Call of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food

The Global Alliance announced a Call for Ideas – 2050: Visions for Global Food Systems Transformation. It invites vast and diverse networks across borders and disciplines to help craft innovative, inspiring, bold, transformative visions for a healthy, equitable, renewable, resilient, and culturally diverse future of food shaped by people, communities, and their institutions.

Deadline for letters of intent: Friday 08 June 2018

The Global Alliance for the Future of Food is a strategic alliance of philanthropic foundations working together and with others to transform global food systems now and for future generations.

THE OPPORTUNITY
Through this initiative the Global Alliance seeks to:

1. Foster collaboration among diverse “system actors” and collaborate with them by nurturing deep and trusting relationships as the basis for long-term, creative, and productive collaborations;
2. Contribute to the global discourse on the future of food by advancing transformational aspirations for systems change; and,
3. Employ 2050: Visions for Global Food Systems Transformation to stimulate local and global action on food systems reform within its member organizations, the broader world of philanthropy, and with partners and allies, so that we collectively accelerate food systems transformation across sectors, scales, and geographies.

PROJECT PARAMETERS

2050: Visions for Global Food Systems Transformation will be an open call, crowd-sourced from around the globe with the intention of soliciting a diverse array of innovative, inspiring, bold, transformative visions for a healthy, equitable, renewable, resilient, and culturally diverse future of food shaped by people, communities, and their institutions.

As a strategic alliance guided by both a) a set of principles, and b) a global systems transformation approach, we ask that submissions explicitly take into consideration how their vision responds to:

Global Alliance Principles as a comprehensive and interconnected whole:

• Renewability: Address the integrity of natural and social resources that are the foundation of a healthy planet and future generations in the face of changing global and local demands
• Resilience: Support regenerative, durable, and economically adaptive systems in the face of a changing planet
• Equity: Promote sustainable livelihoods and access to nutritious and just food systems for all
• Diversity: Value our rich and diverse agricultural, ecological, and cultural heritage
• Healthfulness: Advance the health and well-being of people, animals, the environment, and the societies that depend on all three
• Interconnectedness: Understand the implications of the interdependence of food, people, and the planet in a transition to more sustainable food systems

Global Systems Transformation (Blue Marble) Approach as a comprehensive and interconnected whole:

• Global Systems Thinking – Apply global systems thinking to any and all aspects of global systems change, including: target change globally; connect global and local perspectives, knowledge, and understandings; integrate and coordinate interventions across sectors, issues, problems, and traditional program areas
• Globalization Knowledge – Design and implement global initiatives with an understanding of globalization history, patterns, dynamics, issues, and realities, including: know and take into account historical attempts at global systems change and how they inform present and future interventions; know and take into consideration diverse perspectives on globalization history, patterns, dynamics, issues and realities; and design and implement global initiatives with attention to both formal and informal structures and relationships
• Transformational Change – Ensure that what is called transformational is transformational in degree, nature, scope, speed, and magnitude of change, including: base interventions on an evidence-based transformational theory of change; catalyze and connect multiple initiatives worldwide; and apply systems thinking and complexity theory to transformational change initiatives globally

Inclusion of ideas and evidence found in significant global reports, including but not limited to IAASTD, IPCC, The Lancet, and others, is not required, but is welcomed and should be referenced.

Guiding questions could include: What will truly sustainable, equitable, secure food systems look like in 2050 if our principles are realized? What will their outcomes be? What transformational changes will be needed to get us there? Who are the key stakeholders and what is their role in this transformation agenda?

For further details, you can find FAQs here.