On hunger, climate, and gender

Last week was a whirlwind of?conversations?and meetings?in New York City. There was exhaustion with trying to address severe humanitarian crises?in so many places?around the world. There was concern about losing ground on the SDGs – and especially about declining resources to support women and girls. There was an enormous focus on climate change – but?a lack of clarity about financing the adaptations that communities around the world desperately need. A video conversation with my?friend and shero Ertharin Cousin?well captures some of the challenges ahead. Ertharin is former head of WFP and a?dedicated global advocate for innovative, market-driven, agri-food system businesses to improve nutrition and?ensure access to sustainably produced and affordable food for everyone.?Below are?some of my key takeaways from that inspiring conversation. Click here to watch the whole conversation. #UNGA #CGI2024 #ClimateWeekNYC

The hunger dialogue at last includes a central focus on food systems, but there’s so much more to be done.

When we used to talk about food, hunger, agriculture, we didn't talk about the systems changes necessary for us to address the challenges of hunger and food, access and food, affordability, farmer access – so we were not going to solve the problems in a manner that would make those solutions resilient. We now have a food day during COP . At the UN Food Systems Summit, we began to speak in terms that the climate community could recognize the necessity to pull a seat up to the table for food systems leadership. Now we're not just solving problems for today but solving them for generations. We were making progress in addressing chronic malnutrition and access to affordable, nutritious food when Covid pushed us back on our heels. You saw it in Chicago with long lines at food banks, and in Nigeria where curfews meant produce had to be driven during the day in unrefrigerated trucks – in a country that loses 40% of what is produced because of lack of infrastructure access, that doubled in some circumstances. Then the Russian invasion into Ukraine had a huge impact on the cost of food for some of the world’s most vulnerable people, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Now climate and conflict are driving acute hunger year after year after year. While we talk about food systems’ transformation, unless we can address conflict we're going to continue to see quite high levels of acute hunger.

More money is critical – but the nexus of food-systems change is policy and finance.

How do we catalyze farmer transformation to the regenerative agricultural practice that will protect our soil? How do we increase the efficiency of our production systems so we can feed ourselves today and meet the population projections of 9.5-to-10 billion people? It is not just about driving the capital, it is also about driving the policies that will support the transition of agricultural production, manufacturing, and ultimately consumer consumption. And we need the capacity to credibly measure, monitor, report, and verify on carbon sequestration in soil, so we can change the economics so that farmers are not just paid for what is grown out of the soil, but what they retain in the soil. Some of the work we're doing today is to create those models to support farmers and third-party monitoring to avoid issues of greenwashing. We're encouraging G20 and G7 to take leadership roles here to ensure that, as we create these new systems for measuring, we have transparency and interoperability across the globe – because that is how we're going to see the tools that come online be available to farmers in Des Moines, Iowa, as well as farmers outside Kigali, Rwanda.

Feeding the world is everyone’s responsibility

The transformation necessary to ensure that the 3.1 billion people who can't afford diverse food today will have access to it in the future will require all actors – the NGO community, multilaterals, governments – and bring consumers along. When we were working on the Food Systems Summit [back in 2020], some 200 NGOs walked away because Big Ag was at the table – they believe that they created the problems and should not be part of the conversation. I come from a different mindset. We need a diversity of solutions, we need all hands on deck. Between $250 billion and $500 billion a year in new investments are necessary. Stop arguing about what is the right way forward. Embrace all the ways that make the positive change, admit that a diversity of solutions and diversity of partners is necessary to achieve the outcomes required.

Food insecurity could drop by 20% if women had the same access as men to financial tools, resources, and training.

That is no less true today than it was 10 years ago, and yet women still don't have adequate access to finances, new tools, training. There has been change – we both lead multi-billion-dollar organizations because of that change. But the opportunity for us to do more remains in front of us. We see glimmers of hope, like much of the work CARE is doing to get women seats at tables. But we need seats at every level. We need more women in manufacturing, in investing. Less than 1% of all the investment capital on an annual basis flows to women investors or women-led funds. Unless we can get more capital into the hands of women, we are not going to drive and support the kinds of businesses that women bring online. Nobody starts more businesses in the United States than Black women, but because of lack of access to capital and training, our businesses never grow at the level of any other demographic group, including Black men. People nod when I make these kinds of statements, but the capital still does not flow. Women always bat above our weight so, given those opportunities, I think we would see the return on investment that we so often speak about.?

Aspiring changemakers should think creatively and act boldly.

After I received my law degree, I learned very quickly that legal problems primarily were social problems masking themselves as a legal issue, and that having the ability to support access to services and resources to support economic development is how you change legal outcomes, by giving people different perspectives and different hopes. That's been my life, my purpose. The only thing stopping you from being the person who makes the change is yourself. As women, we so often wait for permission as opposed to apologizing when we overstep. We will overstep. But if you're overstepping for good, that's not a bad thing.