FAST: An innovative Partnership to unlock climate investments in agrifood systems for the most vulnerable

Together with experts from the worlds of politics, business, science and civil society, FAO was at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) in Berlin from 17 to 20 January 2024 to address challenges and opportunities related to global agricultural policy and food security. The Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation (FAST) Partnership, supported by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture of Germany (BMEL) and facilitated by FAO, represents one of these opportunities.

Discussions at COP28 acknowledged how agrifood systems hold a huge potential for climate action, providing cross-cutting solutions to food insecurity, poverty and biodiversity loss. The COP28 Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action endorsed by 159 nations so far, committed to adapt and transform agrifood systems to respond to climate change sending a strong signal to the world that accelerated action is needed within food systems to achieve both the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But as is often the case, opportunities and challenges come in pairs. To unlock the potential in our agrifood systems, we need more and better climate finance. A recent FAO report shows that the current share of climate-related development finance is inadequate to support the necessary agrifood system transformation, in fact contributions to agrifood systems dropped to $19 billion in 2021, marking a 12 percent decrease from 2020.

FAST Partnership Expert Panel at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture

As the world's most vulnerable countries and communities struggle with mounting hunger in the face of the coupled climate and biodiversity crises, boosting both the quantity and quality of investment, and ensuring countries have strong data-backed policies and the right monitoring frameworks in place, is essential to scale up ambitious agrifood system transformation.

On 19 January, an Expert Panel at the GFFA, co-organized by FAO and WWF International (WWF), brought key stakeholders together to explore how the FAST Partnership can unlock climate finance flowing to agrifood systems and at the same time empower and engage women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, and people in vulnerable situations. The Panel, moderated by Wolfgang Zornbach, BMEL, included representatives from FAO, the Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), COP28 Presidency and WWF.

“Efforts to improve climate finance to agrifood systems should focus not only on increasing the quantity but also on enhancing the quality of investment. This approach is crucial to ensure that vulnerable groups, such as women, youth, family farmers, and Indigenous Peoples, receive not only adequate financial support but also targeted and effective interventions that address their unique adaptation needs and challenges,” said Maria Helena Semedo, Deputy Director-General, FAO, in her opening remarks.

“FAO is committed to support all actors in their efforts to transform our agrifood systems to become more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable,” she added.

In this context, Ms Semedo also mentioned the COP27 Initiative on Climate Action and Nutrition (ICAN) and FAO’s work to catalyse integrated actions that address the challenges of climate change and malnutrition simultaneously. In addition, she announced the launch of the Adaptation, Biodiversity and Carbon mapping tool, (ABC-Map), developed in collaboration with IFAD with the support of the French Development Agency and BMEL.

Climate finance, knowledge and policy: a three-pronged approach

However, to boost access to climate finance, it is also necessary to strengthen knowledge and capacity, and facilitate dialogue, supporting climate change policies that fully embed agrifood systems. The FAST Partnership intervenes along these three interlinked pillars building bridges between a diverse range of partners and initiatives to take targeted action.

For example, the FAST Partnership works very closely with youth, “FAST has enormous potential to unlock the barriers facing young people in the food and agriculture sectors. It’s not just about finance. The FAST Partnership brings together a network that youth can tap into. Through access to finance, it enables access to resources like land and water, but also access to education and knowledge,” said Genna Tesdall, Director, YPARD.

The FAST Partnership can also play a key role as a connecting bridge between climate-related finance for agriculture priorities and discussions at COPs, helping to deliver the Emirates Declaration and building synergies between COP initiatives and outcomes, noted Imelda (Dada) Bacudo from the COP28 Presidency.

Enok Chikava, BMGF Foundation, highlighted the importance of policies and creating the right enabling environments for finance to flow. He described agriculture as “slow magic”. “There is no silver bullet”, he said, “you need the right mix of innovations, tools and technologies, and these need to be accessible, affordable and context specific.” It is at this junction that Partnerships like FAST can make the difference and mitigate risks.  

Next steps

The FAST Partnership had its first Inception Meeting at COP28 and is gearing up for an action-packed year. The FAO Task Force will convene two strategic meetings with Board Members and Partnership Members in 2024, defining the workplan of the Partnership and ways of engagement among Members. The first Board Meeting will take place in April 2024 in FAO headquarters.

The Partnership is open to governments, intergovernmental organizations, UN agencies, civil society organizations, youth and farmers’ organizations, and global and regional networks. More than 40 entities have already endorsed the FAST Partnership.

For more information, please visit the dedicated webpage.