We support the EU global commitment to end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition through a dedicated, reinforced science-policy interface and a fostered inter-policy dialogue.
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Agri-food value chains play a crucial role in shaping sustainable food systems. By linking farmers, processors, distributors, and consumers, they ensure that food is produced, handled, and delivered efficiently while minimizing waste and environmental impacts. To build robust and equitable value chains it is essential to strengthen the infrastructure for trade, markets, and processing and to ensure that all the actors, including farmers, receive a fair remuneration.
Investment initiatives such as the Global Gateway Initiative of the European Commission help to advance connections across regions to make agri-food systems more resilient and support a thriving bioeconomy.
Global Gateway is the European Union’s contribution to narrowing the global investment gap worldwide. It focuses on accelerating sustainable development through smart investments which consider the needs of partner countries, ensure lasting benefits for local communities, and respect the highest social and environmental standards in line with the EU’s interests and values: rule of law, human rights and international norms and standards. Well-functioning value chains are vital for achieving food security, improving nutrition, and sustaining the livelihoods of all food system actors.
More on Global Gateway in the context of Global Food Security and nutrition see here.
Since 2016, the VCA4D project has conducted over 50 studies coving a wide range of products and countries. The purpose of value chain analysis is to provide decision makers with evidence-based information that relate to sustainable development strategies. The assessments are done with a standard methodology allowing to answer 4 framing questions:
The VC assessments are here.
VCA4D Synthesis Studies here.
Podcast by VCA4D on gender here.
Agri-food businesses are important generators of employment and income worldwide. Improving the sustainability of food value chains can benefit millions of poor households in developing countries.
The FAO has developed approaches and tools to support the integration of smallholders and small and medium agribusinesses into value chains. The FAO also provides capacity building support to strengthen public-private collaboration on sustainable food value chains development, public food procurement, public-private partnerships, responsible contract farming, and improve market access for local products through Geographical Indications. More information
This technical note of FAO is offering policymakers and practitioners step-by-step guidance on applying gender transformative methodologies to agrifood value chain analysis, with the goal of improving women's economic participation and gender equality (Advancing value chains through gender transformative approaches. Technical note).
The JRC has developed the Farming System Simulator for Developing Countries (FSSIM-Dev), a decision-making tools to provide independent evidence-based policy analysis in the areas of food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa. It aims to stimulate dialogue between scientists and policymakers, and to challenge them in better addressing the question of the ‘last mile’ between research results and concrete decision-making.
Explore relevant publications on this topic from the database of the KC-FNS.
16 Jul 2025 | 20 May 2026
