SME Pledge for the UN Food Systems Summit

In preparation for the UN Food Systems Summit, thousands of entrepreneurs were asked how their small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) can forge more nourishing, sustainable, equitable and resilient food systems. The report “A Small Business Agenda for the UN Food Systems Summit”, captures SMEs’ compelling responses, highlighting that SMEs are the vanguard of food system transformation. SMEs constitute over half of most food economies. They integrate markets thereby reducing poverty and hunger; create opportunities that improve equity; innovate and scale solutions for nutrition and sustainability; elevate resilience to shocks, through embedded yet agile business models; and influence to passionately shape the future of food.

The UN Food Systems Summit will only achieve its ambitions if SMEs play a central role in the decade of action ahead. SMEs themselves are ready to drive change from farm to fork and back again. However, their success depends upon a fair business environment that is conducive for food SMEs; incentives that reward businesses that have a positive impact; and more influence for SMEs within sector planning. If cross-sector leaders deliver these conditions, then millions of SMEs will transform every corner of our food systems.

The UN Food Systems Summit invites SMEs to endorse the report’s messages by signing the below pledge. This also invites you to share contact information so that the Summit’s resulting “Coalitions for Action” and “National Pathways” can invite you to inform their work where their goals seem relevant to your company’s strategic interests.

The pledge