Coalitions in the context of the Food Systems Summit

Each programme of national dialogues has led to the identification of strengths and vulnerabilities in the national food system, often calling for further collaboration on specific issues involving multiple stakeholders and cutting across a range of sectors, often involving more than one country, within a defined region or internationally.

Over the past months, hundreds of individuals, governments, organizations and institutions are joining forces to support the transformation of food systems in line with the ambitions of the summit.

They have participated in the Summit’s Action Tracks, cross-cutting levers of change and Scientific group. They have coalesced around a number of issues that are high priority in national food systems transformation: they are proposing initiatives, alliances and coalitions to accelerate collective action. These emerging initiatives, alliances and coalitions have been inspired by the options explored during national dialogues. They are being designed to help nations and regions to advance the Summit’s vision of more inclusive, resilient, equitable, and sustainable food systems by 2030. They will do this in ways that are aligned with each country’s priorities and adapted to the local context.

Initiatives, alliances and coalitions are designed to offer tailored support to countries in response to their interests and priorities, on a strictly voluntary basis. Support from these initiatives, alliances and coalitions will help with the shift to future food systems by facilitating access to networks of experience and expertise, from local to global; by encouraging alignment and coherence; by catalyzing coordinated investment and collective action; by mobilizing resources, energy and political will; and by support for learning through the exchange of knowledge, lessons, best practices and capacities.

You will find here a (non-exhaustive) list of emerging coalitions in the context of the Food Systems Summit, as well as an introductory word addressed to National Convenors. Should you have any general question around these coalitions, a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) document has been put together as a living document to answer these as the process continues to offer more clarity. Finally, a number of briefs have been prepared for each coalition to give a more detailed and action-oriented overview of what is proposed.

These materials should also further encourage you to develop and register relevant commitments on the Commitment registry.

For any remaining question, please do not hesitate to reach out to: Foodsystemssummit@un.org.

A Coalition for Food Systems Transformation through Agroecology

-To implement agroecological and regenerative agriculture approaches, as a key lever to transform food systems by operationalizing the 13 principles of agroecology set out in the HLPE report (which embrace the FAO 10 Elements of agroecology adopted by 197 countries).
-To apply the agroecological principles globally, supporting local innovation, thereby making a major contribution to achieving the SDGs in a holistic, integrated way.

A Coalition of Action for Achieving Zero Hunger

The coalition aims to achieve ending hunger, in a sustainable and nutritious way. While doing this, it will generate co-benefits: meeting the Paris climate emission targets and doubling the income of 545 million food producers.

A Global Action Agenda to Advance Nature-Postive Innovation

This coalition will unleash the potential of nature-positive innovation, i.e. innovation that spurs agricultural productivity growth while contributing to positive environmental and socio-economic outcomes.

Better Data Better Decisions for Nature-Positive Production

Better data can drive better decisions for nature-positive production when is it relevant and aligned to the needs of critical stakeholders (local, national, global) protecting, managing, restoring, and investing in landscapes. This coalition will align data, stakeholders, and evidence as a catalyst for sustainable landscapes and food systems transformation.

Climate Resilient Food Systems (CRFS)

This CRFS Alliance provides a platform for achieving climate resilient food systems by synergizing efforts across the different actors who are part of the alliance. The mission of the alliance is to join forces to accelerate action towards climate resilient, sustainable, equitable and inclusive food systems in a coherent manner, focusing on the most vulnerable countries and regions, in particular arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), small island developing States (SIDS), land-locked developing countries (LLDCs) and least developed countries (LDCs).

Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH)

The main objective of the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) is to improve soil health globally by addressing critical implementation, monitoring, policy, and public and private investment barriers that constrain farmers from adopting and scaling healthy soil practices.

Coalition of Action on Decent Work and Living Incomes and Wages for All Food Systems Workers

The Coalition of Action advances equitable livelihoods by promoting labour and human rights and increasing opportunities for decent and productive employment within the agri-food sector, including achieving 100% living incomes and wages, thereby ensuring economic and social justice and the right to adequate and nutritious food for all food systems workers.

Coalition on Family Farming and on Strengthening Actions in Support of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming (CFF)

The CFF promotes a renewed effort towards the development and effective implementation of policies, strategies, programmes and investment aimed at overcoming the structural barriers faced by family farmers and that hamper the full display of their transformative potential.

Coalition on Food is Never Waste

– To halve food waste by 2030 and to reduce food losses by at least 25%.
– To create more sustainable and resilient food systems that seek to ensure food loss and waste are minimized.
– To build and strengthen collaboration throughout food systems, between member states and organisations to ensure learning and sharing of best practice.
– To promote investment in food loss and waste reduction.

Coalition on Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Food Systems

-Ensure that the importance of urban food systems transformation
-Create space for dialogue
-Leverage stakeholders’ knowledge and experiences and ensure the production, management and distribution of appropriate data
-Mobilise and leverage resources
-Promote linkages between national and sub-national governments
-Leverage and promote coherence of actions

Coalition on Sustainable Productivity Growth for Food Security and Resource Conservation

This coalition will accelerate the transition to more sustainable food systems through a holistic approach to agricultural productivity growth that considers tradeoffs and optimizes agricultural sustainability across social, economic, and environmental dimensions.

Coalition to Promote Territorial Food Systems Governance

During the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), territorial governance emerged as an important theme from national, regional, and independent food systems dialogues (FSDs) as well as from all Action Tracks. They all emphasized the importance of a multi-level governance architecture allowing, amongst other aspects, increased stakeholders’ coordination and policy and program coherence to transform our food systems.

Fighting Food Crises Along the Humanitarian, Development and Peace Nexus

-Create the conditions and enabling structures for an approach to food systems resilience in fragile contexts that is comprehensive in addressing challenges at national, regional and global levels, socially and politically inclusive in its application, and relevant across the humanitarian, development and peace domains;
-Strengthen resilience, reduce hunger and enhance the prospects for peace through collaborative efforts designed to prevent, anticipate, absorb, adapt and transform in response to shocks;
-Strengthen and bring coherence to risk management and food security information systems and critical crisis response and early warning tools in fragile contexts.

Global Sustainable Livestock Coalition

The ultimate objective is to support decision making at all levels for farmer- and value-chain-oriented national/bioregional development of sustainable livestock systems. Livestock systems and value-chains contribute to many of the UN SDGs and all the UN FSS Action Tracks.

Halting Deforestation & Conversion from Agricultural Commodities

The aim of the coalition is to bring together a broad group of producer and consumer countries, companies and international and national civil society organizations committed to working together to deliver deforestation- and conversion-free food supply chains as part of a new model of agricultural production that optimizes food production, enhances rural livelihoods, and protects and restores the natural environment.

Indigenous People’s Food Systems

Ensure understanding, respect, recognition, inclusion and protection of Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems (IPFS) post UNFSS, providing evidence about their “game-changing and systemic” aspects.

Land and Freshwater Nexus

The Land-freshwater Nexus Cluster Coalition proposes a systematic, collaborative approach to manage land and water resources. It proposes the development of incentives and initiatives that promote integrated land and water resources management in food systems to protect watersheds and conserve surface and groundwater resources.

Making Food Systems Work for Women and Girls

The goal of the coalition is to ensure that women and men, boys and girls, and other groups have equitable roles, responsibilities, opportunities, and choices, and that countries, communities and households, individuals are equipped to participate in local, global and regional food systems activities in a meaningful, dignified, and equitable way.

Public Development Banks Coalition

The 2020 Finance in Common Summit (FICS) underscored the importance of Public Development Banks (PDBs) and the need to help them scale up financing to support inclusive and sustainable agriculture and food systems transformation.

Resilient Local Food Supply Chains Alliance

The Alliance will be a platform for collaboration among partners for enhanced implementation capacities in national and sub-national systems; facilitating access to peer knowledge, experiences and best practices; brokering collaborative engagements and partnerships along common issues; negotiating technical assistance and tools for programmes’ development; promoting blended public-private actions to support national programme development along identified national pathways to 2030 and beyond, including regional development priorities.

Resizing the Livestock Industry

The objective of this coalition for action is to create a broad-based multi-stakeholder coalition to develop, model and implement cohesive and integrated measures that promote consumption and production of affordable, healthy diets within safe planetary boundaries from nature-positive agriculture with all animal-source foods deriving from systems providing a good quality of life for farmed animals.

Restoring Grasslands, Shrublands and Savannahs through Sustainable Extensive Livestock-based Food Systems

The coalition will lead action to restore grasslands, shrublands and savannahs through sustainable extensive livestock-based food systems to help optimize environmental resource use in production, reduce biodiversity loss, pollution, water use, soil degradation and greenhouse gas emissions.

School Meals Coalition: Nutrition, Health and Education for Every Child

Improve the quality and expand the scale of school meals programmes globally as a platform to reach communities, simultaneously transforming food, education, social protection and health systems.

Social Protection for Food Systems Transformation Consortium

The institutions, governments and partners to this consortium will endeavour to support countries to (1) forge and enhance the linkages and synergies between national social protection and food systems, and (2) capitalize on the advances made in social protection during the COVID-19 response to guide and inform recovery and efforts to ‘build forward better’.

The Coalition for Aquatic/Blue Foods

Realize the full potential of sustainable blue, or aquatic, foods – such as fish, shellfish, aquatic plants and algae, captured or cultivated in freshwater or marine ecosystems – to help end malnutrition and build nature-positive, equitable and resilient food systems.

The Coalition of Action for Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems for Children & All

The shared vision of the coalition is a world where all people are eating healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The aim is that healthy diets are available, affordable, and accessible to all, especially the most vulnerable to malnutrition and those living in vulnerable circumstances.

The Coalition to Repurpose Public Support to Food and Agriculture

The objective of this coalition is to support countries who have indicated a desire to repurpose their forms of public agricultural support by helping them a) identify which public support measures are exacerbating climate, environment, and development challenges, and b) redesign these measures, not only to ‘do no harm’ but to help improve food and nutrition security, strengthen soil and water quality, increase biodiversity, build resilience, and mitigate climate change.

The True Value of Food Initiative

Our food needs to become healthier, more sustainable and accessible for all. But there will be no ‘trigger’ for change as long as healthy and sustainable food is unaffordable to billions, unsustainable food is cheap and profitable, and the impact of food on people and planet is hidden.