There’s no simple change to complex systems

‘Multi-stakeholder initiatives’ may not be the easiest thing to say, especially when you’re eating. But I’m a long-standing MSI fan. I was recently delighted to see first-hand in recent trips to Bangladesh and Tanzania the central role they can play in transforming food systems.

‘Food systems’ have been strongly in focus since the build-up to the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit . Theoretically, thinking about entire systems is a great way to frame coordinated action. But what does transforming a food system require in practice? Bangladesh and Tanzania helped me understand.

In both countries, I met a wide range of program partners. They included smallholders, agri-entrepreneurs, researchers, innovators, educators, public officials and managers of large agribusinesses. The individuals and their organizations inspired me. They are strengthening dietary diversity and health, farm productivity, rural incomes and resilience. And they’re helping women and youth to empower themselves.

Bangladesh was my first destination. That’s one of three countries running the NICE project. NICE encourages low-income city residents to improve their health, by helping them understand why eating diverse, safe and nutritious food is beneficial. It also helps local smallholders meet changing dietary demand by producing the desirable foods. The farmers are learning to do this using agroecological approaches that are not only healthy for people, but also for soils and the environment.

On the production side, we work closely with our university partners from ETH Zürich*. As a farmer-focused foundation, we have a lot to contribute here. But we would be stretching way beyond our comfort zone if we took on the diet components. Here is where the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH ) and Sight & Life Foundation come in. Swiss Development Cooperation is providing leadership, advice and encouragement. It is also co-funding the program.

It's local that counts

We’re very happy to be in a group of committed Swiss organizations working together with such integrated purpose. But the program is targeting progress in Bangladesh. That country’s complex challenges include chronic under-nutrition among poor urban residents. For them, ‘junk’ food is often the cheapest option, and sometimes the tastiest. Improving that kind of situation requires tightly coordinated action by all the local stakeholders. My visit was highly encouraging: That action is already happening! ?

Our NICE group met leaders at many levels. They included the Bangladesh National Nutrition Council which leads cross-government coordination across the country. But we also align with the local authorities in our focus cities, Rangpur and Dinajpur. In addition, District Nutrition Committees bring NICE together with the private sector, NGOs, farmer representatives and others. We also met inspiring teenage girls and agri-entrepreneurs. The girls run school clubs to guide their families on nutrition; the entrepreneurs run Farmers’ Hubs where they encourage smallholders to grow the healthy food.?

I was concerned to hear that not all other nutrition programs in Bangladesh are as ‘end-to-end’ as NICE. It would be good if they were! After all, we are in some distinguished company there: UNDP, FAO, IFAD, the World Food Program and other agencies are all running programs with similar ambitions. We are now developing collaboration with many of those agencies. However, being ‘end-to-end’ isn’t enough on its own. A frequent message we heard was that change will take time and constant reinforcement. Shiny-new projects and hand-outs have an unfortunate habit of distracting people. Local leaders need to keep everybody focused on the most important NICE outcomes.

Building on top, not in parallel

My Tanzania visit was with the Farm to Market Alliance (FtMA ). This is a longer-standing initiative than NICE but is still patiently learning. The Tanzanian FtMA program lost traction a few years ago when maize prices collapsed and farmer purchase commitments could not be honored. Fortunately, due to the passion of the FtMA principals to keep learning and trying again, the country program restarted with energy in 2022. It is benefiting from FtMA’s progress and lessons in Kenya and Rwanda. One major change is that it now focuses on multiple crops. They include rice, beans and sunflower – all of which are “opportunity crops” for Tanzanian smallholders. Another shift is to move beyond just training farmers. The new focus is on agri-entrepreneurial Farmer Service Centers as the points of coordinated intervention. These centers are similar to our Foundation’s Farmers Hubs. ??

We visited the program in Morogoro. We heard from smallholders, TARI (the national ag research institute), local government, farmers running an irrigation scheme, and many other local stakeholders. They all recognize the value of the coordinated agenda and alignment opportunities provided by the small, dynamic FtMA team and its local implementing partner, Farm Africa. It was great to visit the Wilmar rice processing plant and hear of the company’s appetite to increase local sourcing. Committed off-taker action is an excellent opportunity to build farm and supply chain progress through the Alliance.

What was especially encouraging is that the message is getting across: Multi-stakeholder initiatives make a lot of sense! ?Tanzanian partners are starting to see that a platform such as FtMA as the entry point for local coordination enables them to develop their own work on top. They don’t all need to set up parallel programs doing the same thing. A case in point is the new Tanzania Sustainable Soy Initiative: people there have realized that it has much greater prospects of success through coordination with FtMA and the SAGCOT Center.

Complexity needs embracing

Does that all sound suspiciously easy? It’s certainly not. If coordination within the project group and across the local food system is to drive system change, it cannot be left to chance. There is only one food system in each place; actions need to be tightly coordinated. Success will result from painstaking work. Program managers must ensure regular coordination meetings with all the necessary stakeholders. They need to measure and review progress against plans and commitments. Insights from consumer and farmer research have to be shared and acted upon. Programs must also not only ‘consult’ youth and women, but also empower them to manage and lead. And although change happens in specific places, we need to learn across them. NICE is working in three countries, FtMA in four. In Kenya and Rwanda, they are also coordinating with each other!

Complex systems don’t advance in a straight line. Coordinators need constantly to watch for perverse consequences of interventions, and then adapt accordingly. We also all need to walk before we can run. It’s natural to be hungry for action and scale-up, ideally by yesterday. But everybody must make sure they’ve first learned adequate lessons to drive successful scaling, before putting their foot on the accelerator.

Yes, I know: ‘Program management’ and ‘stakeholder coordination’ don’t sound very sexy. Attention to their minutiae can be tedious. As a practitioner and devotee of multi-stakeholder action, I am often asked: ‘Why bother? It’s too complicated – do something simpler’. But ‘simple’ change doesn’t produce the desired results – or at least not when tackling complex challenges. Simple change is also not replicable or scalable. And if you’re looking for a complex challenge, try ‘improving nutrition in low-income urban communities and climate-smart farming with resource-poor smallholders’!

So, instead of saying ‘Why bother?’, we need to embrace the complexity of such challenges. We also need to train and support committed individuals and organizations to become system leaders, and relentlessly pay attention to progress (or its absence), and to learning, adapting, and building capacity as we go.

Based on what I saw on my two recent trips, I am confident we’re increasing the number of individuals and organizations willing to strengthen food systems practically and through collective action. It’s slow progress, but the ball is rolling. And, I’m delighted to say, we are stepping into the challenges of becoming powerful and capable system leaders. I remain a great fan of multi-stakeholder initiatives!

*ETH Zürich: The Sustainable Agroecosystem Group , The Sustainable Food Processing Group and The World Food System Center )