Resource
This storytelling series features six case studies of fisher communities organizing for justice and food sovereignty across land and water. These stories surface strategies of resistance, resilience, and survival in the face of systemic injustice and extractive economies. We begin with two stories from Uganda and South Africa.
We are a strategic alliance of philanthropic foundations working together and with partners to transform food systems.
Transforming Food Systems
Photo credit: Marcel Crozet
The Global Alliance for the Future of Food was founded in 2012 with the aim of transforming food systems now and for future generations. Decisions about what food is grown and how it is produced, processed, marketed, distributed, and consumed have a huge impact on our health, well-being, the climate, biodiversity, and human rights. In recent decades, profound changes in global food systems have led to increasing threats to a sustainable, equitable, and secure future for people and the planet.
We believe that genuine food systems transformation takes place when diverse people, networks, and actions come together from the local to the global. Transforming food systems requires bold, urgent action and a holistic approach. Because of the complexity of food and agriculture issues, we believe in the importance of taking a systems approach that is locally grounded. This means looking at each part of the food system, its interconnections, and catalyzing action with the whole in mind. Through the years, the Global Alliance has witnessed the power of partnerships to achieve this positive change.
Photo credit: Preston Keres, USDA
The Global Alliance comprises more than two dozen philanthropic foundations committed to transforming food systems.
Guided by our seven foundational principles, we bring together the power, knowledge, and passion of our members and partners around the world to push for food systems that work for people and the planet. Our priorities address the climate crisis, health, equity and rights, and food sovereignty.
Note: While we are an alliance of funders, the Global Alliance itself is not a grantmaking institution.
Facing interconnected crises, the imperative to transform our food systems is clear. The next few years are critical. We have identified four high-impact strategic priorities that we are advancing with our members, partners, and allies.
A local indigenous Quichua community harvesting potatoes on their cooperative farm on the outskirts of Riobamba, Chimborazo province, Ecuador. Photo credit: Murray Cooper
As a strategic alliance of philanthropic foundations, we leverage our resources and networks to shift food and agriculture systems toward greater sustainability, security, and equity. We believe in the urgency of transforming global food systems, and in the power of working together and with others to effect positive change.
Our vision is of healthy, equitable, renewable, resilient, inclusive, and culturally diverse food systems shaped by people, communities, and their institutions. We share a commitment to bold action and challenging the status quo while identifying positive alternatives.
Our History
Inspired by HRH The Prince of Wales’ speech “On The Future of Food: A Call to Action,” thirty foundations convene. The Global Alliance is formed to drive collaborative, systemic change in food systems.
Philanthropic leaders meet in Louisville, Kentucky, reframing “externalities” as true costs—launching a strategic focus on True Cost Accounting.
Members adopt six core principles to address the harms of the industrial food system. The principle of inclusion is added in 2020.
Members gather for the first International Dialogue in Milan, Italy, to explore action toward sustainable, secure, and equitable food and agriculture systems with funders.
A global convening helps shape a shared narrative and identify opportunities for action on equitable, sustainable meat systems.
We expand our approach by incorporating Principles-Focused and Blue Marble Evaluation, aligning impact assessment with systems change.
We publish the TEEBAgriFood Scientific and Economic Foundations report, linking food systems to biodiversity, health, and ecosystem services.
We publish the first Beacons of Hope series and launch Stories of Transformation, spotlighting food systems change around the world.
We introduce Allied Initiatives—funder-led, time-bound projects aligned with our principles for rapid, high-impact systems change.
We release our Theory of Transformation, offering a bold framework for addressing the systemic root causes of food systems issues.
We publish a landmark report examining the evidence gap and narrative challenges facing agroecology and Indigenous foodways.
We welcome Anna Lappé as our second Executive Director, bringing renewed leadership and vision.
We release Power Shift: Why we need to wean industrial food systems off fossil fuels, exposing the food system’s fossil fuel dependency and offering renewable solutions.
Global Alliance convening in Arusha, Tanzania, brings together 120+ agroecology and food systems stakeholders. Our report, Cultivating Change: A Collaborative Philanthropic Initiative to Accelerate and Scale Agroecology and Regenerative Approaches, outlines philanthropic strategies to accelerate regenerative transitions globally.
This report, Boosting Biodiversity Action Through Agroecology: Guidance for Developing and Updating National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, launched at COP16 in Colombia, offers guidance on how agroecology can be integrated into National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs).
Guided by our seven principles and Calls to Action, we focus on the following three strategies:
Photo credit: Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), Beacons of Hope
Bringing People Together to Create Shared Strategies—We connect diverse groups, bringing funders together with grassroots movements, policymakers, farmers and fishers, private-sector actors, researchers, and others for collective thinking, relationship building, and shared strategizing. Explore our convenings and events.
Traditional Indigenous Amazonian food on the barbecue. Photo credit: Murray Cooper
Generating and Amplifying Knowledge and Evidence—We collaborate with members and partners on research to inform opportunities for joint action. Our publications add to the evidence for food systems transformation, provide powerful stories of possibility, and generate practical resources and tools—available for anyone to use. Explore our publications.
Photo credit: Shibasish Saha, India
Building Strategic Collaborations—We join forces on specific, cross-cutting action at the local, national, and global levels, responsive to communities and unique place-based contexts. Strategies include policy change, reforms to governance and financial flows, movement building, and creating momentum for inspiring visions of what’s possible. Explore our collaborations.
Our seven guiding principles shape our vision and drive the systemic change we want to make together.
They help us see the whole food system in new ways, while ensuring we avoid siloed interventions, unintended consequences, and false solutions.
Ensure the integrity of natural and social resources at the foundation of healthy people and the planet.
Our food systems must be renewable so that the natural and social systems that we rely on and that have regenerated over millennia continue to do so. This means that food is produced, processed, and consumed in adequate quality and quantity while protecting both food cultures, traditions, and practices, as well as protecting the intrinsic value and integrity of natural resources including land, soils, water, seas, biodiversity and seeds, livestock, pollinators, and other natural resources through preservation, conservation, restoration, regulation, and responsible management and use.
Support regenerative, durable, and economically adaptive systems.
Our food systems must be resilient so that they can both mitigate and adapt to a changing climate and planet—especially in light of extreme weather, economic shocks, and social disruption. This means that food is produced, processed, and consumed in adequate quality and quantity as part of a stable and sustainable system, not contributing to increasing climate challenges. Through intensifying soil microbial activity, restoring soil and water quality, increasing soil fertility, reducing dependency on fossil fuel through sustainable use of locally available resources, protecting agricultural biodiversity, and more, resilient food systems open up more climate adaptation and mitigation opportunities. Our food systems must also nurture resilient human systems and social capital, keeping alive values, traditions, and experiences that help us adapt.
Promote sustainable livelihoods and access to nutritious and just food systems for all.
Our food systems must be equitable so that no one is left behind and so that those upon whom our food systems depend—especially Indigenous people, women, and smallholder farmers and fishers—have the ability to achieve a decent livelihood and food security. This means that we must work to: eliminate poverty; ensure our food systems continue to provide for the over 3 billion smallholder farmers and fishers in need of fair employment; and ensure local communities’ control over the means of production, such as access to land and water rights, production subsidies, capital, and control over their own spiritual and material relationships to their waters, lands, and nature.
Value our rich and diverse agricultural, ecological, and cultural heritage.
Our food systems must be diverse so that we protect and conserve the rich agricultural biodiversity of fishing grounds, forests, water bodies, pastoral lands, migratory routes, and plant and animal genetic resources and medicines, including aquatic organisms, crops, seeds, livestock breeds, and their wild relatives. As well, it means not just protecting and conserving agricultural biodiversity but also upholding diversity in healthy diets, markets, technology, and local knowledge processes, traditions, and cultural heritage – all as pathways conducive to resilience and better farmer and fisher livelihoods, consumer well-being and health, and environmental protection.
Advance the health and well-being of people, animals, the environment, and the societies that depend on all three.
Our food systems must deliver health for all–human health, animal health, environmental health, and community health. This means that all forms of malnutrition are eliminated through access to safe, nutritious, diverse, and affordable food now and for future generations. It means ensuring that every actor in the food system—from production to processing to consumption—is protected from food production-related occupational hazards and environmental contamination, such as air and water pollution, and toxic pesticides. As well, it means nurturing food’s role in providing social, familial, and cultural meaning.
Ensure meaningful and authentic engagement of diverse people and organizations in transparent deliberations, shared power, democratic decisions, and collective actions affecting food systems for the public good.
Our food systems must be inclusive of all those who produce, process, and consume food in rural and urban areas, in poor and wealthy countries. This means that global governance is built on democratic principles, shared power, and inclusive participation, that decision-making is democratic, including the participation of food producers and constituencies most affected by hunger and malnutrition, and that in deliberations concerning the future of food, diverse people and organizations are engaged in transparent and authentic ways.
Understand the implications of the interdependence of food, people, and the planet in a transition to more sustainable food systems.
Our food systems must be interconnected. We must understand the interdependencies within the system, recognizing the complex web of dynamics and interactions between parts of the system. It means watching for, making sense of, and interpreting the implications of things that are interconnected in the global system. We must think beyond nation-states, sector siloes, and narrowly identified issues and see the interconnections between the global and local, the macro and the micro, and the relationships between worldwide patterns and area-specific challenges.
Ensure the integrity of natural and social resources at the foundation of healthy people and the planet.
Our food systems must be renewable so that the natural and social systems that we rely on and that have regenerated over millennia continue to do so. This means that food is produced, processed, and consumed in adequate quality and quantity while protecting both food cultures, traditions, and practices, as well as protecting the intrinsic value and integrity of natural resources including land, soils, water, seas, biodiversity and seeds, livestock, pollinators, and other natural resources through preservation, conservation, restoration, regulation, and responsible management and use.
Support regenerative, durable, and economically adaptive systems.
Our food systems must be resilient so that they can both mitigate and adapt to a changing climate and planet—especially in light of extreme weather, economic shocks, and social disruption. This means that food is produced, processed, and consumed in adequate quality and quantity as part of a stable and sustainable system, not contributing to increasing climate challenges. Through intensifying soil microbial activity, restoring soil and water quality, increasing soil fertility, reducing dependency on fossil fuel through sustainable use of locally available resources, protecting agricultural biodiversity, and more, resilient food systems open up more climate adaptation and mitigation opportunities. Our food systems must also nurture resilient human systems and social capital, keeping alive values, traditions, and experiences that help us adapt.
Promote sustainable livelihoods and access to nutritious and just food systems for all.
Our food systems must be equitable so that no one is left behind and so that those upon whom our food systems depend—especially Indigenous people, women, and smallholder farmers and fishers—have the ability to achieve a decent livelihood and food security. This means that we must work to: eliminate poverty; ensure our food systems continue to provide for the over 3 billion smallholder farmers and fishers in need of fair employment; and ensure local communities’ control over the means of production, such as access to land and water rights, production subsidies, capital, and control over their own spiritual and material relationships to their waters, lands, and nature.
Value our rich and diverse agricultural, ecological, and cultural heritage.
Our food systems must be diverse so that we protect and conserve the rich agricultural biodiversity of fishing grounds, forests, water bodies, pastoral lands, migratory routes, and plant and animal genetic resources and medicines, including aquatic organisms, crops, seeds, livestock breeds, and their wild relatives. As well, it means not just protecting and conserving agricultural biodiversity but also upholding diversity in healthy diets, markets, technology, and local knowledge processes, traditions, and cultural heritage – all as pathways conducive to resilience and better farmer and fisher livelihoods, consumer well-being and health, and environmental protection.
Advance the health and well-being of people, animals, the environment, and the societies that depend on all three.
Our food systems must deliver health for all–human health, animal health, environmental health, and community health. This means that all forms of malnutrition are eliminated through access to safe, nutritious, diverse, and affordable food now and for future generations. It means ensuring that every actor in the food system—from production to processing to consumption—is protected from food production-related occupational hazards and environmental contamination, such as air and water pollution, and toxic pesticides. As well, it means nurturing food’s role in providing social, familial, and cultural meaning.
Ensure meaningful and authentic engagement of diverse people and organizations in transparent deliberations, shared power, democratic decisions, and collective actions affecting food systems for the public good.
Our food systems must be inclusive of all those who produce, process, and consume food in rural and urban areas, in poor and wealthy countries. This means that global governance is built on democratic principles, shared power, and inclusive participation, that decision-making is democratic, including the participation of food producers and constituencies most affected by hunger and malnutrition, and that in deliberations concerning the future of food, diverse people and organizations are engaged in transparent and authentic ways.
Understand the implications of the interdependence of food, people, and the planet in a transition to more sustainable food systems.
Our food systems must be interconnected. We must understand the interdependencies within the system, recognizing the complex web of dynamics and interactions between parts of the system. It means watching for, making sense of, and interpreting the implications of things that are interconnected in the global system. We must think beyond nation-states, sector siloes, and narrowly identified issues and see the interconnections between the global and local, the macro and the micro, and the relationships between worldwide patterns and area-specific challenges.
Photo credit: Alastair Johnstone, Climate Visuals
Our Calls to Action reflect key practical pathways our members have identified to stimulate local and global action, and accelerate much-needed and deep structural change in food systems.
Photo credit: Felix Clay, WorldFish
01
Increase research for the public good, emphasizing ecological, health, social, and economic goals.
02
Ensure more inclusive, participatory approaches to governance to address structural inequities in food systems.
03
Mobilize public sector investment toward ecologically-beneficial farming, healthy food, and resilient communities.
04
Unlock and align investment in sustainable food systems from private, philanthropic, multilateral funders and ensure connections with national & local food systems actors.
05
Elevate the need to account for the environmental, social, and health impacts of food systems policies and practices to inform better decision-making.
06
Support the creation of enabling environments where agroecology and regenerative solutions flourish.
07
Promote nutritious, sustainable, whole-food diets adapted to local ecosystems and sociocultural contexts.
Discover how the Global Alliance—a member-focused alliance of philanthropic foundations—is driving positive change in food systems.
Members are the heart of the Global Alliance. With more than two dozen philanthropic foundations working together and in collaboration with others, we strive to transform food systems for a more sustainable, equitable future.
We bring members together to collaborate, learn from each other, and foster change aligned with our collective principles towards diverse, equitable, and inclusive food systems.
Membership is open to philanthropic institutions that:
Global Alliance membership is not open to individuals or not-for-profit organizations.
Promote our Calls to Action—a framework for food systems transformation that offers clear, practical steps to drive local and global change.
We convene and mobilize our network from local to global levels—giving you the opportunity to be part of transformative initiatives.
Membership offers a platform to build consensus, address false narratives, broaden perspectives, and address power imbalances.
Benefit from our research, tools, and shared knowledge to shape your strategies, deepen impact, and align with others advancing systemic change.
If you want to learn more about becoming a member or partnering with us in other ways, please get in touch at [email protected].