How can the world nourish 9.8 billion people by 2050 through sustainable practices? Food systems do not currently provide nutritious food in an environmentally sustainable way to the world’s population. Nearly 800 million people are undernourished while 2 billion are micronutrient deficient and 2 billion more people overweight or obese. At the same time, food production, transportation, processing and waste are putting unsustainable strain on environmental resources.
The New Vision for Agriculture (NVA), defined by World Economic Forum partners in 2009, holds that to meet the world’s needs, sustainable agriculture must simultaneously deliver food security, environmental sustainability and economic opportunity. Achieving those goals requires a transformation of the agriculture sector, leveraging market-based approaches through a coordinated effort by all stakeholders, including farmers, government, civil society and the private sector. The key success factors of agriculture-sector transformation at the national level include setting the right direction through effective leadership, strategy and investment models, and scaling the transformation through finance, infrastructure, institutions and monitoring.
The NVA engages over 650 organizations to strengthen collaboration among relevant stakeholders. At a global level, it has partnered with the G7 and G20, facilitating informal leadership dialogue and collaboration. At the regional and country level, it has catalysed multistakeholder partnerships in 21 countries in Africa, South East Asia, India and Latin America, including Grow Africa and Grow Asia.
Together, these efforts have mobilized over 100 value-chain partnerships.
Through the experience of multistakeholder partnerships in 26 countries, the NVA has developed a new model for country-led, multi-stakeholder partnerships in agriculture -- based on a shared vision, a set of guiding principles and a series of tactical steps. The NVA is sharing this model globally with practitioners and leaders as an effective example of multistakeholder approaches in agriculture in contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
