he second UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake (UNFSS+4) begins on 27 July 2025. Co–hosted by Ethiopia and Italy, the event brings together heads of state, UN agencies, civil society, the private sector, youth, and Indigenous groups. The summit will assess progress made since the first summit in 2021 and the first stocktake in 2023. While there is tremendous potential for collaboration and further improvement, the success of this summit may be hindered by a lack of financing, worsening global crises, and a previous inability to make progress.
Context
Global food systems are under severe strain. In 2023, an estimated 733 million people remain undernourished. Billions more cannot afford healthy diets as the climate crisis, geopolitical conflict, market disruptions, and inflation continue to drive up the prices of staple crops. Currently, food systems contribute more than one–third of global greenhouse gas emissions, account for around 70% of global freshwater use, and lead to substantial biodiversity loss. The UNFSS was established to develop coordination to address these concerns on a global scale. Yet little progress has been made in the four years since the first summit for many of the same reasons driving the food crisis. The UNFSS+4 plans to place food system transformation and resilience at the center of the Sustainable Development Goals, but is that enough to spark global action?
What’s on the agenda
Heading into the second UNFSS, here’s what to expect:
The UNFSS+4 highlights three objectives for the summit. The first objective calls for participants at the summit to analyze and address the progress made toward building more resilient and sustainable food systems since 2021. The second objective looks to strengthen global engagement in transforming food systems, while also increasing accountability among private and public sectors. The third objective aims to foster sustainable investments in these transformations.
Financing will make or break progress. In late March, the UN Secretary–General named financial commitments as the most crucial goal for the upcoming summit. In 2022, the amount of public climate financing allocated to food systems transformation was around 3%. This year—at a time when financing has gone up across most sectors—finance for food systems transformation has dropped, and now stands at 2.5% of public climate finance allocation. Experts have touted the agriculture sector’s potential for private investors among climate finance, but it is unlikely the private sector can make up finance gaps without increased public spending as well.
The summit demands transparency. In preparation for the summit, 109 member states submitted national stocktaking reports. These reports will be used to candidly assess the progress made by member states since 2021 and determine achievable objectives for progress.
The UNFSS+4 will bridge many global gatherings. With only five years until 2030, the international community is off track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN lists transforming food systems as one of six “priority areas” for achieving the outlined goals, as food systems are directly connected to climate change, global poverty, health, and trade. Making progress toward food system transformation would have a positive impact on the world at large and potentially increase the global GDP by as much as $10 trillion. However, due to the significant impact that food systems have on the world at large, failing to achieve meaningful and lasting cooperation at the summit could prevent us from reaching the SDGs by 2030.
What they’re saying
- Given the global context riddled with challenges of rising living costs, social inequalities, climate change and geopolitical tensions, we will need all hands on deck to reach food systems transformations with the impact to advance on the 2030 Agenda. UN Deputy Secretary–General Amina Mohammed.
- The United Nation food systems summit, from the beginning, was really not inclusive of the peasants’ voices. And if they’re going to talk about the food systems, on behalf of whom? Because the people who are on the ground, who are really working on producing the food should be involved in the planning. Before they even organized this summit, they should have made some consultations and this was not done. Elizabeth Mpofu the General Coordinator of La Via Campesina in response to the 2021 UNFSS.
- Just as our environment, peoples, and food systems are profoundly interwoven and mutually sustaining, so must our response be, for the sake of our and future generations. Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Fiji Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama in response to the 2021 UNFSS.
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UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake may decide fate of SDGs
Image courtesy of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center via Flickr. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
July 26, 2025
The UN is set to convene its second stocktake of progress toward more resilient food systems. Those systems, under severe strain, must be transformed or we cannot achieve the SDGs. Diplomatic Courier’s Stephanie Gull breaks down what to expect at the gathering.
T
he second UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake (UNFSS+4) begins on 27 July 2025. Co–hosted by Ethiopia and Italy, the event brings together heads of state, UN agencies, civil society, the private sector, youth, and Indigenous groups. The summit will assess progress made since the first summit in 2021 and the first stocktake in 2023. While there is tremendous potential for collaboration and further improvement, the success of this summit may be hindered by a lack of financing, worsening global crises, and a previous inability to make progress.
Context
Global food systems are under severe strain. In 2023, an estimated 733 million people remain undernourished. Billions more cannot afford healthy diets as the climate crisis, geopolitical conflict, market disruptions, and inflation continue to drive up the prices of staple crops. Currently, food systems contribute more than one–third of global greenhouse gas emissions, account for around 70% of global freshwater use, and lead to substantial biodiversity loss. The UNFSS was established to develop coordination to address these concerns on a global scale. Yet little progress has been made in the four years since the first summit for many of the same reasons driving the food crisis. The UNFSS+4 plans to place food system transformation and resilience at the center of the Sustainable Development Goals, but is that enough to spark global action?
What’s on the agenda
Heading into the second UNFSS, here’s what to expect:
The UNFSS+4 highlights three objectives for the summit. The first objective calls for participants at the summit to analyze and address the progress made toward building more resilient and sustainable food systems since 2021. The second objective looks to strengthen global engagement in transforming food systems, while also increasing accountability among private and public sectors. The third objective aims to foster sustainable investments in these transformations.
Financing will make or break progress. In late March, the UN Secretary–General named financial commitments as the most crucial goal for the upcoming summit. In 2022, the amount of public climate financing allocated to food systems transformation was around 3%. This year—at a time when financing has gone up across most sectors—finance for food systems transformation has dropped, and now stands at 2.5% of public climate finance allocation. Experts have touted the agriculture sector’s potential for private investors among climate finance, but it is unlikely the private sector can make up finance gaps without increased public spending as well.
The summit demands transparency. In preparation for the summit, 109 member states submitted national stocktaking reports. These reports will be used to candidly assess the progress made by member states since 2021 and determine achievable objectives for progress.
The UNFSS+4 will bridge many global gatherings. With only five years until 2030, the international community is off track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN lists transforming food systems as one of six “priority areas” for achieving the outlined goals, as food systems are directly connected to climate change, global poverty, health, and trade. Making progress toward food system transformation would have a positive impact on the world at large and potentially increase the global GDP by as much as $10 trillion. However, due to the significant impact that food systems have on the world at large, failing to achieve meaningful and lasting cooperation at the summit could prevent us from reaching the SDGs by 2030.
What they’re saying
- Given the global context riddled with challenges of rising living costs, social inequalities, climate change and geopolitical tensions, we will need all hands on deck to reach food systems transformations with the impact to advance on the 2030 Agenda. UN Deputy Secretary–General Amina Mohammed.
- The United Nation food systems summit, from the beginning, was really not inclusive of the peasants’ voices. And if they’re going to talk about the food systems, on behalf of whom? Because the people who are on the ground, who are really working on producing the food should be involved in the planning. Before they even organized this summit, they should have made some consultations and this was not done. Elizabeth Mpofu the General Coordinator of La Via Campesina in response to the 2021 UNFSS.
- Just as our environment, peoples, and food systems are profoundly interwoven and mutually sustaining, so must our response be, for the sake of our and future generations. Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Fiji Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama in response to the 2021 UNFSS.
