Statement delivered by Flora Sonkin (SID) during the High-level Forum on strengthening responsible investment and financing for food security and nutrition of the CFS 53 on 21 October, 2025
This discussion is taking place in a context of drastic cuts in Official Development Assistance (ODA) while trillions are spent on wars and genocide. Global military spending hit a record $2.7 trillion dollars last year – that is over 12 times the amount spent on ODA in the same year; and over two thirds of the 4 trillion additional investment needed annually for developing countries to reach all SDGs, including filling the financing gap to reach food security and nutrition around the world.
The use of unilateral coercive measures continues to suffocate economies and impact millions of lives in the Global South. Cross-border corporate tax abuse and extreme corporate concentration in food systems are also major factors limiting the ability to realize the right to food.
At the same time, almost half of humanity lives in countries that spend more on debt repayments than on health or education – where governments default on human and environmental rights obligations and limit investment in their own development strategies, including on agroecological transformation, instead of defaulting on their sovereign debt. And when essential public services collapse under the weight of austerity, women’s unpaid care work takes up the slack.
This unbearable debt crisis is at the heart of many of the major challenges facing Global South countries and is actually a matter of life and death. Unsustainable and illegitimate debts trap countries and their populations in a never-ending cycle of commodity dependencies that prevents agroecological transitions. Adding to the debt burdens faced by developing countries, climate finance today majorly consists of loans instead of grants.
So we must dare to question the premise of this debate, which assumes we should de-risk and guarantee returns to large-scale private investments because there is not enough public money for food security and nutrition.
While the push for policy reforms and use of limited public resources to leverage and “attract more private finance” has been mainstreamed across development debates in recent decades, as noted by the Compromiso de Sevilla, investment in sustainable development “has not reached expectations, nor has it adequately prioritized sustainable development impact.” I’d also echo the statement by the Africa group when it comes to the risks of blended finance and the CFS summary on Collaborative Governance which notes that “levels of blended finance are low and have failed to scale”.
As diagnosed by the HLPE background note for this session “where need is greatest, available finance is generally lowest.” This is because profit-oriented private investments will not reach the areas and people who need it most, but will seek opportunities for the highest returns – private objectives of maximizing profits are at odds with agroecological approaches to food systems transformation, whose contribution goes much beyond the economic dimension. For instance, private climate finance used for Water Energy Food nexus projects often undermines communities practicing agroecology. Water resources directed towards large-scale irrigation or large hydro-power dams perpetuate industrial, export-oriented agricultural systems, and have devastating impacts on biodiversity and livelihoods of fisherfolk and Indigenous Peoples who lose access and cultural connection to these waterways. So more private finance is not necessarily better for public development outcomes.
The massive challenges we currently face are systemic in nature. They are deeply entrenched in the design of the current international financial architecture. Overcoming these global challenges is a political choice that requires an unwavering commitment to justice, equity, democracy and to the overall well-being of people and the planet.
So in response to the question on how the international community can contribute to closing the gap in financing for Food Security and Nutrition – A fair and inclusive reform of the international financial architecture and governance including the global debt and tax architecture, debt cancellation and the regulation of corporate concentration – is well overdue. New and additional grants-based climate finance must come as part of recognition, restitution and reparations for climate and ecological debt owed to developing countries.
The CFS could serve as a space to facilitate policy convergence and discuss how such governance and regulatory reforms can support agroecological food systems transformation.
There’s no food security and food justice without debt, tax and climate justice.