As 2022 comes to a close, we would like to thank you for your enthusiasm and support during the first year of the Shamba Centre for Food & Climate. 

As we take stock of our achievements, we remain conscious of the fragility of the situation we are in a global food security crisis that has wiped out fifteen years of progress. Multiple other crises have made life so difficult for so many more people -- from the Russian war in Ukraine, to the debt and cost-of-living crises, extreme droughts and floods caused by climate change, and the ongoing recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is an important reminder of why this year, we decided to create the Shamba Centre. Our mission is to stop going from crisis to crisis by disrupting agriculture and food systems in their entirety. Each day we have worked to change the rules of the game so that the system works better for food security, nutrition, rural incomes, nature, and the climate.

We would like to share with you our six highlights from 2022 that give us cause for hope. 

1. We moderated a first-of-its-kind, high-level, cross-ministerial event, hosted by three German ministries: foreign, development, and agriculture, and attended by over 40 ministers from around the world. The conference “Uniting for Global Food Security”, held on the 24 of June 2022, paved the way for G7 leaders to announce an additional USD 4.5 billion for global food security, taking their total commitment for 2022 to USD 14 billion. The additional amount was for both crisis response and more investment in longer-term sustainable agriculture and food systems. 

2. We provided expert moderation and advice to the Global Alliance on Food Security (GAFS), a political forum of like-minded actors, supported by the G7, to respond to the third global food crisis in just over a decade.

3. We were proud to have our Vice President, Seyni Nafo, leading the African group of negotiators at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh. Our thought leader, Sophia Murphy, also attended COP27, sharing with us 10 important lessons, including how the Shamba Centre can be disruptive in 2023. In a series of COP27 blog posts, we spoke with negotiator, Kulthoum Omari, and shared our outrage and our joy at the outcome.

4. Together with GAIN, FAO, WFP and IFAD we set up the Zero Hunger Coalition to catalyze coordinated actions among countries, donors, companies and civil society to advance the long term agenda end world hunger. The Zero Hunger Coalition has received political buy-in at the highest levels, endorsed in three separate communiqués in the G7 Leaders Declaration on Global Food Security, G7 Development Ministers Communiqué, and G7 Chair’s Summary.

5. We co-designed and now lead with GAIN the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge, which has mobilised a total of USD 506 million in private sector investment from 44 companies in 48 countries with high levels of hunger. It is supported by GAIN, Grow Africa, Grow Asia, FAO, IFAD, IISD, Shamba Centre, WBA, WBCSD, and WFP.

6. And finally, we worked with Sri Lanka on one way out of the debt crisis through regenerative agriculture and swapping their debt for nature restoration. While preparing the preliminary brief on debt swaps for regenerative agriculture, we engaged with the Sri Lankan Head of State, Ministers, as well as donors and UN agencies in Colombo. The biggest challenge is to identify the institutions and individuals that have the vision and expertise to lead this endeavour.

We invite you to walk with us into 2023 with greater optimism and ambition for better agriculture and food systems.