Governance for Agrifood Systems Transformation
Following the UN Food Systems Summit 2021, more than 120 countries have been engaging stakeholders to translate the national pathways into concrete food systems transformation plans, and mainstreaming food systems in national development plans and policies.
Transforming agrifood systems requires strong coordination and innovative governance arrangements to advance the multiple interconnected objectives, compromise among conflicting interests and potential trade-offs, and to bring results at scale. In many country contexts, governance bottlenecks prevent consensus and contribution across society for collective action, resulting in a gap between policy expectations and their outcomes on the ground. Understanding the governance – both institutions and political economy – regulating interests and power relations in agrifood systems can thus make or break the success of any policy or technical support work.
Within the framework of the UNFSS+2 Stocktaking Moment, FAO is organizing the special event “Governance for Agrifood Systems Transformation” on 25 July 2023 from 11.30 to 12.30 in the Red Room (for those who will be attending in person) and online (register here to follow all events).
During this session, government representatives from Indonesia, Lebanon, Switzerland and Uganda will share their experiences and tell their story about the journey they have started to address governance issues and to ensure effective support and participation of food system stakeholders to the transition towards more sustainable food systems. The panel discussion will offer participants the chance to collectively reflect on challenges and opportunities for appropriate and effective governance mechanisms to ensure acceleration of progress in food systems transformation, ensuring scale and sustainability of results.
The discussion will focus on the following questions:
-
Which role have different stakeholders played to define and support implementation of the national strategies/plans? How were priorities selected?
-
What steps are being taken to ensure that trade-offs between different outcomes (productivity, economic prosperity, environmental protection, nutrition) are adequately addressed and costed in national planning and investment priorities, and what role is multi-sectoral coordination playing in this regard?
-
How are territorial approaches and distinct levels of governance (including regional, municipal) being leveraged?
An open Q&A session will enrich the panel discussion, welcoming comments and questions from the floor.
The agenda is available here.