Bananas as a Global Model for Agricultural Cooperation: Leveraging Partnerships to Drive Fair, Climate-Smart and Inclusive Value Chains

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Achieving sustainable food and agriculture systems requires integrated, coordinated action across sectors and stakeholders. FAO embeds multistakeholder partnerships at the core of its mission, recognizing that no single actor—government, private sector, academia, civil society or producer organizations—can alone tackle the complex challenges of hunger, malnutrition, rural poverty, ecosystem degradation and climate change. Through strategic alliances with diverse partners, FAO amplifies its convening power, positions itself as a credible technical leader, and leverages a wide range of expertise, resources and capabilities to accelerate transformative progress toward the SDGs.

The ECOSOC Partnership Forum 2026 emphasized transformative, equitable, and innovative actions for the 2030 Agenda. Multi-stakeholder partnerships are critical to achieving the SDGs, particularly in complex global value chains. Bananas constitute the most widely traded fresh fruit globally. The breadth of this value chain—with actors ranging from smallholder farmers and plantation workers to exporters, retailers and governments—makes it one of the most illustrative cases of multi-stakeholder cooperation in agriculture. The experiences of the banana sector demonstrate how coordinated action can advance sustainability and equity across agricultural value chains worldwide.

This virtual side event showcased how the World Banana Forum (WBF), a global collaboration platform hosted within FAO, mobilizes innovative, equitable and coordinated multi-stakeholder partnerships to advance the SDGs across global value chains. The panel explored concrete examples of transformative collaboration between producers, governments, workers’ organizations, retailers, technical agencies and civil society—including initiatives on climate-smart production, soil health and reduced environmental footprints (SDG 6, 7, 9), living wages and responsible purchasing practices (SDG 8 & 17), inclusive value chains for smallholders (SDG 11), and global knowledge platforms on disease prevention and occupational health and safety.

Objectives

This virtual webinar served as a platform to:

• Showcase the banana sector as a global model for multi-stakeholder collaboration to promote shared responsibility across global value chains;
• Highlight how different actors – producers, traders, governments, retailers, workers’ organizations and technical partners – can jointly assume responsibility for advancing sustainability, resilience and equity;
• Present innovative approaches to climate-smart production, soil health, and reduced environmental footprints through coordinated action;
• Promote inclusive value chains and responsible purchasing practices based on shared commitments and mutual accountability;
• Inspire replication of partnership models across other agricultural sectors.

Outcomes

• Increased awareness of the role of multi-stakeholder partnerships in achieving SDGs.
• Promotion of the WBF as a replicable model for sustainable agricultural cooperation.
• Strengthened dialogue on fair, climate-smart, sustainable and inclusive value chains.

Organizers

Partnership and UN Collaboration Division (PSU), FAO & World Banana Forum, Markets & Trade Division (EST), FAO

Date and Time

26 January 2026, 13:00 – 14:30 New York, EST / 19:00 – 20:30 Rome, CET / 12:00 – 13:30 Costa Rica & Guatemala / 13:00 – 14:30 Andean Countries / 14:00 – 15:30 Dominican Republic 

Agenda:

Moderator: Pascal Liu, Team Leader on Responsible Global Value Chains, World Banana Forum (WBF) Secretariat, FAO

Opening remarks: Lauren M. Phillips, Director, Partnership and UN Collaboration Division (PSU)

Panelists:

• Victor Prada, Secretary, World Banana Forum (WBF) Secretariat, FAO
• Mario Arvelo, Ex President of the Committee on Global Food Security, Agriculture and Family Agriculture; currently Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Dominican Republic
• José Antonio Hidalgo, Executive Director, Association of Banana Exporters of Ecuador (AEBE)
• Marike de Peña, CEO ad interim, Fairtrade International
• Emerson Aguirre, President, Association of Banana Growers of Colombia (AUGURA)
• Christelle Owona, Sustainability Manager, Compagnie Fruitière
• Adela Torres, Coordinator, Coordinating Body of Latin American Banana and Agro-industrial Unions (COLSIBA)