By ACRE Africa

To meet the challenge of adequately feeding 9 billion people by 2050, the agricultural sector all over the world will need to undergo major transformation. More food will need to be produced using the limited resources available, bringing greater benefits to producers and consumers alike. Achieving this transformation will require extensive collaboration among all stakeholders in the agricultural system.

Combining the core competencies of diverse organizations through multisectoral partnerships can generate benefits such as increased resources, new expertise developed from the combined knowledge, development of new relevant business models, and great learning from the different perspectives, goals, and capabilities.

In such partnerships, each partner plays a unique role. For example, governments can offer effective support mechanisms for farmers and investors. The private sector can invest in value chains, with a long-term view of investment that goes beyond short-term profit. Farmers can influence policy and investment by sharing their recommendations based on their on-ground experience. Donors and internal organizations can provide the funds required to develop solutions. They can also convene the multi-stakeholder gatherings for exchange of ideas.

Some Existing Partnerships:
 

G7 Summit – The Group of Seven (formerly the G8) refers to the group of eight highly industrialized nations—France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and Canada—that hold an annual meeting to foster consensus on global issues like economic growth and crisis management, global security, energy, and terrorism. In 2012, food security was one of the main development agenda of their summit at Camp David, USA, where leaders launched a New Alliance to improve food security and nutrition. The Alliance is a partnership between partner governments of developing countries, G7 countries, and the private sector to lift 50 million people out of poverty in the next 10 years. The EU is making a prominent contribution to this initiative by working with partner governments and international actors to improve collective efforts and ensure that the challenge of undernutrition can be met.

Grow Africa – Grow Africa was co-founded in 2011 by the African Union Commission, NEPAD, and the World Economic Forum. Grow Africa is made up of 200 companies and governments in 12 countries. These companies have made formal commitments with the government in the respective country to invest in agriculture. To date, Grow Africa has mobilized over $10 billion in private sector investment commitments, of which $1.8 billion has already been invested in 12 countries, reaching 8.6 million smallholder farmers. Grow Africa’s aim is to enable countries to realise the potential of the agriculture sector for economic growth and job creation, particularly among farmers, women, and youth.

Grow Asia – Grow Asia was founded by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the ASEAN Secretariat in 2015. Grow Asia brings together South East Asia’s smallholders, governments, companies, NGOs, and other stakeholders, to develop inclusive and sustainable value chains that benefit farmers. Grow Asia aims to reach 10 million smallholder farmers by 2020, helping them access knowledge, technology, finance, and markets to increase their productivity, profitability, and environmental sustainability by 20 percent.

Scaling Up Nutrition – The Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement is another multisectoral partnership that aims to eliminate all forms of malnutrition, based on the principle that everyone has a right to food and good nutrition. The movement is bringing governments, civil society, the UN, donors, businesses, and scientists in a collective action to improve nutrition. Fifty-eight countries are participating.

In an interview about the lessons-learned and future of the SUN movement, David Nabarro,  the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Food Security and Nutrition, said that multisectoral approaches perform best when stakeholders agree on clear purposes and action such as identifying priorities, developing strategies, multisectoral planning, mapping stakeholder resources; aligning actions of multiple stakeholders, and jointly monitoring progress. To carry out these functions effectively, objectives, roles and responsibilities need to be clear.

These are a few examples of partnerships that have been created to address the global food and nutrition challenge.