Our vision is a world where food systems deliver healthy people, a healthy planet and healthy economies.
Food Systems 2030 is an Umbrella Multi-Donor Trust Fund that seeks to help countries transform their food systems and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly zero poverty and hunger by 2030. It leverages the financing and experience of the World Bank to mainstream and embed a holistic food systems approach to create healthy people, a healthy planet and healthy economies. Food Systems 2030 helps countries rethink and transform their food systems from farm to fork, delivering improved livelihoods and affordable, sustainable and nutritious diets for all. The Multi-Donor Trust Fund represents a challenge to the status quo of how our food is produced and consumed. Working with countries, Food Systems 2030 promotes new ways of doing business – recognizing that current business as usual practices are no longer fit for purpose.
Food Systems 2030 provides advice and analytical products to underpin policy options, funds to pilot innovative approaches, and information to build support for change in different country contexts. It engages with the private sector by supporting the design, piloting and de-risking of innovative public-private partnerships that advance development and climate goals.
Photo credit: Chor Sokunthea, World Bank
Current work includes:
- A global study on how to repurpose current public spending to deliver positive outcomes for people, planet and economies - available here
- Country diagnostics examining how to embed One Health in country contexts to prevent the next pandemic;
- East Asia Pacific regional program focused on boosting and promoting One Health principles across the East Asia and the Pacific region;
- Flagship series of reports on One Health;
- Innovation challenges to identify leading technologies and innovations that can transform food systems;
- Digital Agriculture Profiles; Global and local Digital Innovation Hubs; Global Food System Data Observatory based upon country data;
- Continuing engagement to achieve policy reforms that improve the enabling environment for agribusiness.
Food Systems 2030 informs policy debates and discussions at key policy moments such as the United Nations Climate Change Conferences and meetings of Agriculture Ministers. This builds on the World Bank’s existing relationships and partnerships with UN Agencies, the Global Landscapes Forum, the Food and Land-use Coalition, One CGIAR, the Just Rural Transition, World Resources Institute and others.
Photo credit: Maria Fleischmann, World Bank
What change is needed?
Food systems that holistically address human, planetary, and economic health through innovations, incentives, institutions, investments, and information.
How do we add value to the change process?
- By generating simultaneous co-benefits across all three goals.
- By raising catalytic funding to leverage public financing.
- By de-risking private financing for investments.
- By re-orienting consumer food spending.
- By enabling effective institutions.
- By building evidence on incentives, innovations and financing.
Food Systems 2030 Theory of Change
Our global food system generates US$12 trillion in hidden social, economic and environmental costs each year, and is unfit to provide healthy diets to 10 billion people by 2050 without massively increasing the sector’s carbon footprint and generating further natural capital loss.
Yet, the food system can also be a vital agent of change, facilitating a shift towards more sustainable practices to build climate resilience, improve nutrition and human capital, and lift farmers who work in the food system out of poverty.
The Food Systems 2030 Multi-Donor Umbrella Trust Fund will support this transformative change and address the hidden costs. It will utilize a systems approach that contributes to the program outcomes of healthy people by providing sufficient and nutritious diets, a healthy planet by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fostering nature-based solutions, and a healthy economy by increasing investments in sustainable food systems and being a driver of inclusive growth. These program outcomes are instrumental for achieving Paris commitments on climate, as well as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 1—ending poverty, and SDG 2—zero hunger.
The approach of Food Systems 2030 is achieved through the five “I’s”—innovation, incentives, institutions, investment, and information—applied to strategic themes that are crucial to deliver on food systems transformation: healthy and sustainable diets; public policy and expenditures; digital agriculture, data and innovations; agribusiness; and climate-smart agriculture.
Food Systems 2030 supports the strategic themes by investing in upstream analytics and evidence, providing country-specific entry points in the transformation, and creating business models and packages to influence existing investments and stimulate private sector financing. These interventions lead to interrelated intermediate outcomes of strengthened engagement: with countries to support policy reforms and strengthen country capacity to enable change towards a resilient food system; with development partners to create champions for change and global action; with the private sector to increase access and adoption of innovative technologies and private sector finance. These outcomes are possible because we are able to integrate the latest knowledge and data to shape food systems strategies and investments and allow for unique support packages tailored to country needs and political economy.
These innovative, catalytic, and leveraging outcomes thereby help countries build sustainable food systems and are vital to achieve the Food Systems 2030 program outcomes of healthy people, healthy planet and healthy economy.
The critical assumptions underlying Food Systems 2030’s Theory of Change are the following: (i) countries are committed to food systems transformation to help them achieve their development goals including for climate, for affordability and access to healthy diets, and for provide a living wages; (ii) there is demand from countries for upstream analytics and evidence to support their policy and institutional reforms; (iii) Supported governments show willingness to take the proposed reform agenda to test, implement and scale up reforms; and (iv) The World Bank is able to leverage its own resources, and collaborate with other stakeholders and partners, to support systemic actions for food systems transformation.
