Food Systems for Prosperity- inclusive growth through agrifood systems

Food Systems for Prosperity

Tuesday, 25th July, 14:30-16:00

Improving environment, society and health while also generating economic prosperity is a significant challenge in agrifood systems. Trade, agribusiness, and productivity are examples of policy areas used to drive prosperity. However, to drive shared prosperity, these approaches must be inclusive and holistic. The goal of this Leadership Dialogue is to concretely identify approaches that can be incorporated into policies and national pathways to manage challenging tradeoffs, while promoting solutions that promote income/gender equality, environment and nutrition. Participants from multiple backgrounds will enlighten participants on the most critical investments needed to enable prosperity, inclusion and sustainability in agrifood systems.

Despite the vast size of the agrifood systems economy, millions do not share in this prosperity, or suffer the negative health and environmental consequences of economic development. For example, 574 million people—nearly 7 percent of the world’s population—will still be living on less than US$2.15 a day in 2030. Globally, 36% of working women are employed in agrifood systems but women's roles tend to be marginalized. There will be no true prosperity, especially for the most vulnerable, if it is not shared and if the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental, social) are not considered.

The session will focus on the following questions:

What steps have been taken to ensure that the benefits of economic growth through food systems are shared equitably and have positive economic and nutrition outcomes for people who work in agrifood systems?
What is a success story that can be replicated/scaled up?
How can tradeoffs be managed between economic sustainability and environmental or social (including nutrition) sustainability?
What investments are critical in order to enable an inclusive and sustainable approach to generating economic prosperity?

This Leadership Dialogue will promote food systems transformation at scale and the implementation of national pathways through identifying how to breakthrough blockages emerging from tensions between economy, sustainability, society and health and identify concrete steps to generate shared prosperity.