
Food, Nature and Health Transitions − Repeatable Country Models
In collaboration with Bain & Company
Worldwide, nearly 2 billion people lack access to sufficient, nutritious and safe food and 690 million people suffer from chronic hunger or lack of proper nutrition. Current food system needs to produce much more food, whilst already now planetary boundaries are being crossed. The Food Innovation Hubs initiative catalyzed by the World Economic Forum with public, private and civil society partners is a call to action for a locally driven program, enabling innovations to sustainably improve the way we produce and consume food, through an eco-systems approach.
Our food systems must become more sustainable, efficient, inclusive, and deliver more nutritious and healthy food. Innovations that can help transform our food systems are often already out there. Unfortunately, the adoption and scale-up of innovations in the agri-food sector lags behind other sectors. Collaboration between the different stakeholders, who are working from ‘farm to fork’ is key.
That is why World Economic Forum and partners have initiated Food Innovation Hubs across the globe. Food Innovation Hubs are a multistakeholder, precompetitive and market-based partnership platform aimed at strengthening local innovation ecosystems to sustainably scale innovative solutions for food systems transformation.
Locally driven – Globally supported
Food Innovation Hubs are the next phase of the World Economic Forum’s Innovation with a purpose platform and a flagship initiative of the Forum’s Food Action Alliance. The Food Innovation Hubs are founded by partners from governments, private sector, innovators, entrepreneurs, farmer organizations, civil society, international organizations and others.
The Hubs are designed locally to address the needs of the local food system to:
Guiding principles
The Food Innovation Hubs are partnership platforms that connect across various ecosystem actors to foster partnerships and networks that unlocks investments, stimulates innovation and collectively works to de-bottleneck barriers. Hubs focus on primarily state national or regional level opportunities and are guided by the following principles:
Global structure of Food Innovation Hubs
A growing set of global players from private and public sector drive and support this exciting initiative. The Food Innovation Hubs are supported by a Global Coordinating Secretariat (GCS) hosted by World Economic Forum, based in Wageningen, The Netherlands. The GCS enables the founding of local hubs, supports their functioning, stimulates adoption of innovation and creates a global network and learning environment. The first Food Innovation Hubs are being developed in Colombia, India and Europe. In addition scoping work is underway in the several countries in Africa (Zambia/Kenya/Ethiopia) and Vietnam. Each hub will be locally owned and governed.
In collaboration with Bain & Company
This report outlines four pathways for creating the right incentives to transform food systems. The report highlights key barriers along each of these pathways and proposes a menu of solu...
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