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TRANSFORMATION TALKS

What is food systems governance, why is it an opportunity and how do you invest in it?

From insights to action session - 28 March 2024

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Transformation Talks

  • Transformation talks is a series of three sessions
    • Discovery & Opportunity
    • Deep Dive
    • Insights to Action

  • The purpose of these talks is to learn about topics that are key to transforming food systems, and how food systems thinking can be put into practical use

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Insights to Action session

Purpose of this final session: Learning and working together as a group to make governance of food systems transitions in South Sudan actionable for everyone

  • Learn about food systems transformation & governance
  • Learn about practical cases and how they relate to transformations
  • Define how we can contribute to the governance of food systems transitions ourselves

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Recap: what is food systems transformation?

  • Food systems can be visualized in different ways
  • Examples, from presentation by Prof. Cees Leeuwis, Wageningen University

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Recap: what is food systems transformation?

  • Food systems are complex
  • Composed of different things: farmers, companies, technology, infrastructure, environment, policies, behaviour of people, value chains, etc

  • System thinking can help make understanding the interaction between all of this more concrete

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Recap: what is food systems transformation?

  • Systems thinking: interactions between parts of the food system result in ‘emergent properties’ (the whole is more than the sum of the parts)

  • Emergent properties can be desirable or undesirable (food security, job creation, pollution, poverty)

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Recap: what is food systems transformation?

  • So the question is: how do systems develop ‘emergent properties’ that are more desirable?
    • Change the ‘rules of the game’ that determine how these different parts of the food system interact with each other
      • Rules of the game: policies & investment to produce for subsistence or market?
      • Rules of the game: aid is financed in siloes (humanitarian, development)
      • Rules of the game: incentives to prioritize service delivery through agriculture ministry
    • Change coordination and alignment between actors in the system

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Recap: what is food systems transformation?

  • Rules of the game, also called ‘food system regime’ (meso)
  • Niches: experimentation, pilots, lobby (micro)
  • Trends: Support or hinder change (macro)

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Recap: what is food systems transformation?

  • So very simply: food systems governance = working with actors in the system to change the rules of the game to create a desired outcome (governing the transition)

  • Who governs the food system?
    • In South Sudan, this includes food producers, processors, traders, companies, government, civil society, aid organizations, international donors, the UN system and more..

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Recap: governance of transformation

Seven ways to support food systems transformation processes

  • Creating and supporting variation (pilots, innovation and experiments)
  • Capturing and supporting existing diversity (find, support what works)
  • Temporary protection of niche initiatives (create safe spaces)
  • Analysis of landscape trends & visioning (create understanding)
  • Creating landscape level pressures (lobby & advocacy, new policies)
  • Identifying plausible leverage points (find small opportunities for change with big impacts)
  • Building discourse coalitions (agenda setting & coalition building)

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Desired situation: three transitions

Three transitions that create a desired food systems situation

  • From food aid & subsistence based production to (local) market oriented production
    • Seed system development allows local markets to create self sufficiency in food production, enhancing farmer incomes, while decreasing or eliminating the reliance on imports and seed aid
  • Bringing development actors into fragile spaces
    • Resilient food systems deliver food security to communities despite occasional shocks, decreasing or eliminating the reliance on humanitarian aid while bringing in development actors
  • Moving from service delivery by partners to service delivery by government - by prioritizing service delivery spending sectors (food security & WASH)
    • The agriculture ministry has the means to deliver services based on community needs, supporting self sufficiency in production and decreasing reliance on humanitarian aid

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  • Food systems are complex, no one actor is in control
  • Food systems transformation tries to change ‘the rules of the game’
  • Food systems governance: trying to transform food systems behaviour into a desirable direction, together with other stakeholders
  • Transformation emerges from:
    • Initiatives for change that start small and need to mature (niches)
    • .. before they can compete with and replace existing dominant system (regime)
    • .. with wider trends serving as pressures and opportunities (landscape)
  • In any systems transformation powerful public and private actors will resist the change

Recap: governance of transformation