Hosting and Management
The UN Food Systems Coordination Hub is hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on behalf of the UN system, supported by the leadership of the FAO Office of Sustainable Development Goals who has a direct report line to the Office of the FAO Director-General. We are resourced by the following UN Agencies, Funds and Programmes through the provision of staff and financial resources: the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN Development Coordination Office (UN DCO), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Organization
The Hub consists of a nimble team, largely comprised of secondments from UN system entities, that understands the broader landscape across the entire food system, makes connections and ensures a systems approach, and showcases success and lessons learned. The Hub performs essential coordination functions to bring together and link food systems knowledge and expertise from diverse constituencies, to support national progress on the SDGs in response to country priorities. This includes inter alia:
- continued support to food systems national dialogues and national pathways through the coordination of technical and policy support requested by countries as they formulate and implement national pathways for food systems transformation;
- staying connected with the broader ecosystem of actors for sustainable food systems, including Coalitions and other initiatives as well as the science ecosystem, and promote the better integration of these efforts with country demand; and,
- the elevation of priority topics in the food systems transformation agenda for strategic thought leadership of UN Agencies and leading actors in the ecosystem of support.
Oversight Steering Group
The strategic work, decision-making, and engagement of the Hub is steered by an Oversight Steering Group comprising the Principals of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN Development Coordination Office (UN DCO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Task Force Leads, with participation from the UN Deputy Secretary-General (DSG).
QU Dongyu
Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Live
Alvaro Lario
President of the International Fund of Agricultural Development
Oscar Fernandez-Taranco
Assistant Secretary-General for Development Coordination
Achim Steiner
Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme
Cindy McCain
Executive Director of the World Food Programme
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Director-General of the World Health Organization
The Team
Science
To realize more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable food systems to accelerate progress towards the SDGs, a Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) to the Hub has been created. The SAC serves as an independent and diverse group of top scientists from around the world to provide robust, credible, timely, impartial and legitimate advice to the Hub and intrinsically to the countries through the Hub by bringing to bear the foremost science and evidence (free from perceived or real conflict of interest).
Stakeholders
One of the responsibilities of the Hub is to engage widely with stakeholders in the food systems landscape across all the follow-up workstreams and to establish a Stakeholder Engagement and Networking Advisory (SENA) Group to engage with and advise the Hub over time, with self-nominated focal points of priority communities to ensure a robust follow-up to the Summit for the success of the 2030 Agenda through food systems transformations. The SENA Group helps the National Pathways and other national, regional, and global platforms (e.g., dialogues, coalitions, initiatives, etc.) to be informed by, and account for, the perspectives and views of multiple stakeholders to enhance effectiveness, transparency, and inclusiveness. The initial communities to comprise the SENA Group are the following: Youth, Indigenous Peoples, Producers, Women and the Private Sector, which are explicitly mentioned on the UN Secretary-General’s closing statement of the Food Systems Summit.
Ecosystem of Support
To deliver on our key functions effectively and efficiently, the Hub will work in concert with and via existing mechanisms and processes – particularly UN Country Teams and the UN Resident Coordinator (RC) system – and will act as an enabler for the Ecosystem of Support at all levels. The Ecosystem of Support refers to both entities that have emerged from the Food Systems Summit as well as additional ones, including the coalitions, action areas, stakeholders, and other relevant entities.
Focus on
Country Needs Survey Analysis
This report presents the results of the Country Needs Survey conducted by the Hub in February 2022 to allow national governments to express their priority needs and expectations for support. Inputs from this survey were used to inform our Biennial Work Plan.