Transforming Food Systems: Pathways for Country-led Innovation

The need to urgently transition food systems to net-zero, nature-positive that can nourish all people, leaving no one behind is more critical than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic has furthered deepened complex challenges we already face from hunger and nutrition, climate and nature, and societal inequity. Innovation offers a profound opportunity to achieve these transitions and help unlock challenges across food systems. The white paper ‘Transforming Food Systems: Pathways for Country-led Innovation’, published by the World Economic Forum Food Systems Initiative and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), presents an action-oriented roadmap for countries looking to accelerate and scale inclusive innovation that meet the needs of all stakeholders in the food system and support countries to invest in their capability to innovate. The roadmap builds on the work of the Innovation Lever of Change, a key component of the UN Food Systems Summit, hosted by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in September 2021. The Innovation Lever convened a diverse community of nearly 80 organizational partners representing the public, private and social sectors who promoted the adoption of a wider, more holistic view of innovation – one that is inclusive of local and traditional knowledge; mobilizes national innovation ecosystems, catalyzes institutional and social innovation; and employs fit for purpose technologies such as the power of data and digital solutions.