In 2015, the global community agreed on an inclusive sustainable development plan: Agenda 2030. Concurrently, the Paris Agreement established that only collective efforts could mitigate the climate crisis. Growing awareness and collaboration are paving the way for global agrifood system transformation. We have the opportunity to ensure everyone can access nutritious, affordable food while staying within planetary boundaries.
While over 700 million people remain undernourished, more than 2 billion face food insecurity and 2.8 billion cannot yet afford a healthy diet.
Addressing Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and specifically Goal #2, focused on ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture by 2030, will require the efforts of everyone – businesses, governments, international organizations, NGOs, consumers and more.
Million
people remain undernourished
Billion
face food insecurity
Billion
cannot yet afford a healthy diet
We at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), have come together to provide specific examples of how the private sector is co-creating solutions and delivering on investment opportunities, highlighting the scale and impact of their efforts, alongside the barriers and lessons learned along the way, with the aim to inspire and help spur more action and impact globally.
This is part and parcel of our contributions to the fourth United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS+4) – a global stocktake reflecting on food system transformation progress worldwide and best practices in strengthening collaboration and unlocking finance and investments to accelerate action on the SDGs.
Efforts to drive the systemic changes needed can focus on three components of the food system1 as follows:
Within the farm gate
- Crop and livestock production activities
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Land-use change
- Deforestation and land conversation
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Pre- and post-production processes
- Food loss and waste and dietary patterns
The FAO Global Roadmap offers a structured framework consisting of 10 domains and 120 actions that contribute to driving systemic changes across these three areas. The framework covers a wide range of solutions that need coordination, connection and localization. By integrating evidence, data and modeling tools into a country-led process, it connects public and private sector actions. It emphasizes the need for coherent policies to create an environment that enables the private sector to finance, implement and expand solutions within countries and across national borders.
10 domains for 120 actions to deliver healthy food for all, today and tomorrow
The FAO Global Roadmap builds on the complexity of the world to deliver system transformation. At the same time, it provides sectoral frameworks for actors to operate in the environment they know and that they can be accountable through: 10 domains.
These include:
2 domains that enable all the others to thrive and make sure that no one is left behind – data and inclusive policies
3 related to production – livestock, crops and fisheries and aquaculture, because it is essential to produce more and better
2 related to natural resources – forests and wetlands, and soils and water, because without healthy ecosystems today, production is threatened tomorrow
3 domains that spread across the agrifood system, along and between value chains – food loss and waste, protein diversification and enabling healthy diets in sustainable agrifood systems.
Achieving healthy diets in sustainable agrifood systems requires action across the whole food system, including what we produce, process and consume. Businesses are working throughout these domains and driving systemic transformations.
Concrete projects often regroup several actions, sometimes from different domains. This is why having a clear framework to map and document them is essential.
While progress will take time, the roadmap outlines 20 key global milestones to track success. Countries and companies can translate these milestones into specific objectives, ensuring individual efforts contribute to a larger goal.
From the FAO Global Roadmap to the Compendium
The Compendium and the FAO Global Roadmap are complementary. The Compendium offers concrete examples of inspiring solutions that fit into the Roadmap’s 10 domains, plus one notable addition regarding sustainable consumption. The Roadmap provides the systemic narrative, common language and coordination needed to scale investments. It maps actions and initiatives from the public and private sectors. Additionally, the Roadmap serves as a global knowledge hub to share solutions, enhance policy transparency and ensure cohesion. Such knowledge contributes to building investor trust and helps stakeholders identify interventions for sustainable and bankable projects, new partnerships and de-risking strategies, policy or institutional bottlenecks and success levers.
1 Adapted from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (2024). Greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood systems. Global, regional and country trends, 2000–2022. Retrieved from: https://www.fao.org/statistics/highlights-archive/highlights-detail/greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-agrifood-systems.-global--regional-and-country-trends--2000-2022/en#:~:text=food%20manufacturing%2C%20retail%2C%20household%20consumption%20and%20food%20disposal.
