Fostering collaborations and tracking commitments

Hello everyone and welcome!

I am Lucia Palmioli, your moderator for this discussion room focused on Fostering collaborations and tracking commitments. I look forward to reading your ideas, experiences, and recommendations on how to strengthen partnerships and track our commitments in transforming food systems.

You can respond to the questions in any order. Please, remember to indicate the organization you represent and the question number you are addressing in your comment.

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Thank you for being here, and let’s have a rich and constructive discussion!

In Türkiye, awareness of national food systems strategies is still low among grassroots actors, especially outside urban or academic circles. Even when values like sustainability or equity are stated in policy frameworks, they are rarely matched with inclusive implementation mechanisms. 

Structured engagement with public authorities is also challenging for smaller actors. While some local governments are open to collaboration, civil society often lacks institutional capacity to engage meaningfully. Dedicated support programs; such as participatory policy labs or regional dialogue forums, could help grassroots actors build the skills and strategies needed for long-term engagement and influence.

Monitoring and accountability remain fragmented. Most commitments are informal and rarely tracked. National food systems coordination platforms could create voluntary but recognized commitment registries, where local initiatives can set goals and receive light-touch support in reporting progress. Türkiye has strong examples of multi-stakeholder food platforms at the municipal level, but scaling these up nationally would require a more coherent and government-supported coordination framework.

While I would like to express my sincere thanks for the comment provided so far about the situation in Türkiye, I also warmly encourage anyone else in this room to share their perspectives and experiences.

indeed, the contribution shared raises important points, such as the low awareness of national food systems strategies among grassroots actors—particularly outside urban or academic circles—and the gap between stated policy values and actual implementation.

I would then be interested to learn if similar challenges arise in your own countries or regions, and how you see these barriers to inclusive engagement and meaningful collaboration. Are there any examples or approaches that have proven helpful in addressing these issues where you are?

Your insights would greatly contribute to ensuring that this chapter captures a rich and diverse range of stakeholder voices and experiences.

Sara Dastoum, Senior Scientific Researcher, Sciensano – Belgium
Q2, Q3, Q4

In Belgium, we conducted independent evaluations of the private sector's nutrition and sustainability-related commitments using the BIA-Obesity and BIA-Sustainability tools. These assessments revealed significant gaps between corporate rhetoric and measurable, time-bound actions. Despite widespread endorsement of national and EU-level food system goals, very few companies had public commitments that could be objectively tracked, let alone aligned with the principles of equity, health, and ecological resilience. Where commitments existed, they were often vague, non-binding, and focused on image management rather than system-wide transformation.

This disconnect is symptomatic of a broader governance problem: the absence of institutional mechanisms that compel private sector actors to define, disclose, and report on their role in food systems change. Voluntary engagement without structured accountability leads to fragmented implementation and a reliance on civil society or academia to “monitor from the margins.” While tools like the BIA can partially fill this gap, their impact is limited without formal uptake by national governments or integration into UN-coordinated follow-up.

Moreover, civil society actors — including researchers — often lack access to structured engagement channels. Even when there is space to contribute, these mechanisms are rarely designed to accommodate critical or independent voices. This creates a form of performative collaboration: everyone is “invited,” but not everyone is empowered to challenge dominant narratives or hold powerful actors accountable. In our case, despite producing the only independent tracking of company actions in Belgium, the assessments remained largely invisible in policy dialogues — not due to lack of relevance, but due to a lack of institutional mandate.

To foster meaningful collaboration and commitment tracking, several shifts are needed:

• First, national food system strategies must include clear governance expectations for all actors — including the private sector — with defined roles, minimum disclosure standards, and public registries for commitments and progress.

• Second, governments and UN agencies should formally recognize and support independent monitoring tools as complementary mechanisms, especially where regulatory infrastructure is weak or contested.

• Third, multi-stakeholder platforms must evolve from consultative spaces into decision-making bodies with safeguards against corporate capture and tokenism. This requires political will and funding structures that prioritize public interest, not just “inclusivity.”

Without these changes, the transformative potential of food systems governance will remain limited to discourse, and the burden of accountability will continue falling on those least empowered to enforce it.
Link to the final report 2023-2024: https://www.sciensano.be/sites/default/files/bia-obesity_report_2023-20…;

Structural barriers to translating shared values into action

Our experience: GFN agrees with the values and objectives outlined in national pathway documents across the 50+ countries where we operate. However, we've identified significant structural barriers that prevent translating these shared values into coordinated actions that enable food banks to effectively reduce hunger and reduce food loss and waste while achieving methane reduction.

Structural barriers:

• Lack of awareness among policymakers about the connection between food loss and waste, methane emissions, and nutrition, which represents a missed opportunity to increase access to food for vulnerable populations through food banks
• Insufficient support for civil society organizations such as food banks that are essential actors in transforming potential waste into food security
• Complex eligibility criteria for climate finance that often do not adequately recognize the methane reductions achieved through food waste prevention by food banks

Approaches to overcome obstacles:

• Implement GFN's FRAME methodology to provide standardized measurement of environmental and nutritional impact, demonstrating how food banks simultaneously address climate and social objectives
• Expand GFN's Global Food Donation Policy Atlas to help governments translate successful models into concrete reforms that support food banks
• Create formal channels for food banks participation in the design of funding programs that recognize both climate and social benefits

Making strategies more visible and actionable:

• Include specific regulatory elements such as liability protections, tax incentives, and date labeling reforms that GFN has proven essential for facilitating food banks to operate at scale
• Integrate food banks as strategic partners in national food systems strategies, recognizing their role in reducing food loss and waste while reducing hunger

Support for structured engagement strategies

GFN has developed a clear engagement strategy integrated into our four fundamental pillars, including accelerating food banks growth, strengthening innovation through standardized methodologies, expanding agricultural recovery, and promoting systemic changes by collaborating with governments on policies favorable to food donation. However, many of our member food banks face institutional capacity limitations and barriers to meaningful participation in national processes.

Support needed:

• Technical assistance programs where GFN can help countries develop regulatory frameworks that facilitate donation at scale for food banks
• Capacity building programs like GFN's Accelerator Program that helps early-stage food banks expand their impact in reducing food loss and waste
• Training on GFN's FRAME methodology to enable food banks to quantify their methane reduction contributions
• Establishment of multi-stakeholder dialogue platforms that explicitly integrate food banks into food and climate policy discussions

 Mechanisms for measurable commitments and monitoring

Our experience: GFN has established specific, time-bound and measurable commitments including increasing the volume of food recovered by reaching 1% of global food losses and waste through our global network by 2030, with emphasis on foods of high nutritional value. We monitor these commitments through GFN's Annual Network Survey, with results published in our Annual Impact Report.

Our specific commitments:

• Increase the proportion of nutritious foods recovered and redistributed by 20% to improve nutritional outcomes
• Increase implementation of standardized GHG emission reduction metrics through FRAME methodology, quantifying food banks contribution to methane reduction
• GFN's Agricultural Recovery Hub aims to increase food recovery from agriculture sector 10x by 2030
• Offer policy recommendations through the Global Atlas of Food Donation Policies

Mechanisms to strengthen commitment:

• Implement FRAME methodology as a standardized tool for food banks to measure and report methane reduction impacts
• Create formal integration of food banks in governance mechanisms and consultation processes
• Establish performance indicators that track both reducing hunger and reducing food loss and waste outcomes
• Develop monitoring systems that capture the multiple dimensions of food banks impact (environmental, social, economic)

 Scaling multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms

Our experience:GFN has successfully built strategic partnerships including participation in Champions 12.3 Coalition, CCAC's Waste Leadership Hub, Global Methane Hub, and Global Action Drive. Through these platforms, GFN has facilitated coordination between food banks, governments, private sector, and financial institutions to advance food systems transformation.

Successful coordination examples:

• GFN's work integrating food loss and waste reduction into Nationally Determined Contributions through the Global Action Drive
• Building strategic cooperation alliances where food banks demonstrate their role in reducing food loss and waste while achieving methane reduction
• Establishing knowledge-sharing mechanisms between countries with successful models of donation policies through GFN's Global Atlas

Scaling and institutionalizing mechanisms:

• Establish permanent thematic working groups focused specifically on food recovery and redistribution, with GFN and food banks as key stakeholders
• Create formal channels for food banks participation in funding program design that recognize their dual impact on reducing hunger and methane reduction
• Develop standardized impact metrics using FRAME methodology that adequately capture multiple dimensions of food banks contributions
• Facilitate exchanges between countries to enable direct learning between implementers of successful food waste prevention policies and food banks operations

Katharina Wecker, Policy Advisor Food Systems at Welthungerhilfe

Regarding Q2

Our CSO partners in Malawi have successfully pushed for clear engagement strategies so they can meaningfully contribute to food systems transformation. As a result, regional governments in Malawi have adopted and implemented an institutionalized Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) on public programs that address food and nutrition security. It's a wonderful example of how human rights-based governance can be promoted without necessarily needing large additional resources.

We would like to share our reflections from ATNi (Access to Nutrition initiative). ATNi is a global foundation actively challenging the food industry, investors and policymakers to shape healthier food systems. We analyse and translate data into actionable insights, driving finance, partnerships and innovations for market transformation so that all people have access to nutritious and sustainable food.

We would like to reflect on the guiding question 3 specifically the lack of “specific, time-bound commitments or monitoring tools for engaging in the implementation of the national pathways for food systems transformation or similar documents”. Multiple time in chapter 2, private sector actors highlighted the absence of structured channels for dialogue (pg. 22) or transparent mechanisms through which business actors can participate consistently in global and national dialogues (pg. 27) or a need for more inclusivity and representation in decision-making forums (Bayer pg. 30).

ATNi would like to respond by calling for clear engagement principles for private sector actors to engage in food systems dialogues, while ensuring that the engagement is fully transparent, and considers power imbalances and power asymmetries. ATNi has worked on actively in this space, including co-convening the Private Sector Working Group for the Nutrition for Growth Summit in Paris. ATNi believes in establishing overarching principles of engagement including clarity around purpose, transparency around the interest of all parties, accountability around engagement, weighing up of risks and benefits of engagement for all parties, as well as clear strategies for manging potential risks.  ATNi also suggests the need for external benchmarking, such ATNi’s Global Access to Nutrition Index, that can be used to evaluate company commitments and can inform decisions around engagement.

Another prominent theme emerging in chapter 2 was around the "mismatch between regional priorities and the goals of scientific or local stakeholders. A few respondents noted that regional bodies — particularly in the EU and ASEAN contexts — tend to prioritize economic and trade dimensions, often at the expense of sustainability, nutrition equity, or public health" (pg. 30). 

ATNi believes that the solution to this mismatch is to realign market incentives, creating better alignment between economic and trade dimensions with nutrition equity and public health. What does this look like in practice? Policies that tax less healthy foods (e.g. sugar sweetened beverage taxes) would support both public health and nutrition objectives and generate income for countries.  Regional blocks such as the EU, should bring in mandatory policies to support healthier food environments (e.g. front of packaging nutrition labels, using a government endorsed nutrient profile model, or universal bans on marketing of unhealthy foods to children) creating improved alignment between health and economic food system outcomes.

Another challenge we would like to reflect on is the issue raised among “civil society organizations, philanthropic actors, and research institutes around engagement with multinational corporations, which revealed a recurring pattern of limited access to decision-making processes, misalignment of values, and operational fragmentation…. Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Network warned against the aggressive marketing of breast-milk substitutes in low-resource settings, in violation of international norms" (pg 34).

ATNi would like to call for a need for accountability mechanisms to better monitor the actions of corporate actors. For example ATNi’s Breast-milk Substitutes (BMS) Index, which ranks 20 of the largest BMS companies representing 78% of the BMS market, is a key tool to ensure that companies are adhering to international best practices relating to the marketing of breastmilk substitutes.