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

Rome – The Investment Centre of the Food and 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 and senior leaders of major financing partners and 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 and 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 and history, from the impact on people’s lives and 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 and agriculture” became “a trusted partner bringing together governments, financiers, investors, farmers and 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 and Development (EBRD), the European Union, the Green Climate Fund, and 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, and a better life for all.” 

Axel Van Trotsenburg, the World Bank’s Senior Managing Director responsible for Development Policy and Partnerships, lauded the technical expertise and investment knowledge that FAO’s Investment Centre brings to the Bank’s agrifood investments and 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 and finance solutions.

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

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

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

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

Celebrating 60 years

The 60th anniversary celebrations included keynote addresses by leaders of the EBRD and 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 and fostering private sector growth.

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

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

She also emphasized IFAD’s goal to engage more with the private sector and welcomed a strong collaboration to build rural communities’ resilience to shocks and crises, thanks to investments in climate adaptation, biodiversity protection and 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 and better public and 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 and 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 and Food Global Practice, shared insights on this successful and unique 60-year collaboration, which combines global knowledge, best practices and sectoral expertise with substantial funding and innovation. 
 
She spoke of how the partnership has expanded its focus from increasing agricultural productivity alone to helping countries transform their agrifood systems and adapt to climate impacts. Emphasis is now on youth entrepreneurship, private capital mobilization, digital innovation and 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 and 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 and the European Commission on TERRA, a soon-to-be-launched initiative that aims to foster a sustainable and 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 and FAO has helped unlock more investment in local value chains geared towards exports, which entailed greater risk diversification and enhanced investability, all with an emphasis on social and environmental sustainability standards.

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