Water scarcity and water hazards, further induced by climate change, are having detrimental impacts on the world’s food systems. Enduring, adapting to and rebounding from these negative impacts requires food systems that are climate-adaptive and water-resilient.
This paper lays out a concerted investment approach for water and food systems, demonstrating the investment opportunities and returns on investment, while offering a proposed financial execution framework that addresses the barriers to public and private investments. It advocates for global collaboration to fill the $500 billion to $1 trillion annual investment gap in climate-adaptive, water-resilient food systems.
The innovative "4 by 4 framework" outlined in the paper is designed to address the core problems hindering private investment in climate-adaptive and water-resilient food systems. It consists of four actionable steps and four investment pathways.