NEW YORK, USA, (IICA) – A high-level group of nearly 40 global leaders from the fields of politics, business and the social agenda, including the director general of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Manuel Otero, has committed to working to speed up the transformation of agrifood systems, in order to respond to the demands of a growing population whilst also ensuring the conservation of natural resources.
New York City was the setting for a meeting of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) board of trustees on food systems, attended by CEOs of major food corporations and the heads of the most influential international organizations. The participants were invited to discuss how to support national and global initiatives in order to create more resilient agrifood systems.
The board provides strategic guidance and fosters collaboration between the public and private sectors, in order to translate the alignment of countries and regions into concrete actions, with a focus on inclusive, sustainable and resilient agrifood systems.
The WEF organized the weeklong event in New York, entitled Sustainable Development Impact Meetings 2024. The focus of the discussions across the week is how to advance the issues of economic development, inclusion and the environment, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the 2030 Agenda.
This series of discussions, led by the WEF, is taking place parallel to the United Nations General Assembly, which brings together heads of state and government from around the world, and Climate Week, one of the world’s most important spaces for debate and interaction on the fulfillment of the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
Collaboration strategies
The meeting was attended by Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum; Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), a United Nations institution that is the world’s leading humanitarian aid agency; and executives such as Brian Sikes, president and CEO of the Cargill food corporation, Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO of JBS, and Ramón Laguarta, chairman and CEO of Pepsico.
Álvaro Lario, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), an institution with 45 years of experience and a mandate to mobilize funds to eliminate rural poverty and sustain rural food security, led the segment dedicated to strategies designed to improve collaboration and build trust, with a view to scaling up transformation projects.
Also taking part were Jennifer Morris, CEO of The Nature Conservancy, one of the world’s leading environmental organizations, which has a team of nearly 6000 people in 70 countries, and Agnes Kalibata, president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), an IICA partner organization, in addition to a qualified group of representatives of agricultural producers.
The premise of the meeting was that, with only six years to go until 2030, stakeholders needed to renew their ambition and commitment to achieving the global goals through collective action.
The meeting took stock of public-private cooperation and discussed plans to strengthen existing collaboration. The progress of ongoing initiatives was also reviewed and gaps in implementation identified. Emphasis was placed on the need to strengthen women farmers, an issue that will also be addressed at the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 29) in Azerbaijan.
“We agreed on the need to speed up the transformations in agrifood systems, which calls for collective action that translates into concrete results. It was clear that public-private collaboration is essential and, in fact, the private sector once again showed that it is strongly committed to the search for more sustainable development strategies,” said Manuel Otero.
The director general of IICA also underlined the need to scale up efforts to transform agrifood systems by supporting cooperatives and digital extension strategies that reduce the gap that limits smallholder access to technology.
He also emphasized that only with the decisive, continuous participation of the private sector will it be possible to make sustained progress towards a better quality of life for rural populations, and highlighted the role of science as a key input for crafting new public policies.
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