ROME – Demand for innovative and targeted approaches to development is growing, as evidenced by the growing number of participants at the Hand-in-Hand Investment Forum 2024, which opened today in Rome during the World Food Forum. .
Currently, 72 countries are participating in the Joining Hands Initiative, a signature initiative launched by Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Some 29 countries and five regional initiatives will participate in this year’s forum at FAO Headquarters, presenting 115 high-impact agricultural investment cases and bringing together more than 400 meetings scheduled to date. We plan to have direct dialogue with potential investors. The Hand in Hand Initiative has facilitated more than $3 billion in priority agricultural investments to date, and the proposed investments could increase that amount by six times.
“Finance and investment are essential to achieving the transformation of agri-food systems that unlocks the potential for sustainable good for all, today and tomorrow,” Qu said at the opening of the three-day event. said.
FAO’s Hand-in-Hand Initiative, along with its annual Investment Forum, aims to “close the financing gap in a comprehensive and equitable manner for the least developed Small Island Developing States (SIDS). A very good example of an innovative solution designed to The same goes for landlocked and food-insecure countries,” he said.
Smarter targeting, better matching
The Hand-in-Hand Investment Forum is a partnership-building part of the initiative to bring investors, multilateral development banks, the private sector, development partners, foundations, and impact funds onto a platform where FAO Member States can directly present their priorities. This is the core of the initiative. Agri-food investment opportunities in agri-food systems and value chains. In fact, the main activity of the Forum is the closed-door bilateral “matchmaking” meetings with ministers and senior national officials facilitated by FAO and available for recruitment here.
QU encouraged Ministers to share lessons learned and other insights from the investment case proposals. He also reminded that investment proposals need to be complemented with appropriate enabling policies.
The ongoing collaborative work is focused on identifying better investments in agricultural systems based on a territorial approach, and in this process FAO will use detailed biophysical and social data to Contribute to country-led policy and implementation trajectories using a geospatial toolkit. – Economic data to identify opportunities with the greatest potential to alleviate poverty and hunger.
The goal is to use territorial and government-owned and led approaches to raise incomes, improve nutrition, empower poor and vulnerable people, and strengthen resilience to climate change. It is to accelerate market-based transformation of agricultural products systems. In turn, FAO will help partners develop the capacity to deliver critical implementation tools, from technology, data and information to capacity development, financing and financing, including risk sharing and blended finance tools.
Expanding scope and tools
In 2023, 114 investment proposals were proposed, with an average internal rate of return of 24.5 percent and a total investment amount of $16.59 billion, with a target of 155 million beneficiaries.
In 2024, our vision will further expand through three new regional initiatives, each focusing on the Caribbean Small Island Developing States, the Amazon region and southern Africa. These build on existing regional “Hands in Hand Initiative” activities in the Sahel region and the Central American Arid Corridor.
Climate-smart strategies are essential because the goal is to sustainably lift people out of hunger and poverty. FAO resources such as the new and improved environmental externality accounting tool EX-ACT can help here. In this case, it provides a consistent way to estimate and track the consequences of agricultural interventions on greenhouse gas emissions, which is also an important contribution for policy makers. Regarding access to global financial support.
