FAO's Hand-in-Hand Investment Forum drives agricultural transformation with over USD 15 billion sought in agrifood investment proposals

18.11.2024

The third and largest edition of the Hand-in-Hand (HIH) Investment Forum took place from 15 to 17 October 2024 at FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy. The event attracted high-ranking government officials from 29 HIH member countries and five Regional Initiatives, who presented 115 agrifood investment cases to investors, multilateral development banks, foundations, impact funds, and donors.

These government-led agrifood investment projects, totalling more than USD 15 billion, are fully aligned with national policies and are backed by studies on their economic potential and environmental outcomes. Aimed at benefiting over 120 million people, these investments target critical areas such as poverty reduction, food security, and climate resilience, contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals 1, 2 and 10.

The HIH Initiative, launched in 2019, supports countries to transform agrifood systems by reducing poverty, hunger and malnutrition, and inequalities. With a territorial approach and 75 countries participating as of November 2024, the Initiative leverages geospatial mapping, data analysis, and partnerships to improve incomes, nutrition, and climate resilience among vulnerable populations.

A platform for sustainable growth

The HIH Investment Forum provides a unique global platform for HIH members to present their prioritized agrifood investment opportunities to an audience of potential agrifood investors.

This year’s Forum showcased high-impact investment areas including dairy, coffee, cocoa, avocado, banana, aquaculture, animal feed, fisheries, and agro-industrialization with a focus on infrastructure development. Comprehensive investment plans outlined each country and region's key investment bottlenecks and required investment resources to address them. These plans also detailed risk mitigation measures, returns on investments and anticipated impacts on beneficiary income. Additionally, many plans included carbon accounting per investment case.

Carlos Gimenez, Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of the Republic of Paraguay, explained his country's key priority: “As an exporter in the dairy sector, this area is vital for us due to our existing capacity and the industry’s demand for more raw milk.” He continued, “Rather than increasing the dairy cow population, we aim to focus on genetic improvement to boost productivity while maintaining Paraguay’s commitment to environmental sustainability.”

Hon. Jonathan Mueke, Principal Secretary of the State Department for Livestock in Kenya, highlighted how FAO assisted with their targeted investments area: “Our demand for animal feed is currently about 55 million metric tons, and the HIH Initiative has really helped us to be able to think through a strategy on how we can reduce this deficit to about 15.5 million metric tonnes.”

Principal Secretary of the State Department for Livestock, Hon. Jonathan Mueke presenting Kenya's investment cases

Similarly, Vanessa Grazziotin, Executive Director of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), and representative of the newly launched Regional Initiative on Amazonia, emphasized the country-led nature of the HIH Initiative, “It’s important to note that ACTO and FAO play a facilitating role, but the eight countries are the ones developing the projects, fostering cooperation, and ensuring sustainable development in the region.”

Presentation of the Regional Initiative on the Amazonia.

A matchmaking approach

This year, the Forum’s commitment to partnership-building and matchmaking brought in representatives from prominent banks, donors, and private sector entities, including the African Development Bank Group, the World Bank , the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, the Rockefeller Foundation, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Peaceinvest, PepsiCo, and Danone, among others.

When asked about his experience attending the Forum for the first time, Emmanuel Marchant, Senior Vice-President Sustainability, Partnerships and GM Danone Ecosystem at Danone, remarked “I've been very impressed by the diversity of people and I believe this is what creates the opportunity because in the same room you have many different public, private, and philanthropic stakeholders that can together make an impact on agriculture, on agrifood business that needs so much transformation at this point of time.”

He further noted, “I've been very inspired by what I heard and by the people I've met today. This gave me a lot of hope that there seems to be quite a strong alignment on what needs to be done and that it is required to work more together in partnership to make it happen”.

Tania Strauss, Head, Food and Water at the World Economic Forum commented on the private sector’s critical role in advancing agrifood systems transformation: “As we think about the wider private sector, they offer a number of ways to partner. They can bring the capabilities around knowledge and expertise around innovation. They can also bring the ability to use blended capital approaches to leverage catalytic financing for large-scale investment, as well as the operating models around partnerships.”

Tania Strauss, Head, Food and Water at the World Economic Forum at the Hand-in-Hand Investment Forum Opening.

Three days of networking and collaboration

The 3-day forum featured 34 presentations, a high-level panel on '"Financing agrifood systems for good food for all, today and tomorrow", over 600 requested matchmaking bilateral meetings, and a dynamic HIH exhibition. The exhibition showcased the initiative’s innovative Geospatial Platform, the Environmental eXternalities ACcounting Tool (EX-ACT), as well as the use of Virtual Reality and emerging work on Artificial Intelligence in HIH.

FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, at the Hand-in-Hand exhibition.

This year's innovation, the Investors Networking Lounge, provided a dedicated space for fostering collaborations between governments, investors, and the private sector. Over 280 people used this space for direct engagements on investments.

Investors Networking Lounge

Reflecting on the Forum’s benefits for the private sector, Donata Garrasi, Vice-President and Head of Peacebuilding and Multilateral Engagement at Peaceinvest, noted, “What we're getting here is access to people who are thinking alike, access to different sources of ideas, of potential investment and loads of human capital, that is generating new ideas that we can transform into impactful investments. For us, it's the perfect place to be if we want to do something new and innovative in this field.”

A vision for the future

Looking ahead, Nepal’s Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development, Hon. Ram Nath Adhikari, shared his expectations following the Forum, “We are confident that with the conclusion of this forum, FAO will provide valuable support to the Government of Nepal in advancing these initiatives. We firmly believe that through collaborative efforts, we can make a tangible difference, and with this optimism, we continue to move forward.”

Mr. Gerald Mweli, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture in the United Republic of Tanzania, presenting his country's investment cases.

The HIH Investment Forum in Rome has established itself as a global meeting point for advancing agrifood investments, enabling matchmaking between governments and investors and facilitating strategic investments and partnerships, including collaborative approaches to risk-sharing in agrifood investments.

The event is set to accelerate agrifood systems transformation as a key driver of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, promoting inclusive growth and a more prosperous future for communities worldwide, ensuring good food for all, for today and tomorrow.