Dutch stakeholders interested to walk the talk in food systems transformation

Report of Food First Vijverberg session "Walking the talk: the global and Dutch response to Africa’s food systems challenges"

UN Food Systems Hub Coordinator Stefanos Fotiou clearly sees a role for the Netherlands to help make the case of what successful food systems transformation means, and inspire other countries. 

Participants showed interest to contribute to the 'ecosystem of support' , amongst others contributing to the successful implementation of the national pathways of African countries. This converged around three issues: 

* learning from transformation efforts in other sectors, 

* fostering local solutions, and 

* being a partner in multi stakeholder collaboration.

Lia van Weesenbeeck, director of the Amsterdam Centre for World Food Studies, concluded:

The next step is to connect to the national pathways, collaborate with the national food systems convenors, and to connect to the local ambitions, actions and agents for change. Important success factors highlighted in this discussion are having a clear long-term vision, collaborating with various stakeholders, and being aware of the resistance in the multilateral reality. 

Both in international collaboration, and in the Netherlands, there is plenty of opportunity to start walking the talk!

Thanks to Food First, Stefanos Fotiou, Marcel Beukeboom, Lia van Weesenbeeck, and all participants, on behalf of Netherlands Food Partnership which supported the organisation of this event.