By Andrew Bovarnick, Global Head of Food and Agricultural Commodity Systems in UNDP’s Nature Hub

“Food systems are broken – and billions of people are paying the price,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the Food Systems Summit in Rome. That price is significant and painful.

In 2023, 281 million people faced acute food insecurity, with people in conflict zones and fragile states hit hardest. Globally, between 713 million and 757 million people faced hunger, while 2.8 billion people could not afford a healthy diet. Meanwhile, food systems account for 31% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and are responsible for 80% of deforestation, 70% of biodiversity loss, and 70% of global freshwater use.​

It is clear that food systems must change. ‘Supporting Food Systems Transformation towards Sustainability and Resilience’ is the title of the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) new white paper, created by a cross-disciplinary Integrated Task Team (ITT), including the Crisis Bureau, Nature Hub, Climate Hub, Nairobi Resilience Centre, Governance Hub, and Sustainable Finance Hub – a breadth of expertise that reflects the complexity of the food systems challenge.

We can’t aim to change the system without understanding its structure, and the ITT found a four-dimensional system with six structural drivers at its core, covering at least nine SDGs – again, a demonstration of the breadth of food systems and their impacts.

The first dimension for transformation is Food Systems Governance, which sets the context that the system works within and covers the same ground as SDG 2 (zero hunger).

Six Structural Drivers in the second dimension defining the challenges that the food system faces. These are:

  • Poverty and inequality, which can be challenged by better social protection mechanisms and support for smallholder producers (SDGs 1 and 10);
  • Healthy and safe diets, which are enhanced by sustainable and diverse food production that is available and affordable for everybody (SDG 3);
  • Gender transformative policies which secure women’s rights and control over resources (SDG 5);
  • Environment concerns that can be met by mainstreaming food systems in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) (SDGs 14 and 15);
  • Climate change where agriculture offers significant benefits in both mitigation and adaptation (SDG 13); and
  • Energy from renewable sources that will power the transformation (SDG 7).

The Food Value Chain is the third dimension, representing the diversity (or lack of it) in the system and fairness of distribution of risk and reward.

Fourth, Sustainable Finance determines the economic and business structures which support the food system.

Around all this loop the triple hazards of fragility, conflict, and crisis, ever ready to knock the system off course and into a state of recovery, hopefully to resilience.

Based on this new, deeper understanding of the dimensions of food systems and the potential for transformation, what should we do? The ITT came up with more than 50 recommendations for action, with the top ten being:

  1. We should prioritize, accelerate transition to, and scale up agroecology.
  2. School meals can satisfy multiple health and production objectives.
  3. Women’s rights and control over assets and resources must improve.
  4. Traditional and territorial food markets need to be strengthened.
  5. We need to better understand and recognize the importance of the informal sector in providing affordable food access.
  1. We need to adopt a blue food systemic perspective as sustainable and inclusive fisheries and aquaculture are a key part of countries’ nutrition and economic plans.
  2. Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and NBSAPs should link food systems to broader climate and biodiversity objectives.
  3. We must reduce the pervasive influence of health-harming industries.
  4. Eliminating or significantly reducing use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides brings multiple benefits.
  5. Finance for food sovereignty can help to avoid green-, nutri-, impact washing.

The case of Peru

One country where many of these dimensions are being addressed is Peru, where UNDP’s work is supported by SECO – the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. UNDP and SECO work together to strengthen Peru’s coffee and cocoa sectors through enhanced multi-stakeholder collaboration and action. The partners have sought to strengthen the enabling environment and participatory governance mechanisms to transform the sectors and enable them to satisfy the needs of future generations of farmers while protecting vulnerable ecosystems in the Peruvian Andes and Amazon regions.

A call to action

The white paper was launched on World Food Day by Francine Pickup, Deputy Director of the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support at UNDP. In her op-ed in the El Pais newspaper, she called for the system-wide perspective of the white paper to be adopted by all UN agencies, moving from isolated efforts to effective collaboration among UN agencies, international financial institutions (IFIs), Member States, and other stakeholders. “Now more than ever,” she said, “we must dismantle the barriers to progress and build collaborative, sustainable, inclusive, and resilient food systems that serve both people and planet.”

Read the white paper (available in English and Spanish) here.