Sustainable and Resilient Agri-Food Systems in Motion – We’re on it!

Facilitating the 2024 Partners for Change (P4C) Network Meeting in Nairobi, June 26th to 27th, left me and many participants feeling hopeful and somewhat exhilarated. For two days, we caught a glimpse of what a future where the world, the Global South and notably Africa, is effectively implementing the transformation of agri-food systems, looks like. This sustainable agri-food system cloud on which we floated was driven by all the key factors of the Network Meeting: the participants, the content, the immediate results and the general ambiance of collaboration and partnership.

First, the participants. Every encounter with the nearly 200 members of the P4C Network from over 30 countries and 4 continents – whether in full plenary, in workshops of 20-30 or one-to-one over a cup of coffee or during dinner – left one impressed by the technical knowledge and experience, wanting to learn more and excited about the possibilities of working together. This year, the network meeting balanced out participants between government officials, farmer organizations, private sector, civil society, researchers and key vulnerable groups: women and young people. Multistakeholder platforms and dialogs were on all lips as one of the key pillars on which transforming agri-food systems stands. The conference managed to be a large multistakeholder platform, with dialogue going on at multiple levels for the two days.

The content. Getting participants to stop discussing and move to the next session was one of the greatest challenges for the facilitator I was. An indicator of the high level of interest participants had for the content of presentations, panels, workshops and more. While the content was all extremely rich and diverse, certain specific elements deserve to be highlighted.

• Contribution to the Post-Malabo Strategy Consultation Process – It was quite daring for organizers to set as one of the conference objectives to have 200 people to contribute to and agree on a 2-page memorandum as the P4C contribution to the Post-Malabo Strategy Consultation process! It was also one of the achievements of the conference all were most proud of! With an outstanding Writing Committee that gathered input panels, workshops and through the Conference App, we succeeded in developing a Memorandum that highlighted: the exigency of national implementation, the importance of greatly increased accountability by Member States on their commitments, the necessity of a more integrated holistic strategy combining agri-food and climate, as well as the obligation to greatly improve inclusivity from strategy conception, through implementation to monitoring and evaluation, were just a few of the key points highlighted in the contribution which can be found here.
• Workshops on varied technical aspects – Eight workshops were held on a variety of technical subjects including Agro-Forestry, Regulations and Compliance with Supply Chains, Resilience to Food System Shocks, Governance, Empowerment of marginalized people and more. These smaller workshops enabled participants to take a deep dive and use their own experiences and knowledge to exchange with experts, practitioners and researchers from the specific domain. This was one of the most important formats for learning and exchange for participants and many left not only having gained new knowledge, but having had the opportunity to discuss in depth, compare contexts and conclude on the key elements for adaptation to their specific environments.
• Panels with representatives of governments – Governance is perhaps the key to transformation. It is the public sector that makes the policies that ensure the right structural changes in the agri-food system, that can scale-up good solutions and best practices and that is finally accountable to both citizens and all other stakeholders. The 2024 P4C Network Meeting provided ample opportunity to hear from national governments from Africa and Asia, regional actors such as representatives of the African Union and very importantly the network host, the German Federal Ministry for Economic and Development Cooperation (BMZ). Government officials were occasionally on a “hot seat” as participants laid emphasis on the importance of the functionality of the state as being pivotal to more effective and efficient implementation at national level as well as for accountability to citizens. Public sector P4C participants took the analysis and critique and contributed constructively to the discussion on how to improve national level implementation in the future.
• Partnership in the air – The P4C is a network, and participants missed no opportunity to get to know one another and build the foundations for partnerships. Country delegations had the opportunity to discuss amongst stakeholders from the same country who do not have enough opportunities to meet when at home. Within the stakeholder groups of the private sector, farmer organizations and government officials, discussions were rife and intense to compare notes, learn from one another and analyze the possibilities of exchange visits. Academics and researchers were highly solicited as countries approached them to examine how best to get further access to their expertise. African countries and their Indian counterparts discovered great similarity between their contexts and began immediately discussing time zone differences to determine when virtual exchanges could occur.

 
All in all, the 2024 P4C Network meeting left us feeling hopeful because the right people were present discussing the right topics. Because we were able to make a concrete contribution to the development of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Program strategy for the next 10 years. Because we all learned something new, gained a new perspective and made a new connection in direct relation to the core business of building a world were the right to sufficient, nutritious food that has been produced sustainably is fulfilled. We also left without illusions. The path to building such a world is difficult, complicated and replete with obstacles. However, we identified the obstacles, integrated the complexity into our strategic thinking and built the relationships that will ensure our own resilience.

I can only conclude as did one of the P4C panels that transforming agri-food systems is a very tough job, but we are extremely hopeful because “we’re on it!”

Heading back home, we have simply to do the job so we can hope to report back at the next P4C Network Meeting on just how far we’ve come on the road to transformation.

 
Here is an insight into the P4C Network Meeting 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya: