Food Systems Summit 2021

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This year², the United Nations Secretary-General will convene a Food Systems Summit as part of the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This Summit aims to launch bold new actions to advocate for and accelerate a transformation in the way the world produces, consumes and thinks about food. Five action tracks have been developed to facilitate work to meet the Food Systems Summit’s aims and to identify ‘game changing and systemic solutions’ for the global food system:

1. Ensuring access to safe and nutritious food for all – aims to work to end all forms of malnutrition through increasing food availability and affordability and reducing food access inequities.
2. Shift to sustainable consumption patterns – aims to build consumer demand for sustainably produced food, strengthening local value chains and promoting recycling of food resources. 
3. Boost nature-positive production – aims to realign incentives to reduce food loss and environmental impacts and to support smallholder farmers across the food value chain.
4. Advance equitable livelihoods – aims to contribute to the elimination of poverty by promoting employment and decent work across the food value chain.
5. Build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stress – aims to ensure the continued functionality of sustainable food systems in areas prone to conflict or natural disasters. These actions include a focus on broader global challenges.

Much work has already been done across the action tracks, including ‘idea generation’ surveys, two public dialogues on each track and the development of discussion starter papers to further drive the work forward. A number of food system dialogues have also been conducted, with more planned in the lead up to the Food Systems Summit in order to support the transformation of the global food system.