FAO’s Investment Centre celebrates 60 years of effective development partnerships | FAO News

Rome – The Investment Centre of the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) celebrated 60 years of providing top-level agrifood investment support on Tuesday at a special ceremony during the World Food Forum with high-level government officials & senior leaders of major financing partners & private investors in attendance.

Over its six decades, the Investment Centre has helped design more than 2,400 partner-financed projects in 157 countries, totalling over $257 billion in public investment when adjusted for inflation. This trend is poised to continue today, with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, European Investment Bank & New Development Bank among the Centre’s newest partners.

QU Dongyu, FAO Director-General, opened the event with some reflections on the Centre’s role & history, from the impact on people’s lives & livelihoods to the future of agrifood investments. He noted that shortly after signing its first cooperative agreement with the World Bank in 1964, FAO, with its “world-class technical expertise in food & agriculture” became “a trusted partner bringing together governments, financiers, investors, farmers & entrepreneurs.”

The Investment Centre soon expanded its network of investment partners, working with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), regional development banks, the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD), the European Union, the Green Climate Fund, & many more.

Qu noted  that, under his leadership, the Investment Centre has undergone “a reform to better help countries achieve quality impact at scale,” in line with FAO’s Four Betters: better production, better nutrition, a better environment, & a better life for all.” 

Axel Van Trotsenburg, the World Bank’s Senior Managing Director responsible for Development Policy & Partnerships, lauded the technical expertise & investment knowledge that FAO’s Investment Centre brings to the Bank’s agrifood investments & urged for more to be done.

The Investment Centre’s multidisciplinary team, which combines technical knowledge across all sectors with investment expertise, has stepped up its efforts to become a go-to place for tailored investment & finance solutions.

That includes partnering with countries & financing institutions to design the investment strategies, policies & projects that will shape tomorrow’s agrifood systems.

It also involves pioneering & scaling up innovative approaches to increase food security, climate resilience & financial inclusion, especially among small-scale farmers & producer organizations.

The Investment Centre is ramping up its work on sustainable value chain development, decarbonization, digital agriculture & innovative finance, among many other areas.  

& it continues to fill critical knowledge gaps & develop capacities for better investment decision-making.

Celebrating 60 years

The 60th anniversary celebrations included keynote addresses by leaders of the EBRD & IFAD, both longtime partners.

Odile Renaud-Basso, President of EBRD, highlighted the Bank’s fruitful 27-year partnership with FAO, especially in promoting sustainable development & fostering private sector growth.

She acknowledged the partners’ mutual commitment to supporting public-private dialogue on enabling policies & to crowding in more green investments in the future across the food & agribusiness sectors. She also emphasized the importance of FAO’s vast knowledge, networks & longstanding engagement in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa & Iraq, where the Bank is expanding its operations, & the partners’ aligned values around greening agrifood systems, inclusion & human capital & digital transformation.

Katherine Meighan, Chief Legal, Governance Officer & Associate Vice-President External Relations Department (a.i.) at IFAD, commended the 47-year partnership between IFAD & FAO Investment Centre & its role in advancing sustainable rural development & food systems transformation.

She also emphasized IFAD’s goal to engage more with the private sector & welcomed a strong collaboration to build rural communities’ resilience to shocks & crises, thanks to investments in climate adaptation, biodiversity protection & nature-based solutions, with a special focus on the “first mile” of agrifood systems represented by rural producer communities.

Mohamed Manssouri, Director of the FAO Investment Centre, moderated a panel discussion on how to generate more & better public & private investment to accelerate the transformation of agrifood systems at country level. Discussions also focused on future collaboration with FAO.

Abubakar Kyari, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture & Food Security, spoke of FAO’s role in supporting governments to tackle global climate change challenges as well as bolster smallholder farmers.

Shobha Shetty, the World Bank’s new Global Director, Agriculture & Food Global Practice, shared insights on this successful & unique 60-year collaboration, which combines global knowledge, best practices & sectoral expertise with substantial funding & innovation. 
 
She spoke of how the partnership has expanded its focus from increasing agricultural productivity alone to helping countries transform their agrifood systems & adapt to climate impacts. Emphasis is now on youth entrepreneurship, private capital mobilization, digital innovation & gender, with a focus on empowering women to become their own breadwinners. She stressed the growing importance of the ability to execute short-term actions based on new monitoring tools.

One of the Investment Centre’s newer partners is the Italian development bank Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP).

Paolo Lombardo, Director of CDP’s International Cooperation & Development Finance, spoke of how public finance institutions like the CDP can play a catalytic role in supporting the private sector in partner countries by combining financial support with technical assistance. He highlighted CDP’s partnership with the Investment Centre & the European Commission on TERRA, a soon-to-be-launched initiative that aims to foster a sustainable & resilient agrifood systems’ transformation approach by improving agrifood value chains.

Rounding out the panellists was Ghita El Ghorfi, General Manager of FOODEX, a public body serving Morocco’s agrifood export sector. She reflected on how FOODEX’s partnership with the EBRD & FAO has helped unlock more investment in local value chains geared towards exports, which entailed greater risk diversification & enhanced investability, all with an emphasis on social & environmental sustainability standards.

FAO Chief Economist Máximo Torero closed the event, applauding the Investment Centre’s staff & partners for their work & dedication. “The Investment Centre’s unique business model of working with countries & its financing partners has stood the test of time,” he said.