Strategic Investment Planning and Policy
Transforming the world’s agrifood systems calls for greater public and private investment shaped by strategic and innovative thinking. It calls for good analysis, a shared vision and sound policies.
Linking conducive policies with sizeable investments is one of the best ways to achieve impact at scale. The FAO Investment Centre works with countries and partners to develop agricultural investment strategies and plans, including through FAO’s flagship Hand-in-Hand initiative.
The Centre leads and contributes to policy, analytical and sector studies to improve the quality and quantity of agrifood investments. And it brings together public and private sector stakeholders – including producer organizations, governments, financing partners and others – to discuss policy issues and resolve bottlenecks along supply chains.
The Centre contributed to 42 agricultural strategies, 37 sector studies, 17 policy studies and 4 policy dialogues in 67 countries in 2025.Initiatives
Latest stories
Investing in a more climate-resilient, food-secure and nutritious future in the Pacific Islands
26/09/2026
Pacific Island small island developing states (SIDS) face similar challenges, including domestic food production constraints, high import costs due...
Directions in Investment
Soil health and fertilizer: Policy and investment prospects in sub-Saharan Africa
17/06/2026
A new technical report – Soil health and fertilizer: Policy and investment prospects in sub-Saharan Africa – highlights the urgent need for a more...
Five Years and Five Levers to Roll Back Cocoa Swollen Shoot Disease in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana
05/05/2026
A regional workshop brought together key stakeholders involved in combating the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD) in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire,...
New book traces the FAO Investment Centre’s evolution over its first 60 years
19/12/2025
For over six decades, the FAO Investment Centre has helped countries invest in agrifood systems to reduce hunger, poverty and malnutrition and advance...
Latest publications
Irrigating from space: Using remote sensing for agricultural water management
11/2022
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and its partners have invested in developing databases and tools that apply remote sensing in agricultural water management, with a focus on low-income and data-scarce contexts. This brief was produced under the FAO-World Bank Cooperative Progamme and proposes concrete applications of the FAO-developed tool: WaPOR – Water Productivity through Open access of Remotely sensed derived data portal.
Prices and farmer investment: Evidence from experimental studies
11/2022
Changes in commodity prices may impact smallholder farmers in various ways: to what extent do higher prices transmit to the farmer (or are they captured by intermediaries)? Can higher prices spur higher investment or lead to better outcomes for farming households, reducing poverty? This Investment Brief highlights key messages from the available experimental and quasi-experimental evidence on this topic and identifies evidence gaps for future work.
Scaling up investments in agrifood systems for youth in Africa - What policymakers need to know
04/2022
This investment brief highlights the importance of youth as change agents and key stakeholders contributing to sustainable agrifood systems. It...
FAO Investment Centre – 2021 at a glance
03/2022
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) aims to provide sustainable agrifood investment and finance solutions to...
FAO Investment Centre - 2020 at a glance
07/2021
Making food systems more sustainable is not just about reducing carbon footprints, but also about creating jobs, reducing inequalities, improving efficiencies along supply chains and strengthening people’s ability to cope with climate change. This short summary - 2020 at a glance highlights the recent work fo the Centre.