Global food security program makes climate focus official

The Global Agricultural and Food Security Program will make climate change a central focus of its programs going forward as it considers how to respond to a growing food crisis that threatens low-income nations, Devex has learned. The decision to formally incorporate climate into its longstanding focus on resilience building was taken at the program’s steering committee meeting held virtually from April 26 to 27, and will tie its programs to broader climate goals, GAFSP’s Program Manager Kathryn Hollifield told Devex. “It changes every single step and every definition of the program,” Hollifield said in an interview. “The GAFSP focus on climate, it really is making sure that existing and future projects are aligned with and are helping to build the national climate plans and these are being integrated with the wider climate principles and the different commitments in the global fora that are out there.” GAFSP was created after the 2007-08 food price crisis and focuses on building long-term resilience in agriculture and food systems. It has provided over $2 billion in financing to 50 low-income countries through grants and a private sector window, which gives access to blended finance and advisory services for small- and medium-sized agriculture and food enterprises. “The world is at a point where we’re facing shock after shock and we do have to get smarter and more efficient in terms of how we coordinate our resources.” --— Corry van Gaal, steering committee chair, Global Agricultural and Food Security Program The new strategy incorporates climate principles including agroecology and other traditional approaches, which reinforce GAFSP’s goal of building a more resilient agricultural system that can withstand all kinds of shocks, she said. Previously, GAFSP projects were not required to have a climate aspect. The climate focus was driven by small producers, who demanded more attention on how the weather affected their yields and livelihoods, Hollifield said. “Our focus is on the world’s poorest countries so they tend to sit on that point of vulnerability,” Hollifield said. “When you look across the range of different things that have been happening — from climate, which is the longer term stressor, to the extreme weather events … and then you lay on top of that the residue from COVID-19 … and then the impacts of the war in Ukraine — we really see it as a perfect storm.” The committee sets the program’s strategic direction and is composed of donors, partner countries, development agencies, and civil society organizations. It elected new leadership last month, naming Corry van Gaal, deputy director of agriculture and development finance at Global Affairs Canada, as chair. Nicholas Strychacz, deputy director of the Office of International Development Policy at the U.S. Treasury, will co-chair. The committee also discussed how to respond to the Ukraine crisis, and will reveal plans to assist food producers in the coming months, said Hollifield. “The world is at a point where we’re facing shock after shock and we do have to get smarter and more efficient in terms of how we coordinate our resources because there isn’t enough necessarily to address all of this urgency that the world is facing right now,” van Gaal told Devex. “This is a really important time for us to build more resilient food systems.” She said she wants to see GAFSP better leverage funding for climate resilient programs, as well as ensuring that best practices for building smallholder resilience are shared in other policy spaces so they can inform other program designs. “We have to start to help mobilize more funding to GAFSP, really working on the ambition of GAFSP and how it integrates into the broader food policy network … and building more resilient food systems,” van Gaal told Devex.