In a recent comment for Nature Food, Agnes Kalibata and David Nabarro highlight the transformative potential of structured dialogues for advancing sustainable food systems.
The comment, Food systems transformation through dialogues, discusses the outcome of over 1,600 dialogues leading up to the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS). These dialogues brought together government leaders, community representatives, and stakeholders including producers, youth, women, and indigenous groups. They hoped to tackle the complex challenges in food systems and create inclusive strategies that align with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Launched in 2020 by the United Nations, the Food Systems Summit Dialogues aim to empower diverse voices in shaping food systems that benefit people and the planet. This open, reflective model created space for participants to share insights and contribute to a collective vision for transformation. By the UNFSS in September 2021, more than 110 national conveners had organized dialogues in their respective countries, involving approximately 110,000 participants globally.
While UNFSS dialogues aimed to create an inclusive and collaborative platform, civil society groups such as La Via Campesina—a global organization representing small-scale food producers—chose to boycott the summit, citing concerns about the process and its alignment with corporate interests.
La Via Campesina and other critics argued that the summit disproportionately favored agribusiness stakeholders and excluded the voices of small-scale producers and indigenous communities, who play a crucial role in feeding the world.
Although the event faced criticism from, Kalibata and Nabarro highlight the ways in which food systems dialogues can provide a platform for fostering collaboration and trust, even among groups with differing perspectives. “Even if people have radical disagreements, if they come together in a space where they are respected, and where everybody is given a chance to speak… they will form a coherent whole,” Nabarro tells Food Tank. “The sense of trust and inclusion is so powerful that it can overcome the differences in position that people have.”
The dialogues provided a space for participants to explore solutions collaboratively rather than being presented with prescriptive approaches. “Whenever you’ve got different perspectives on any issue, dialogues are much more useful than somebody coming along… and saying, ‘I’m the scientist, I know the truth, and you need to change,’” Nabarro explains.
Conveners worked alongside United Nations officials and local organizations to guide inclusive discussions and compile insights into actionable strategies. Outcomes were shared transparently through the Summit Dialogues Gateway, an online platform that enabled global knowledge exchange.
One of the key outcomes of the dialogues was the creation of “national pathways”—action plans tailored to each country’s unique challenges, goals, and contexts. These pathways aim to guide national and local efforts in transforming food systems, serving as blueprints for the future. Each pathway typically references existing strategies while integrating new insights from the dialogues to address issues such as food security, climate resilience, nutrition, and equitable livelihoods.
Nabarro highlights the importance of these pathways as evolving tools: “No pathway about systems transformation is going to stay relevant for very long… so we said, let’s make absolutely certain these are living documents.”
He adds that when pathways are developed through inclusive dialogue, participants feel a connection to the outcomes. “The energy in the dialogues was fantastic. And when a dialogue led to a course of action, and this was written down… the people who had been in the dialogue had a really strong sense of ownership of that pathway.”
Kalibata and Nabarro note that the pathway development process has inspired many countries to continue organizing dialogues post-summit. As a result, new voices are being heard, from smallholder farmers to indigenous communities and young leaders.
“The great thing about dialogues, when they’re done skillfully, is they do offer inclusion,” Nabarro says. “People who are not normally included in the policy process can find their ideas listened to, and so we actually believe that dialogue-based working is key for most of the issues in the SDGs.”
As global challenges grow increasingly complex, food systems dialogues offer a tool for building trust, aligning priorities, and driving collaborative action. Kalibata and Nabarro view this model as essential for advancing the SDGs and tackling urgent issues in food systems transformation.
“Thinking about how to get good food to as many people as possible without harming the planet by 2030 is a very tough question,” Nabarro says. “But a dialogue can help bring the stakeholders together into one place, and on a complex issue like food, in our view, it’s a particularly valuable thing to do.”
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Photo courtesy of Markus Spiske, Unsplash
