Food systems
To ensure food security, livelihoods and environmental sustainability, a systemic approach is necessary for the development of sustainable, resilient, healthy, just and inclusive food systems. Read more, including some key resources and latest news.
Context
The improvement of beneficiaries’ food security status has been a mainstay of Swiss international cooperation since its inception. Initially, there was an almost exclusive focus on farm practice. Inevitably, over time a far broader approach developed, which entailed a growing range of increasingly differentiated instruments. This was due to the fact that food insecurity is not simply a monothematic issue, but the result of a broad range of challenges which are intricately linked to one another and must be addressed simultaneously.
Gradually, this trajectory led to a systemic understanding of how food is sourced, processed, stored, distributed and consumed, and how consumption is linked to production and vice versa. Any food system must be understood in its institutional, environmental, political and social setting if its outcomes are to be improved.
With this understanding, fighting hunger and promoting food security is a core tenant of SDCs international engagement. It is understood as a multidimensional undertaking with a range of thematic links, as the following links illustrate.
- Establishing food security means improving nutrition beyond just securing a certain calorie-intake. Diets must be varied to be healthy; “nourishing the world” is as important as “feeding the world”. SDC therefore supports a range of nutritional programmes.
- Fighting hunger in the long-term means respecting planetary boundaries and appreciating the long-term effects that food systems may have on the environment. Working to reduce the carbon footprint is important, as is protecting the quality of natural resources such as water and soils, or conserving the Earth’s genetic resources through natural spaces for biodiversity. These concerns emerge in SDC’s particular focus on the promotion of agroecology.
- Managing food systems cannot happen without the understanding that they employ more than one quarter of the world’s labour force and represent the livelihood base for hundreds of millions of people. This economic and social dimension must be developed inclusively, by respecting and fostering the important role of women across food systems, and by building opportunities for young people to prosper in activities related to food, as it is they who will be feeding the planet in the future. Restoring rights and agency for these groups is an important route to innovation and better food systems outcomes. Also, the eminent role of the private sector as a vehicle for prosperity and social wellbeing must be recognised, with appropriate measures put in place to bolster initiative and to steer economic activity to good long-term outcomes for all. In pursuit of this, SDC is invests in responsible rural development in partnership with private sector actors and capital sources.
To find out more, look at our Food systems chapter within our Knowledge Hub.
Key Resources
Food systems learning guide
SDC A&FS Network
How to: Food systems
Knowledge Hub, SDC A&FS Network
Thematic Integration Brief: Food systems & Governance
Knowledge Hub, SDC A&FS Network
Building resilient food systems
HLPE, 2025
UN Food Systems Coordination Hub
Tools that can be used to strengthen policy decision making processes and food systems around the world:
- Food Systems Countdown monitoring framework - with a set of tracking indicators broken down into 5 thematic areas
- Food Systems Dashboard - providing food systems data for close to 300 indicators coming from over 40 sources, globally and for country diagnostics to identify successes and challenges
- Diet Quality Questionnaire - standardized tool that was developed to facilitate the understanding of what people eat, completed in 5 mn, can be country-adapted
- Diagnosing Food Systems Policy Coherence: Diagnostic Tool - practical methodology to assess food systems policy coherence, and providing actionable recommendations for enhancing it
- Initiative on Climate Action and Nutrition (I-CAN) - assessing climate-nutrition coherence in policies, financing, and programming
- Political Economy Decision Toolkit - to help stakeholders anticipate policy bottlenecks to food systems transformation
