CGIAR 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy: Transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis

Food unites the world, and powers us forward. Today a powerful and unified global effort is needed to equip food systems to advance human and planetary health to their full potential. The climate crisis is at the forefront of threats to our ability to provide good nutrition for all people while staying within environmental limits. Interlocked with climate change are land degradation, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, depletion of water resources, and pollution. These threats to our planetary life support systems in turn propel poor health, economic inequality, social upheaval, and conflict. Food systems are both a driver and a victim of these challenges. Yet — if managed and governed differently — food systems could be a champion of change, at the vanguard of sustainable living for all, leading other sectors with solutions and inspiration. A radical realignment of food systems around the world could accomplish not only an end to hunger and malnutrition in all its forms, but also gender equality, job creation, prosperous livelihoods, opportunities for youth, climate solutions, and environmental health. Multiple like-minded partners are now working towards this vision at all levels from local to global — with practical ideas on how to catalyze systems transformation with breakthroughs both small and large. Science and innovation are a critical part of the mix, providing new evidence, insights, and solutions that feed into strategic alliances for change. CGIAR, as the world leader in agricultural science and innovation for development, must now step up to be a key player in global food systems transformation. The intertwined health, environment, and social inclusion challenges of the 21st century create an urgent impetus to sharpen the focus of CGIAR research. A refreshed, more ambitious strategy from CGIAR provides an opportunity to accelerate achievement of systems resilience and equal opportunities. A new transition to One CGIAR — the integration of CGIAR's capabilities, knowledge, assets, people, and global presence for a new era of interconnected and partnership-driven research towards achieving the SDGs — provides the opportunity for a fresh 10-year strategy that can shape a stronger and more relevant science agenda for today's dynamic world. One CGIAR enables us to operate as a cohesive organization with a single mission, seamlessly leveraging all of our capabilities and assets to deliver real benefits to people and our planet. This 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy situates CGIAR in the evolving global context that demands a systems transformation approach for food, land, and water systems. It builds on our track record of collaborating with partners to deliver impacts for more than 50 years, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of hunger and poverty and supporting low-income producers and consumers. Through integrated systems research, One CGIAR and country partners will strive for impact to create sustainable and resilient food, land, and water systems, and meet SDG targets. This Strategy presents CGIAR's ambitious high-level approach for making a significant and meaningful contribution to the transformation of the world's food, land and water systems — both towards and beyond the SDGs, providing science of relevance within and beyond the Strategy's 2030 horizon. It provides an overview of how CGIAR will develop and deploy its capacities, assets, and skills to address priority global and regional challenges with partners. The strategy covers all research for development programming across CGIAR. This CGIAR 2030 Strategy will be delivered through 3-year Investment Plans, which will frame CGIAR work supported by pooled funding of large CGIAR Initiatives. These Investment Plans will provide a much greater level of detail on the objectives, targets, activities, deliverables, and budgets of CGIAR Initiatives based on detailed co-analysis and co-design together with global, regional, and national partners, and investors.