By Baboloki Semele:  The United Nations will convene the Second UN Food Systems Summit Stocktaking Moment (UNFSS+4) from 27 to 29 July 2025 at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) headquarters in Addis Ababa. Co-hosted by the governments of Ethiopia and Italy, the event marks a critical milestone in the global effort to transform food systems in alignment with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This year’s Stocktake comes at a time when the world faces compounding crises;  rising hunger, food insecurity, climate change, and economic instability. With only five years remaining until the 2030 SDG deadline, UNFSS+4 will assess progress made since the first Food Systems Summit in 2021 and the inaugural Stocktake in 2023. The Addis Ababa gathering is expected to galvanize political leadership, drive national and regional commitments, and unlock financing for inclusive, sustainable, and resilient food systems.

The three-day summit will begin with an “Action Day” on 27 July, dedicated to showcasing community-led food systems initiatives and successful practices across Africa and beyond. Participants will include smallholder farmers, youth, Indigenous groups, women leaders, researchers, and private sector innovators. The UNECA compound will host policy dialogues, exhibitions, and a Media Lab offering real-time updates, interviews, and behind-the-scenes access to the summit. On 28 and 29 July, high-level dialogues will bring together heads of state, government ministers, UN agencies, and development partners to take stock of national progress and align priorities. The summit will feature plenary sessions and side events exploring themes such as food systems financing, climate resilience, nutrition, technology, governance, and accountability. The Secretary-General of the United Nations is expected to deliver the keynote address, followed by contributions from African Union leaders and global policymakers.

UNFSS+4 will place strong emphasis on integrating food systems into national development plans and financing frameworks. According to the UN, over 100 countries have submitted voluntary stocktaking reports demonstrating diverse progress in governance reform, policy development, and multisector coordination. However, many face structural challenges including underinvestment, climate shocks, supply chain disruptions, and political instability. To address this, the summit will spotlight blended finance mechanisms, climate-smart investments, and partnerships between governments, international financial institutions, and private actors.

Another central focus will be strengthening accountability mechanisms. The summit aims to clearly define stakeholder roles, reinforce inclusive participation, and ensure that voices of marginalized communities, especially youth, Indigenous peoples, and women are heard and incorporated in decision-making. Ahead of the summit, regional consultations and youth dialogues coordinated by the World Food Forum and other partners have captured grassroots perspectives from across continents.

Expected outcomes from the summit include an official report by the UN Secretary-General and an independent report reflecting the voices of civil society, farmers, the private sector, and other non-state actors. These outputs will feed into major upcoming global processes, including COP30, the 2025 International Conference on Financing for Development in Spain, and the 2025 UN Ocean Conference in France. With its location in Africa, a continent central to both the challenges and solutions of food systems transformation, UNFSS+4 is poised to elevate African voices, innovations, and leadership. The summit also reinforces the importance of multilateral collaboration, evidence-based policymaking, and inclusive governance as the world races toward 2030. 

Down Memory lane

In late July 2023, Rome played host to the first UN Food Systems Summit Stocktaking Moment (UNFSS+2), a high-level gathering aimed at evaluating progress since the original 2021 Food Systems Summit. Co-hosted by the United Nations and the Government of Italy, the event drew nearly 2,000 participants from 161 countries, including 22 heads of state, over 100 ministerial delegates, and a broad range of civil society, farming groups, UN agencies, and private sector representatives. The summit opened with an urgent message from UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who described global food systems as “broken” and responsible for feeding 780 million people while wasting one-third of all produced food. He emphasized their role in driving climate change and biodiversity loss. FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu echoed this concern, underlining the need for sustainable, inclusive agrifood systems to achieve multiple SDG targets.

Despite its scale and ambition, UNFSS+2 offered encouraging signs. By mid-2023, 126 countries had adopted national food systems transformation pathways, and 101–107 had submitted voluntary progress reports on the five Summit action tracks covering nutrition, sustainable consumption, production, livelihoods, and resilience. Many nations are now embedding these pathways into national strategies and laws, signaling growing political will.

However, the summit also spotlighted persistent gaps. Chief among them was the “implementation gap”, the challenge of translating plans into tangible results. Many national commitments remained aspirational or incremental rather than transformative. Additionally, financing emerged as a critical bottleneck: debt distress and limited concessional resources were hindering action in poorer nations. Uneven participation from donor countries and the private sector was also noted as a missed opportunity . In response, the summit released a compelling “Call to Action” urging governments, civil society, private actors, and financial institutions to mobilize resources. This included integrating food systems into national policies, strengthening governance mechanisms, investing in research and innovation, scaling private sector engagement, supporting marginalized groups, and unlocking concessional funding and debt restructuring. The new Joint SDG Fund’s Food Systems Window was launched as a financing instrument designed to bridge the funding gap.

Observers noted tangible outcomes, such as pledges for school feeding programs backed by Germany and advocacy for rights-based agriculture by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. Yet experts emphasized that real transformation was not yet evident on the ground, and that stocktaking efforts needed stronger accountability mechanisms and standardized metrics to monitor true change. The first UNFSS Stocktake marked a significant milestone as it generated political endorsement, developed national pathways, and mobilized resources. But its success depends on whether countries can close the gap between ambition and implementation, scale finance, broaden governance participation, and embed accountability mechanisms. As the world races toward the 2030 SDG deadline, this stocktaking moment served as both a wake-up call and a tipping point: enough progress has been made to notice but not yet enough to declare victory, and as the countdown to the SDGs continues, all eyes will be on Addis Ababa, where the world gathers not just to talk about food, but to act boldly in reimagining the systems that nourish humanity and sustain the planet.