There is an increasing consensus within the international community that countries need to adopt a systems approach to food policies if they are to be successful in tackling intertwined, persistent and worsening problems of food insecurity, climate change, resource use, poverty and health.
Governments also need to increase their capacity to undertake holistic assessments of food systems issues and engage in strategic decision-making, acknowledging interlinkages between various sustainability interventions along the entire value chain and balancing the inevitable trade-offs between outcome goals.
In this context, multi-stakeholder mechanisms constitute an important element for embedding collaborative and coordinated food systems approaches in policies. The study analyses national and sub-national sustainable food systems multi-stakeholder mechanisms to understand and share their contribution to embedding a food systems approach in policymaking processes that support the transition towards sustainable food systems.
This study was commissioned by the Community of Practice on Food Systems Approach on the Ground (CoP-FSAG) of the One Planet network’s Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) Programme.