Governments are strongly encouraged to mobilize adequate financial, technical and human resources, and encourage international cooperation, to increase the human and institutional capacity of countries to implement the VGFSN and to identify priorities toward their operationalization and monitoring at the international, regional, national and local levels. Technical agencies of the UN, bilateral cooperation agencies and other development partners can assist in this regard. Meaningful participation of the most affected by hunger and malnutrition as well as the development of user-friendly and technical guides, are important to contextualizing approaches and adapting them to local contexts.

To accelerate and scale up action, it is essential to strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of food systems, including mobilization of financial resources as well as capacity-building and the transfer of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries on favourable terms, as voluntary and mutually agreed, consistent with the elements of paragraph 41 of the 2030 Agenda, as appropriate and relevant. Public finance, both domestic and international, will play a vital role in providing essential services and public goods and in mobilizing other resources of finance for the implementation of the VGFSN63.

The implementation of VGFSN should be consistent with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG2 and SDG12, and recalling the shared principles and commitments of the 2030 Agenda including paragraphs 10, 11, 1264 and 13, as well as paragraphs 24, 40 and 41, to the extent relevant.

The mobilization of additional financial resources for developing countries from multiple sources should be strengthened, including through North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation65. International organizations, especially international financial institutions, and all stakeholders should strengthen their support, in line with their mandates, and as appropriate, to developing countries in implementing the VGFSN.

Donors, financing institutions, intergovernmental organizations and other funding entities are encouraged to apply the VGFSN when formulating their policies for loans, grants, investments and programmes to support relevant stakeholders’ endeavors. The VGFSN should contribute to the design of responsible investments that aim to increase the sustainable production, affordability, and access to safe, diverse, nutritious food, as well as to promote the integration of environmental, economic, social, nutrition and health aspects into agriculture and food sector investment plans.

Development partners, intergovernmental organizations, including the Rome-based Agencies, and regional organizations, private sector, civil society and other relevant stakeholders are encouraged to support, within their existing resources and mandates, efforts by governments to implement the VGFSN. Such support could include research and technical cooperation, financial and humanitarian assistance, the provision of evidence-based policy advice, institutional capacity development, development of monitoring frameworks, knowledge sharing and exchange of experiences, and assistance in developing national and regional policies. Actions could be taken to improve partners’ capacity to design, manage and participate in multistakeholder partnerships, with robust safeguards for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interest, to ensure transparency and accountability and promote good governance for effective results. Moreover, UN interagency coordination mechanisms dealing with various aspects of food systems and nutrition are encouraged to harmonize their work and to leverage and support the uptake of the VGFSN at country level upon the request of member states.

Governments, national and international research organizations, intergovernmental organizations, universities and other academic institutions, are encouraged to support the availability and accessibility of knowledge, including indigenous, traditional and local knowledge, with the voluntary consent of indigenous peoples, innovation, including through digitalization, science and evidence on all dimensions of food systems to enable the development of monitoring frameworks, examination of the evidence, prioritization of issues to be considered, evaluation of impacts, and addressing potential synergies and trade-offs.

The dissemination and uptake of the VGFSN can be facilitated through the identification of “champions” and “change agents”, especially among private enterprises, civil society organizations and indigenous peoples and local communities, with safeguards for the identification and management of potential conflicts of interests, that could raise awareness and organize advocacy campaigns across sectors and different governmental levels while respecting cultural diversity.

Governments, in consultation with relevant stakeholders, are encouraged to define national policy priorities and related indicators, mobilize regional and local structures to report on these indicators, and establish or strengthen, where appropriate, existing national monitoring and reporting systems in order to assess the efficacy and effectiveness of policies and regulations, and implement appropriate remedial actions in case of negative impacts or gaps. Governments are encouraged to use science and evidence based monitoring and evaluation approaches focused on learning what works and adaptation to achieve maximum results.

By applying the VGFSN, governments can contribute to the achievement of the six Global Nutrition Targets (2025) endorsed by the WHA in 2012 and its diet related NCD targets . The VGFSN can support countries in defining priority actions and formulating specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound commitments to achieve nutrition, health and economic, social and environmental objectives to accelerate and align efforts linked to the Nutrition Decade and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This can be done through advocating for policies and legislation, allowing the exchange of best practices and experiences, highlighting successes and lessons learned, and providing mutual support to accelerate implementation. Governments should promote access to transparent and effective mediation, grievance, and dispute resolution mechanisms, particularly for the most vulnerable and marginalized.

CFS is encouraged to include the VGFSN in its ongoing work and its existing funding resources on monitoring, as defined in the CFS Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition (GSF).