A new initiative to join together three food pavilions at the UN climate summit, COP29, into one Action On Food hub, to represent the whole food systems community, has been launched at the Bonn Climate Conference this month.
Last year at COP28, the Food Systems Pavilion, Food4Climate Pavilion and Future Economy Forum Pavilion all ran separate activities and thematic programmes.
This year, in order to further increase collaboration and provide more opportunities for the food community to engage with the international climate negotiations, the three pavilions will be joining forces and will operate within one pavilion space, the Action on Food Hub.
Importantly, it will create an inclusive space for dialogs, collaboration and partnerships with stakeholders from across the entire food system, and actively elevate the voice of marginalized communities.
The Action on Food Hub will be divided into three main areas: a plenary space (managed by the Food Systems Partnership), a roundtable space (managed by the Future Economy Forum) and a policy zone (managed by the Food4Climate pavilionCommunity).
Juilette Tronchon, Head of UN Affairs at ProVeg International, said: “Policy engagement is incredibly important at COP, and with the creation of the new Policy Zone within the Action on Food Hub, we will be able to concentrate more effort on providing evidence-based resources about the role of food systems in climate adaptation and mitigation to negotiating parties, as well as ensuring the food community at COP can better follow and support these important negotiations.”
Merijn Dols, Co-founder of the Future Economy Forum, said: “At COP26 and COP27 we proved that facilitating deep dialogs between key decision makers can be incredibly powerful in scaling agrifood solutions. Being part of the Action on Food Hub means we can actively work with the community to help identify and work through the challenges we are currently facing in the transition to a more regenerative food system.”
Dr. Lucy Wallace, Director of Global Engagement, EIT Food, the secretariat of the Food Systems Partnership said: “Food systems provide us with a key opportunity to have a real impact on climate change. The Action On Food Hub provides us with an excellent opportunity to build on the work we have all done over the last two COPs to elevate the role of food and food systems within the international climate negotiations at a time when creating multi stakeholder spaces in which to problem solve and share solutions is becoming increasingly urgent.”
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About ProVeg International
ProVeg International is a food awareness organization with the mission to replace 50% of animal products globally with plant-based and cultivated foods by 2040. Our vision is a world where everyone chooses delicious and healthy food that is good for all humans, animals, and our planet.
Future Economy Forum
The Future Economy Forum is a global platform for action towards a new economic mainstream that integrates economic development and business success with the regeneration of people and planet, to address humanity’s most pressing challenges and opportunities.
EIT Food
The Food Systems Pavilion is an activity of the Food Systems Partnership, of which EIT Food is the secretariat. EIT Food is the world’s largest and most dynamic food innovation community. We accelerate innovation to build a future-fit food system that produces healthy and sustainable food for all.
Call open for expressions of interest for thematic programming
We are now accepting expressions of interest from multistakeholder consortia for programmatic themes for the plenary and roundtable spaces in the Action on Food hub. We are committed to inclusive dialog and so will prioritize applications from multistakeholder consortia which are balanced and that actively involve actors from the global south, farming and youth communities in the development and delivery of the program.
Applications for programmatic themes will be available as a package or as individual sessions. To reduce the financial cost of programming for each organization, it is envisioned that the costs will be shared amongst the consortia members.
Expressions of interest should be submitted here before 5 July 2024. The Action on Food hub team will then be in touch to help consortia develop their applications.
The closing date for applications following the expression of interest will be 4 August 2024 and we are planning to notify successful consortia before the end of August 2024.
Programming and sponsorship costs
In order to pay for the space for the Action on Food hub, we are currently fundraising. EIT Food, ProVeg International and Future Economy Forum are donating their time to convene and resource the space. The Action on Food hub is open to the whole food community at COP, and we do not want price to be a barrier to participation, and we hope that the requirement of multi-stakeholder consortia will enable organizations to share costs.
Thematic programming package: includes 5 plenary and 2 roundtable sessions = 80k USD
Thematic programming individual sessions: in the plenary space = 10k USD/hr
Thematic programming individual sessions: in the roundtable space = 15k USD/1.5hr
We are also looking for high level sponsorship from foundations, funding bodies and NGOs, so please contact us if you would like to support this initiative.
For further information about the Action on Food hub, please contact the secretatriat of the Food Systems Pavilion at [email protected]
