This piece is part of the weekly series “Growing Forward: Insights for Building Better Food and Agriculture Systems,” presented by the Global Food Institute at the George Washington University and the nonprofit organization Food Tank. Each installment highlights forward-thinking strategies to address today’s food and agriculture related challenges with innovative solutions. To view more pieces in the series, click here.
Zitouni Ould-Dada has spent his career confronting the interconnected challenges of climate, energy, agriculture, and hunger. His diplomatic leadership and achievements in climate negotiations contributed to the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. And in his most recent role as Deputy Director with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), he was instrumental in crafting the agency’s first part of a roadmap for transforming food and agriculture systems—one designed to end hunger and malnutrition while keeping global warming below 1.5°C.
In a conversation with Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg, Ould-Dada discusses the guidance investors are seeking from policymakers to scale their impact, why the era of empty declarations and negotiations without impact must end, and what the transition of the energy sector can teach us about transforming our global food and agriculture systems.
I was recently at the U.N. Food Systems Summit +4 Stocktake in Ethiopia, where financing for food systems transformation—with dignity for farmers and for those facing food and nutrition insecurity—was a major theme. Are you hopeful these discussions are moving us toward climate resilience and ending hunger?
It’s good to have these discussions, and we’ve been having these discussions for a while, particularly since the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26) in 2021 in Glasgow. That’s very encouraging because the world is really aware of the problem we have with food and the opportunities that we need to take on to make sure that the whole system is fit for purpose–that it feeds and nourishes people.
But we reach a stage where we have to do more of the implementation and delivery rather than continuing with dialogue and discussions. We know what the problems are. We have enough evidence about hunger, malnutrition, the linkages between climate change and agriculture, and the problems with agri-food systems. Sadly, we are not on track to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, or to end hunger and malnutrition by 2030.
We also face so many new challenges around the world—not just climate change, but also changes in the geopolitical landscape. We have to match our dialogues, our actions, and our policies with this new reality.
We need finance and capital to do that. Can you talk about the finance that’s necessary and available to complete this food systems transformation?
We cannot transition toward more sustainable and inclusive agri-food systems that serve everyone and respect the environment without investment, without finance. Sadly, the vast majority of the current climate finance is spent on other sectors, particularly the energy and transport sectors. At the same time, food systems receive a really small amount—around 3 percent of this global climate finance — despite the fact that food systems are responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Investment is absolutely key in scaling up the solutions that we need.
But investors realize that they cannot drive this transition by themselves. Government has to enable policies that help de-risk the whole system and bring in investors. Agri-food systems are complex, and they vary from one region to another, from one country to another, or even within a country. Investors aren’t going to come just like that without the policies that give them the confidence for the long term.
We’re seeing this in other sectors, like energy and transport. You need to give those political signals that tell the investors what we intend to do in the next few years. Here are the targets, here are the goals, here is how much investment we need now. When you have that in place, things are clearer to investors.
We’re trying to tell investors that the payoff is way down the road. It’s not as immediate as energy or transport. How do we convince them that they should wait for that long-term payoff to create more resilience to the climate crisis, help farmers, and reduce food insecurity?
Set policies that are attractive. There are lessons to take away from the energy sector, which went through the whole experience we want food systems to go through a few years ago. After we had enough evidence for both renewable energy and energy efficiency, governments set targets. They said that by 2030 or 2025, we would like our country to reach some level of renewable energy. That statement made it clear to investors that long-term policies will allow them to safely invest in technology and innovation. Now, we have investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and energy-efficient home appliances.
In the case of agriculture, we have various levers to pull, such as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—countries’ climate action plans—which are a vehicle for investment. At the moment, though, they’re very weak. They don’t say enough about agri food systems and how governments intend to transform them to meet not just the climate goals, but also biodiversity, hunger, malnutrition, and sustainable development goals. The NDCs need to be more specific about food and agriculture to speak to the language of investors so that investors can understand the targets about alternative proteins, food loss and waste, reducing pesticide use, or antimicrobial resistance.
The other thing that’s really critical—because that’s what we saw in the energy sector—is the right framing of the case. The case for energy was framed around jobs and energy security. We can do the same for food systems transition. We can frame the transition around job creation, affordable food prices, greater consumer choice, and reduced impacts on climate, biodiversity, and nature. We need to get these things right. Food systems are much more complex than the energy sector, but it’s not impossible.
On the African continent, countries are establishing investment hubs and multi-stakeholder platforms such as inter-donor coordination groups and investor matchmaking platforms. Can you talk about why these approaches are important and why that collaboration is so needed?
We need collaboration more than ever. We have a lot of evidence and information, but we’re still addressing problems in silos despite the fact that these challenges are interconnected.
Collaboration also has to be built on a good understanding of what needs to be achieved at the local level because food systems aren’t homogenous. Are solutions going to apply across the board? No. And that’s why we need this collaboration to see what would work in that particular context. And it’s really encouraging to see African stakeholders in particular getting together and trying to address the problem.
The other thing we need is some kind of timetable. When you finish the dialogue and consultations, the next thing is to talk about goals, targets, and timetables that will be embedded in some kind of roadmap.
You were instrumental in helping the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization come out with the first part of its roadmap for food systems transformation. Why is it so important, particularly for smallholder farmers?
Clarity of direction is what we’re lacking. A roadmap or some set of pathways tells all those key players—such as the smallholder farmers, investors, policymakers, and researchers—the way to achieve that transition. When I was involved in the development of the roadmap, the vision was clear. We knew the key pathways, and we needed to make them understandable to everyone.
The energy sector developed various roadmaps in relation to renewable energy, transport, and more that worked and provided clarity. In food, we have the evidence and know what needs to be done. But the longer we wait, the more problematic it becomes. Food is a big problem because it affects so many other aspects of our lives. Having the roadmap will help us turn the pledges, declarations, commitments into enabling policies and solutions.
You said the evidence is there, but when science-based evidence is being dismissed or put down, how do we ensure political leaders worldwide still recognize its importance in decision-making?
These geopolitical changes affect political priorities. But we really have to listen to and respect science because policy relies on hard evidence. And we have to respect the work of researchers to help us, and policymakers in particular, make informed decisions. These issues affect everyone.
I think we have to continue being optimistic. We have no choice. We have to continue pressing. And the FAIRR initiative and other partnerships are showing that they want change, that they’re ready to invest. They’re just waiting for the political will and clarity to go forward.
And we have to hold politicians accountable because we vote for them. We have to voice those concerns. We have to make sure that we all work together as a team because food, water, energy are critical to everything we do in our lives. But there are currently so many contradictions in how we grow, consume, and distribute food. That can’t continue because it’s doing so much damage to the environment and to our health.
Are you hopeful about the upcoming climate negotiations at COP30 in Brazil later this year?
To be honest, I’m not very hopeful. I’ve been to 15 or 16 COPs, and sometimes we go in circles. We’re not on track to achieve the Paris Agreement. We’re supposed to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They’re going up. We’re supposed to be reducing hunger. Hunger is going up. We’re not achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The reality doesn’t look very encouraging.
The last exciting moment was the Paris Agreement in 2015 where it seemed we had made a great step and there was real political commitment. Since then, we should have been implementing real change that actually improves people’s lives. We can continue drafting and having dialogues, but it has to be for a purpose that actually shows results. There are some encouraging signals but in terms of impact, we’re still very slow. Climate change, hunger and these other challenges we’re facing are advancing much faster than the way we’ve been negotiating.
We also shouldn’t wait from COP to COP. There’s this thinking that everything is going to happen at the COP. What happens between COPs? There are events happening, but they have to converge into meeting those global commitments so that when we go to the next COP, we can say that we achieved X, Y, and Z. That would be extremely encouraging.
And we have to be brave by putting aside the individual interest and replacing that with the common interest. The Paris Agreement is for everyone. The SDGs are for everyone. And if we work together to achieve things that will benefit everyone, putting differences aside, that’s the only way we can achieve the goal to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees.
What can be done by the investment community in the several months before COP30? And what can be done after?
They need to be proactive. The policymaking and investment communities often talk about how important it is to work with each other, but they don’t talk to each other most of the time. Investors should ask for the guidance they need and not wait until policymakers come and say we need this or that.
That’s happening, but we need to come up with solutions and knock on doors, identify what needs to happen. We can’t wait until everything is perfect, we have negotiated every text, and we have every declaration. How long are we going to wait for that? We have to start somewhere.
Watch the full conversation with Zitouni Ould-Dada below.
Photo courtesy of Tenzin Wangchuk, Unsplash
