaneously with achieving food security.

The side event will demonstrate how agroecology connects and delivers on these goals. It will share the results of discussions among a group of donors (bilateral, multilateral and philanthropic donors, private investors and governments) taking place immediately before the CFS (20-21 October). It will present data on investments in agroecology and a methodological tool to assess how much funded projects and programmes contribute to an agroecological transformation based on their alignment with the 13 principles of agroecology as articulated in the HLPE Report.

Cities in Africa are increasingly affected by climate change. The FAO's Green Cities initiative aims to help local governments adapt to these new conditions by promoting green infrastructures such as green spaces, urban and peri-urban agriculture, urban and peri-urban forest, food systems, circular economy, etc. The mobilization of citizens is important to the success of these transformations, and especially the young who are the very future of cities, is essential but still limited in Africa. The initial reflections on the involvement of citizens (so called agency as the sixth dimension of food security) in the forthcoming report of HLPE-FSN on urban food systems, will serve as a basis for discussion. Several testimonies will follow: the point of view of a Senegalese professor on the responsibilities of decentralized universities, the challenges encountered by a young African researcher, the lessons of a recent Climathon tested in three secondary cities in West Africa, and finally an exciting FAO project on the creation of green jobs mixing highly educated and uneducated young people. The debate will focus on how to boost the confidence of mayors to engage in green transformation with young people, and the mechanisms they could put in place locally to achieve this.

By 2050, feeding a global population of almost 10 billion will require a radical transformation in how food is produced, processed, traded and consumed. Ensuring energy access for all, and at every stage of agrifood systems, is a critical dimension of this transformation. 30% of global energy is consumed by agrifood systems and one third of agrifood emissions come from energy. 12% of total food production is lost due to lack of effective refrigeration, amounting to 4% of global GHG emissions.

Energy inefficient agrifood systems contribute to aggravate climate change, energy and food insecurity, while in 2021, 675 million people had no access to electricity and 2.3 billion to clean cooking.

Renewable energy solutions and integrated food-energy systems can directly advance energy and food security, while also contributing to job creation, gender equality and climate resilience and adaptation.

Increasing access to sustainable, green energy solutions can serve as an entry point for providing an ecosystem of integrated services needed to drive rural transformation in geographically remote/isolated areas.

This side event will give an overview of concrete examples and opportunities for energy-smart systems to contribute to food security and nutrition, enhance the resilience of communities and contribute to sustainable development.

Global agrifood systems are both drivers of climate change and vulnerable to its effects. But with today's knowledge, technologies, and innovative approaches, we can reverse this negative relationship and turn it into a positive one. Within the context of the UN Decade of Family Farming, an expert panel takes a deep dive into how agroecological approaches can empower smallscale farmers as innovators to restore and protect ecosystems and nourish families under changing climates; how digital solutions, like AgriPath or AeD-LABs, can capture and share that local knowledge; and how the flow of international climate finance can be increased in line with its importance to global emissions, adaptation and resilience, and food security.

As part of the Breakthrough Agenda launched at COP26, priority technology areas like agroecology and digital services were further identified to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes, reduce GHG emissions, safeguard soil, water resources, and natural ecosystems, and build climate resilience.

This side event therefore presents key findings and recommendations from the 2023 Breakthrough Agenda Report. Showcasing solutions, the event aims to catalyze urgent action towards food systems transformation.

Transformative action to deliver healthy diets from sustainable food systems is essential to end malnutrition in all its forms and achieve the interlinked, and interdependent 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Local and regional governments have successfully promoted the importance of local and territorial food systems in achieving overall food systems transformation and the SDGs. The emphasis now shifts to greater facilitation and acceleration of coherent national and local action. Food systems drivers, including the influence of urbanisation and the need for better integration of value chains across the rural-urban continuum, offer numerous opportunities and policy entry points for urban and local governments, and other local stakeholders. Interventions to support local food systems can create co-benefits for people and nature. Actions at the local level can play a catalytic role in tackling widening social and economic inequalities. They can also address the worrisome convergence of rural-urban food consumption patterns favouring highly processed foods often high in unhealthy fats, sugars or salts. Efforts to support local, place-based food systems can leverage national action to combat malnutrition, protect and conserve biodiversity and ecosystems, boost livelihoods and support local formal and informal economies.

Within the rural-urban continuum, harnessing the food systems connectivity of small and medium size cities and rural towns is key. Action should ensure quality service provision, and improve access, affordability and desirability of nutritious foods. Sustained impact depends upon people-centered, multisectoral approaches led by robust, inclusive food systems governance and targeted investment at the local, regional and national levels.

Globally, approximately 80% of food production is consumed in urban areas. In Brazil, about 85% of the population lives in cities. Cities are widely seen as engines of economic growth and employment, responsible for a considerable part of the global gross domestic product. Conversely, cities also facing enormous challenges in guaranteeing access for all residents to essential services such as health, education, transport and food, in addition to have deal with the harmful impacts of the increasingly constant extreme weather events that affect people's livelihoods and income.

These trends mean that urban and peri-urban areas also concentrate risks of food insecurity and increased prevalence of all forms of malnutrition. 27 million of the 33 million Brazilians in severe food insecurity live in cities. The consumption of ultra-processed foods is also higher in cities, contributing to the occurrence of non-communicable chronic diseases. Conversely, urban and peri-urban areas are rich in possibilities, serving as hubs for education, technology, innovation, health, social services, besides for food production, processing and distribution.

In this sense, the Brazilian government has been discussing the design of a National Strategy for FNS that can offer guidelines and tools to support cities in the implementation of FNS policies.

The contribution of Nature based Solutions (NbS) to climate action and nature conservation is increasingly gaining attention globally. Nevertheless, their application in agriculture, and their impacts on food security and employment opportunities have largely been overlooked, especially considering youth inclusion in equitable agricultural value-chains. This session will try to clarify the concept of NbS, discuss their use in agriculture, and see how these NbS could support the shift from grey to green resources, and promote equitable and inclusive agricultural value chains.

Speakers, including farmers, experts and countries representatives will:

1. Share knowledge and experiences related to the implementation of Nature-based Solutions in agriculture;
2. Discuss potential challenges and pre-requisites for NbS to contribute to inclusive and equitable production systems, creating green jobs especially for the youth;
3. Draw lessons, including on the role of key support actors, including governments and financial institutions.

The event will highlight the 50th anniversary of the CFS (1974), the 20th anniversary of the Right to Food Guidelines (2004), and the 15th anniversary of the CFS Reform (2009) where States, international organizations, CSOs, Indigenous Peoples’ organizations and the private sector strive to collectively embrace the challenges and responsibility associated with building inclusive and sustainable food systems anchored in human rights. It will highlight the pivotal role of the right to food in tackling interconnected issues that affect people and the planet, guiding national responses to the food crisis, fostering international coordination, and shaping food systems transformation, providing a solid legal framework for cohesive responses.

The event will also discuss the role of several other international instruments (such as CFS policy outcomes, ICESCR, CEDAW, CRC, CRPD, UNDROP, UNDRIP, ILO conventions, and CEDAW General Recommendations) in complementing the understanding of the right to adequate food, constituting an advanced normative framework for the realization of this right.

Over the last years, the right to food has been enshrined by a growing number of States into national policy and legal frameworks, making it central to domestic legislation and international policy, ensuring social participation of rights-holders and their organizations into public decision-making and the adoption of an inclusive, comprehensive human-rights based approach to food security and nutrition. The right to food is enshrined at the core of the mandate of the reformed CFS as strongly reflected in its mult-year programme of work.

Resources are failing to keep pace with ever-growing humanitarian needs in the face of shocks, resulting in widening unmet requirements. The inability to meet the increasing demand for humanitarian needs raises a critical question: What are the costs of inaction for both potential beneficiaries of assistance and non-beneficiaries, in both the short and long run?These adverse consequences analysed include short-term “costs”, such as increased malnutrition, poor health outcomes, and heightened vulnerability to food insecurity. Over time, these short-term impacts can compound, especially if shortfalls in humanitarian assistance persist. Long-term costs include stunted growth in children, reduced educational attainment, and diminished economic opportunities, perpetuating the cycle of poverty. The study also looks at economic instability and social tensions rise, impacting broader community development and national stability.This study, a follow-up to a previous regional study that focused on the macro effect of reduced funding, will focus specifically on two countries: Somalia and Uganda.

Urban agrifood systems feed most of the global population. They are essential to the wellbeing, health and prosperity of communities and the environment. There are multiple points of leverage within urban agrifood systems to transform food systems inclusively, equitably, and justly into ways that are locally meaningful and owned. Cities, with their routine governance relationship with communities and the surrounding landscape, are key to accelerating and effectively accessing these opportunities. They can respond agilely to changing circumstances and bring together multiple actors, for transformation. However, the goal of sustainable, resilient urban agrifood systems is challenged by the complex intersection with other systems like climate, biodiversity and administratively, for example: technical and financial constraints, competing mandates, and lack of coordinated, coherent policies within city administrations and across multiple levels of government.

Urgent action, led by national and local governments, is needed to build institutional capacity, and foster inclusive governance.

This event critically discusses the pivotal role cities play in urban agrifood system transformation. Examples of multi-stakeholder action in the areas of food loss and waste, public food markets as well as national government support for food and nutrition urban challenges, are presented. The need for a global collaboration of urban agrifood systems actors—uniting governments, city networks, international organizations, NGOs, and research institutions to drive collective action and sustainable urban agrifood systems, will also be introduced.

Employing a rights-based approach, with a focus on the right to food and the right to a healthy environment, can support more sustainable actions on climate, biodiversity and nutrition. Access to adequate, safe and nutritious diets is critical if we are to uphold human rights, improve people’s health and limit biodiversity loss and global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To achieve this, comprehensive policy actions are required that promote the consumption of healthy diets from sustainable agrifood systems that align with global climate and biodiversity frameworks. Encouraging sustainable and healthy dietary practices though nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific measures in environmental policies can drive a climate-smarter world.

The proposed side event aligns with the narrative guiding the CFS Multi-Year Programme of Work for 2024-2027, particularly on strengthening the means of implementation and collaborative action for food security and nutrition. The event is consistent with this commitment to give greater prominence to the specific challenges and existing solutions posed by the progressive realization of the right to adequate food for all in the context of climate change and biodiversity loss.

The event will build the CFS MYPoW theme Building Resilience in Food Systems by focusing on how to boost resilience from production to supply chain management, exploring how to diversify sources of inputs, production, markets, and actors, including supporting the creation of small and medium-sized companies, cooperatives, consortiums and other groups to maintain diversity in food systems.

The event will feature results from the GLOPAN project on resilient food systems in Malawi, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone and from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) report entitled, “Food from somewhere: Building food security and resilience through territorial markets” as well as inputs from Brazil and Mexico, and a representative from each of the private sector and civil society.

This session will contribute to the HLPE-FSN work on this theme. It will focus on lessons learned around how to bolster resilience at a range of scales: farm level production, the community, across the supply chain and within formal institutions, including interactions across scales and possible trade-offs and ensure food systems are efficient and robust. We will also look ahead to emerging options for bolstering food systems resilience including exploring how to ensure the processes of food systems transformations is also resilient.

The CFS Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (CFS-RAI) recognize that all stakeholders have a role to play in promoting responsible investment in agriculture and food systems. Governments need to create enabling policy, legal, regulatory, and institutional environments for responsible investment and ensure appropriate safeguards to balance the needs and interests of investors, smallholders, local communities, and other affected parties. Investors and agribusinesses are responsible for mitigating and managing the risks associated with their investments and for maximizing their positive social and environmental impacts. They are also responsible for complying with relevant laws and regulations and for conducting due diligence.

In many contexts, these stakeholders need guidance and support to apply the CFS-RAI effectively. For this reason, several organizations have collaborated on the development of a range of practical tools that governments, investors, agribusinesses, and other stakeholders can use to promote, support, and apply the CFS-RAI in practice. This side event brings these organizations together to showcase these tools, explain their role in promoting responsible investment, and explore opportunities for greater coordination of efforts to promote the use of these tools to strengthen responsible investment for food security and nutrition and for food systems transformation.

Over the past 15 years, the world has experienced an increasing risk of famine. With the intensifying threat of climate change and the continuing possibilities of conflict, economic crises, and new pandemics, the prospects for the future are worrying. Despite significant increases in humanitarian assistance, acute food insecurity is worsening, suggesting that emergency food aid alone is insufficient. The protracted nature of these crises highlights the need to understand and address the root causes, such as conflict, poor governance, and systemic failures in food systems. Without proactive measures, the conditions leading to famine will persist, exacerbating human suffering and destabilizing affected regions.

This side event will present the results of a series of dialogues held throughout 2024 that sought to build understanding of long-term trends, gaps, and responses to famine, as well as the role of humanitarian diplomacy and the critical elements of famine prevention. The discussion will seek broader stakeholder endorsement over an area that is often poorly understood and aim to secure a CFS acknowledgment of a new policy and operational approach to preventing famine.

The side event is organized by the Global Network Against Food Crises (GNAFC) and Tufts University. The GNAFC is a multistakeholder initiative of humanitarian and development actors, united by a commitment to tackle the root causes of food crises and to promote sustainable solutions to address and prevent them. The members of the GNAFC are the European Union, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the World Bank.

Famine, starvation, and severe food crises during situations of conflict, occupation, war and protracted crises represent profound violations of the Right to Food and Nutrition (RtFN) and failures to address them at international level. The formation of these crises and their persistence is often due to systemic impunity under existing laws. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) and other early warning systems provide essential technical analysis but often don't take a human rights approach in doing so and don’t address the diverse contexts and root causes of food crises, neglecting community’s rights, resilience and local relationships with land and resources.

This side event seeks to utilize the convening power of the CFS, as the foremost intergovernmental platform to achieve global food security based on the right to food, to foster a different conversation around food crises that goes beyond technical measurements and into better understanding the contexts in which these crises emerge, and valorizing the evidence of people on the ground. It aims to also explore how political will and accountability can be mobilized within international bodies to ensure timely and effective aid reaches affected populations and propose strategies to enhance responsiveness and inclusivity in crisis response efforts. Participants will engage in a dialogue to share their perspectives and context, and discuss the needed role of the CFS in upholding and producing responses which are embedded in a holistic, human rights-based framework, in particular the use and implementation of the Framework For Action for Food Insecurity in Protracted Crises (CFS-FFA).

In March 2023, the Resilient and Inclusive Transformation Impact Initiative presented the technical paper: “Indigenous Peoples: From discrimination and marginalization to inclusion in a meaningful and effective way”. This paper highlights the differences between Indigenous Peoples' perception of poverty and well-being and those of mainstream approaches, which often lead to the systematic failure of development policies. These approaches frequently cause harm – including the erosion of Indigenous Peoples' food and knowledge systems, deterioration of health and food security, and environmental decline within their territories. Such impacts often result in the migration of Indigenous Youth to urban areas, exacerbating their food and knowledge systems and threatening their right to adequate food, deeply rooted in their traditional practices, lands and territories.

This side event aims to address Indigenous Peoples' rights, values, and needs in the design, implementation, and monitoring of rural transformation policies and projects. It seeks to discuss strategies and recommendations to counter these negative trends and enhance the resilience of Indigenous communities. Despite their tied relationship to their lands and territories, many have lost control to them, facing increased violence and displacement. The participants of the event will gain insights into practical solutions and collaborative efforts necessary to build resilient, inclusive, equitable, and sustainable agrifood systems, contributing to the CFS vision and multiple SDGs (1, 2, 10, 12, 13 and 15).

Climate change threatens progress towards the elimination of hunger, and food security and nutrition for all, but its worst effects are not shared equally; a 2021 report by the World Bank estimates that climate change widens the global gap between the poor and the better-off by $20 billion annually. Without action, climate change will adversely impact food production, increase food prices, reduce diet diversity, and decrease the nutritional content of staple crops, particularly affecting poorer populations in low- and middle- income countries. By 2050, an additional 78 million people will face chronic hunger relative to a no-climate change future. Evidence also links climate extreme events with low birthweight, stunting in children, and many other adverse health and nutrition outcomes.

Entrenched gender inequalities cause climate change to impact the well-being of women and girls disproportionately. Women are often more vulnerable to climate change and less able to respond in ways that benefit them, which can perpetuate and, in some cases, exacerbate gender gaps in food security and nutrition. At the same time, women’s empowerment is critical for achieving global food security and nutrition goals and increasing resilience to climate change.

Despite the importance of considering this nexus between women, nutrition and climate change, climate policies and interventions do not adequately integrate gender and nutrition objectives. Agro-ecological approaches, especially those which are gender transformative, will be essential for addressing climate adaptation/mitigation, gender equality, and nutrition goals in parallel.

To achieve the level of investments needed, it is essential to make the case to policy-makers – in quantitative terms – for reducing inequalities in climate adaptation, resilience, and nutrition outcomes. The ‘5Es’ of the Value for Money Framework (economy, efficiency, effectiveness, overall cost-effectiveness, and equity) are a useful framework to articulate not just the full range of cost and benefit streams, but also, crucially, who bears these and how costs and benefits are distributed.

People require sufficient, wholesome and safe food to thrive. More than 95% of our food comes from soils. Efforts and investments to produce nutritious crops can be lost if soil management is not sustainable or if soils are unhealthy. Unhealthy soils cannot produce nutritious crops nor assimilate nutrients added by fertilization. Sustainable soil and fertility management (SSFM) is essential to preserve and increase nutrient content in soils, plants, animals, and humans. As global demand for food increases and environmental pressures intensifies, it is imperative to recognize the critical role that healthy soils play in shaping resilient and equitable food systems capable of meeting the challenges of the future. This side event focus on innovative approaches to achieve SSFM, highlighting key insights from the Global Soil Partnership projects, programmes and tools, FAO’s SoilFER Framework, the nutrition sensitive approach from the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture of Germany (BMEL) and the integral food systems program of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). By bringing together experts this event will provide a platform for sharing successful practices, discussing challenges, and identifying opportunities for collaboration to enhance soil health and agricultural productivity worldwide.

In a world where collaboration is essential to addressing global challenges, this side event brings together a diverse range of voices to emphasize the transformative potential of partnerships in enhancing food security and nutrition. The event begins by offering insights from the donor community, examining how multistakeholder approaches, as exemplified by initiatives like the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), are key to the global efforts to combat food insecurity. Representatives from the United Nations Rome-Based Agencies (RBAs) will showcase best practices from the GAFSP portfolio to foster international partnerships aimed at achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2), with a particular focus on a human rights-based approach to food.

Compelling ground-level narratives that have emerged from GAFSP’s projects will be shared. Concrete examples from WFP's work with producer organizations in Southeast Asia and IFAD's collaboration with governments in Africa will showcase success of a multistakeholder approach in improving food and nutrition security.

The event will further engage participants in a dynamic discussion featuring representatives from the Donors community, along with voices from civil society and farmer organizations. This conversation will delve deeper into how multistakeholder partnerships foster innovation and deliver impactful results on the ground. The dialogue will be open to audience participation, encouraging the sharing of insights and raising of questions.

To conclude, the event will underscore the future directions of GAFSP, reaffirming our collective commitment to advancing food security and nutrition through collaborative approach.

IFAD, IITA, and partners propose a side event at CFS 52 to present findings from a mechanization policy assessment on food and nutrition security in Togo and Nigeria. The assessment highlights significant issues, such as the capacity gap among local fabricators and the lack of access to full-grade stainless steel materials necessary for producing quality food production machines. In Nigeria, the project's intervention has increased farmers' awareness of government policies on rice and cassava, promoting high-quality cassava production and supporting import substitution. These findings showcase how agricultural research and innovation can inform and support policy implementation towards achieving Zero Hunger.

This study and dialogue, involving AfricaRice, NARES, the private sector, farmer groups, banks, and input dealers, reviews government agricultural goals, assesses input utilization constraints, maps production input sizes, and identifies initiatives for agricultural transformation in selected states and regions. The analysis guides policy engagement in Nigerian and Togolese Zero Hunger forums, using evidence to transform agriculture through partnerships. The event will feature a panel with experts from IFAD, One CGIAR, government officials, and the private sector to discuss study findings, policy implications, and the role of agricultural research in creating opportunities for rural people, particularly women and youth.

The adoption of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals highlighted the need for transformative actions in agriculture and food systems to achieve Zero Hunger, enhance food security, and improve nutrition by 2030. Despite these ambitions, achieving these goals remains challenging due to ongoing crises, and the slow progress in building resilient food systems.

International and national efforts to impulse transition focus on the supply side, lacking emphasis on demand-side measures. The absence of comprehensive demand-side policies remains a critical gap in achieving global food security, since these strategies aim to improve the economic status of the poor and are the only ones that address the root causes of food insecurity, poverty, and inequality. To overcome these challenges, the food system transformation should be oriented toward creating dynamic economies through investment in governance and public goods (roads, electricity, education) and job creation.

This event intends to promote a multi-stakeholder debate emphasizing the critical importance of demand-side policies in transforming global food systems and achieving sustainable food security. It is proposed as part of Agrinatura’s “Sustainable Agri-Food Systems Intelligence – Science-Policy Interface“, supported by the European Commission (EC), and is jointly organized by Agrinatura, FAO Investment Centre and EC (DG-INTPA).

This side event focuses on reducing inequalities in food systems by expanding market access for inputs, outputs, and services. It will explore practical strategies to improve availability and affordability of key agricultural resources for smallholder farmers and enterprises, highlighting innovative approaches and lessons learned from industry and policy initiatives.

Decision-making may contribute to shape up “the future we want” or to perpetuate the unsustainable ‘business as usual” model. To help countries and stakeholders in shaping strategies for agrifood systems transformation that deliver food security, development and humanitarian partners are engaged in strategic foresight processes from local to global scales. FAO’s “The future of food and agriculture” (FOFA) report series, FAO’s Country Policy Profiles (CPPs), the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) database, as well as regional and thematic foresight reports and the F4F network are available to Members to support foresight work.

This side event will also explore how key triggers of transformation feature in selected regions and countries, how strategic foresight work is contributing decision-making, and offering available data sources and intelligence methodologies for more accurate diagnosis of societal understanding and political will to trigger the future transformation. Part of these efforts are made possible by regional information systems, which serve as a common reference point for different actors monitoring food security challenges. This side event will also showcase how these regional information systems collect, analyze, and share data on food security and nutrition.

Rural populations are at the front line of climate change, but only 1.7% of the limited pool of climate finance currently reaches small-scale farmers. Through its focus on poor and vulnerable populations, social protection can play a critical role in advancing inclusive

climate adaptation, mitigation and just transitions in rural settings. This session will present findings from a recent review of social protection for rural populations within the existing portfolio of the UNFCCC climate funds that explored how to scale-up and strengthen the role of social protection in inclusive climate action for rural and agrifood system dependent populations. Building on the findings of the review, it will bring together key stakeholders from different CFS constituencies to reflect on their experiences of bridging the gap between those working on social protection, agrifood systems and climate change to deliver sustainable, resilient and inclusive food systems that leave no-one behind.

The adoption of the Food and Nutritional Security Strategy of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries – ESAN-CPLP, in 2012, consolidated the high-level political commitment of Portuguese-speaking countries to realizing the Human Right to Adequate Food (RtF) through strengthening participatory and intersectoral governance of food systems. Ten years later, hunger and all forms of malnutrition remain among the main challenges for the member states of the CPLP. These challenges become even more complex in the context of the escalating climate crisis.

In this regard, the Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Adequate Food (RtF) by the Committee on World Food Security, adopted 20 years ago, present a strategic opportunity to reflect on the progress and challenges in consolidating participatory and intersectoral governance arrangements of food systems in CPLP countries, as well as at the international-regional level. Building upon the experience of National Councils on Food Security and Nutrition and intersectoral policy management mechanisms aimed at achieving the Human Right to Adequate Food (RtF), special attention will be given to lessons learned by Government and Civil Society in implementing ESAN-CPLP and to promoting social participation and empowering rights-holders to devise solutions for the complex challenges in food systems, with particular emphasis on addressing inequalities. The event enables greater alignment of the CPLP with policies and guidelines stemming from the Committee on World Food Security’s Work Plan (MyPOW) 2024-27 and their dissemination across territories.

In many countries, gender disparity in food systems is still prevalent, and influences the nutritional outcomes of different household members. At the same time, when faced with disruptions, women and children are unequally burdened with household responsibilities, and often face significantly higher levels of food insecurity and worse nutrition outcomes than men. As urban and peri-urban landscapes continue to evolve, agrifood systems will also change, with implications for the availability and affordability of healthy and nutritious diets, especially for women and children.

This side event brings together experts in the field of nutrition, gender and food systems, to explore the synergies and trade offs from the urban and peri-urban continuum with positive gender and nutrition outcomes, and its impact on food and nutrition security. It will encourage the audience to engage by highlighting new insights and evidence-based solutions that can bridge the gender-nutrition nexus with rapid urbanization. The event will also seek to address the ’how’ in enabling sustainable, equitable and nutritious urban and peri-urban food systems to benefit diverse communities, especially women and children, leaving no one behind.