[Title] G7 Vision for Action on Food Security and Nutrition

Today, hunger and malnutrition pose serious challenges directly impacting the lives of more than two billion people around the globe including in conflicts and crises. At the same time, enhancing agricultural growth, food security and nutrition can promote global sustainable development and is necessary to achieve the entire 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ("2030 Agenda"), including the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

The G7 recognizes 2016 as an important year to unify global efforts on food security and nutrition. The G7 is committed to implementing the 2030 Agenda and the COP21 Paris Agreement. The G7 also recognizes the 2016 Nutrition for Growth ("N4G") Summit as an important opportunity to advance the global nutrition agenda.

Building upon the G7 Broad Food Security and Nutrition Development Approach ("Broad Approach") in 2015, the G7 puts forward this "G7 Vision for Action on Food Security and Nutrition" ("V4A") to fulfil its political imperative by taking concerted and focused actions to achieve the ambitious target of "aiming to lift 500 million people in developing countries out of hunger and malnutrition by 2030" ("Elmau target").

The G7 has identified collective actions in three focus areas, namely empowering women, improving nutrition through a people-centered approach, and ensuring sustainability and resilience within agriculture and food systems, that will add value by enhancing global efforts and solidifying impacts across the four pillars of the Broad Approach.

This V4A is meant to develop and concretize some aspects of the Broad Approach by providing G7's collective priority actions. The actions under these prioritized areas will have mutually-reinforcing impacts and are complementary to other activities the G7 pursues to advance the Broad Approach in support of the 2030 Agenda.

Actions in the prioritized areas

Empowering women within agriculture and food systems:

As the FAO estimates, giving women the same access as men to resources could raise total production in agriculture and food systems in developing countries by 2.5-4%, reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 100-150 million people, and have long-lasting effects on poverty reduction.

Thus, the G7 prioritizes 1) promoting women's equal rights and access to resources, particularly land; 2) increasing economic opportunities with higher and fair returns, both on- and off-farm; and 3) creating an enabling environment for women to participate in economic activities. The G7 will ensure coherence with broader G7 action on women's empowerment as well as the UN High-Level Panel on Women's Economic Empowerment.

To this end, the G7 decides to:

- promote secure land tenure for women in line with the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) in relevant ODA programmes, including through existing G7 land partnerships;

- support the establishment, improvement and enforcement of legal, regulatory and social systems ensuring women's equal rights and access to resources and productive assets including financial and extension services, including through ongoing initiatives such as the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition;

- support the creation of decent employment opportunities with equitable economic returns for women in agriculture and food systems including selection, processing, distribution and sales of agricultural products, and equipping women with needed skills through vocational education and training;

- promote infrastructure, better services and the use of context-adapted technologies that will free up women's time, including irrigation, multiple-use water systems, increased energy access and innovative and sustainable agricultural production and processing technologies; and

- promote the use of the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index and other outcome metrics for women's empowerment, and systematically disaggregate results by sex.

Improving nutrition through a people-centered approach:

Improving nutrition, including diet quality, reduces risk of illness and death, benefits people suffering from serious diseases, and enables people to participate productively in economic and social activities. Evidence shows that preventing malnutrition is among the top economic investments a country can make because it reduces morbidity, disability and associated health care costs, and improves the health and well-being of people. In particular, malnutrition can be prevented most effectively during the first 1000 days of a child's life from conception to 2 years-of-age. The G7 recognizes the effectiveness of taking a people-centered approach, which focuses on diverse needs of vulnerable individuals suffering from all forms of malnutrition, throughout individuals' lives and across the rural-to-urban spectrum. The G7 also addresses the main determinants of malnutrition at the population-level through multi-sectoral and integrated efforts.

Thus, the G7 prioritizes the delivery of sustained nutrition outcomes for individuals as well as populations, by empowering individuals and communities. In so doing, the G7 will ensure coherence with the Rome Declaration on Nutrition and the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition, while enhancing collaboration with other relevant initiatives and stakeholders and providing leadership at N4G summits to achieve greater impact.

To this end, the G7 decides to:

- strengthen support for national governments to formulate nutrition policies, carry out effective multi-sectoral actions and plans, set realistic targets and implement monitoring frameworks;

- support multi-stakeholder initiatives to raise new, notably domestic, investments, and encourage innovative financing for nutrition, while aligning G7's investments with partner governments' priorities, and strengthening donor coordination, particularly by engaging with the SUN Donor Network;

- strengthen support for national governments to develop capacity at multiple levels, including through training health, nutrition and extension workers, and enhancing food and nutrition education;

- enable the scale up of nutrition-specific interventions that promote healthy growth and development especially during the first 1000 days of life, alongside nutrition-sensitive activities that promote good nutrition across different areas, including agriculture, health, education and social protection; and

- support the collection and application of SDG2 indicators, in particular the expansion of the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) to improve disaggregation of data, including by sex and rural and urban location; promote the inclusion of indicators of dietary diversity, especially among children and women of reproductive age, in household surveys.

Ensuring sustainability and resilience within agriculture and food systems:

- Agricultural production and food systems are greatly influenced by, and influence the environment and climate. Populations dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, especially pastoralists and the poor and undernourished, are particularly vulnerable to environmental degradation, loss of ecosystem services, climate change and related extreme weather events, such as those associated with El Niño. Approximately two-thirds of the intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) prepared for COP21 recognize this and include climate change adaptation and mitigation measures in agriculture sectors. Agriculture is also a powerful engine for economic growth and poverty reduction across the rural-to-urban spectrum, yet the transformation of agriculture may increase competition for ever scarcer natural resources, necessitating responsible and sustainable investments.

- Thus, the G7 prioritizes 1) enhancing research and development, knowledge exchange, application and dissemination of sustainable agriculture practices that may include FAO-defined climate-smart agriculture; 2) enhancing application and operationalization by all stakeholders of the VGGT and the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (CFS-RAI) endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS); 3) fostering linkages in agriculture and food value chains across the rural-to-urban spectrum and within regions; and 4) enhancing the resilience of the livelihoods of those engaged in the agriculture sector and that of agriculture and food systems against climatic shocks and protracted crises. The G7 reaffirms its focus on supporting smallholder farmers to contribute to resilient and sustainable local and global food systems.

To this end, the G7 decides to:

- mainstream climate-smart practices in agriculture and food security programmes and support the development of methodologies for effective monitoring of environmental and agricultural impacts;

- support existing mechanisms, platforms and institutions that enhance research and development, and knowledge exchange for climate change, natural resource management and agriculture, recognizing the importance of the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security and the 4/1000 Initiative;

- pilot at greater scale the use of existing practical guidance, such as the Analytical Framework for Responsible Land-based Agricultural Investment and the OECD-FAO Guidance for Responsible Agricultural Supply Chains, and further carry out outreach programmes on the VGGT and the CFS-RAI involving various stakeholders, by working with relevant partners such as the World Bank, the UNCTAD and the Rome-based UN agencies;

- increase the focus on responsible investment to establish and improve environmentally-friendly and disaster-resilient quality infrastructure, across food value chains, emphasizing the reduction of food loss and waste and GHG emissions, while taking into consideration the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030;

- support the development of local food security and nutrition plans to complement national strategies and plans, and help foster policy and business environments to sustainably improve food security and nutrition and economic opportunities across the rural-to-urban spectrum, and for wider regional development; and

- promote climate risk management approaches for the most vulnerable households and communities, including through social protection measures, the Climate Risk Early Warning Systems Initiative, and the Climate Risk Insurance Initiative.

Enhancing implementation and accountability

The G7 will take the following measures to ensure the effective implementation of these actions and to enhance accountability.

Focus on better data:

The G7 recognizes the importance of the "data revolution" to achieve the Elmau target and the 2030 Agenda. The G7 commits to improve its efforts, and support developing country efforts, to measure hunger and malnutrition, including by enhancing stakeholder coordination and using these data to inform policies and programmes. The G7 recognizes the importance of the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative in making agricultural and nutritional data available, accessible and usable by stakeholders globally.

Ongoing commitment to food security and nutrition, and improving reporting:

The G7 intends to hold Food Security Working Group (FSWG) meetings at least annually up to 2030, to monitor progress on G7 food security and nutrition commitments, share information and enhance collaboration among G7 members, review priorities, and advise G7 leaders on priority issues. The FSWG will take into due consideration the outcomes of ad hoc G7 Agriculture Ministers' Meetings, such as the 2016 Niigata Declaration, to promote complementarity and policy coherence, sharing examples and good practices for global food security and nutrition.

To continue enhancing accountability and transparency, the G7 will report on progress towards food security and nutrition commitments, including progress against the V4A actions as appropriate, within G7 Progress Reports and possibly other formats. The G7 will continue its engagement on food security and nutrition with the OECD/DAC and other relevant international organizations and research institutions for better monitoring and alignment with efforts to achieve the SDGs.

Enhanced synergies and engagement with broad stakeholders and other fora:

The G7 will seek further synergies with the G20 and its efforts on food security and nutrition, as well as collaboration with regional efforts and fora such as the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), taking into consideration each region's specific context and challenges and adjusting approaches where necessary, including by utilizing such opportunities as the Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI).

Recalling the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the G7 emphasizes the critical importance of mobilizing multiple streams of financing to achieve the 2030 Agenda. The G7 will work with relevant stakeholders to more effectively and sustainably mobilize resources for food security, complementing a similar exercise by the SUN Movement for nutrition. The G7 welcomes further efforts in leveraging private investments such as that demonstrated in the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP).

The G7 will raise awareness on the issues that this V4A puts forward, and promote aligned actions and coherence in implementation, among all stakeholders including developing country partners, other donors, including through the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development (GDPRD), international and regional organizations, multilateral development banks, researchers and academics, and philanthropic organizations. The G7 will foster continued collaboration with the private sector and civil society, including through the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. The G7 will seek opportunities to engage in multi-stakeholder dialogue, making full use of relevant fora and platforms on food security and nutrition, particularly the CFS.

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