We have to be careful we do not gamble with people's livelihoods. Food system transformation has to be taken in incremental steps with positive proofs of concept rather than through ideology.

Impact … is not felt at the level of beautiful documents that are shared, but in how you move the needle and shift the reality of the lives of rural people and all of the people in the food systems.

What’s shifted over the years is the recognition that to change agriculture and food, you must adopt a food systems approach. We're asking the sector to feed the world. It must be environmentally sustainable and ensure livelihoods for all food systems actors.

The agriculture sector faces many risks and private investors face trade-offs compared to other sectors with higher returns and less risk. That’s where there’s a need for donor coordination with the private sector.

We need a new way of thinking about blended finance, one that involves more patience when building investable companies and de-risking industries, especially in agriculture.

The goal of the group is to increase transparency, develop benchmarks, and build the evidence that will lead to better decision-making and more effective allocation of scarce donor dollars.

Developing a benchmark to measure the impact of blended finance is very challenging, as each deal comes with different financial and concessional parameters. That is why this group was created.

We are trying to collectively understand and agree on at least a starting point, from which we can move forward. Our promise to our partners is to continue analyzing and testing until the methodology we develop becomes a reference point.

When we look at the news, the world can seem overwhelming but my optimism is sustained by the youth themselves. I am reassured having met champions within governments and civil society organizations who are dedicated to the cause of youth well-being.

The tendency we all have is to prioritize organizations that are able to do the paperwork, rather than organizations who are able to get the results on the ground.