CAN-Agriculture working group submission to the Sharm-el-Sheikh joint work on agriculture and food security (SSJW)
March 2026
Targeting MOI in Agriculture to deliver climate action and food security
To strengthen impact and coherence of the Sharm-el-Sheikh joint work on agriculture and food security, the SSJW SB64workshop on “means of implementation for action in agriculture and food security” to be held in June 2026 must build on the insights gathered so far under the SSJW. In particular, the discussion about means of implementation (MOI) should be framed to support approaches repeatedly spotlighted during the workshop on “systemic and holistic approaches to implementation of climate action on agriculture, food systems and food security” held during SB62 in 2025.
Therefore, as the SSJW considers ways to improve the quantity, quality and delivery of MOI, it should also seek to ensure that MOI particularly supports and targets the following approaches:
1. Smallholder and women farmers who feed the world
Agriculture is the world’s biggest employer, providing the livelihood for one-quarter of the people on the planet, nearly half of whom are women.[1] The majority of these are smallholder farmers, growing the food that feeds most of the world. Yet agriculture is the sector most vulnerable to climate impacts. Thus climate change does not only threaten the world’s food security, but also the livelihoods of billions, and the national economic backbone for many developing countries.
Women are particularly and disproportionately affected by climate change. Yet they tend to face particular barriers and burdens due to gender-blind or gender-biased policies, as well as patriarchal norms. These trends particularly affect the world’s women farmers, holding back their rights, those of their families, their communities. By affecting their ability to access land, training, finance, support, or information services, these patterns undermine their potential as farmers – and thus global food security and climate resilience objectives.
Climate financing approaches must not fall into this pattern of gender-blindness. Climate finance and means of implementation in agriculture must target support to smallholder farmers, and always be designed to address gender inequality, with clear objectives and indicators to ensure gender-responsiveness – otherwise women farmers will continue to be left behind. Lessons can be learned from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) requirement that each proposal undertakes a Gender Action Plan (GAP). While the existence of GAPs is necessary, these are still not yet wholly sufficient on their own to ensure gender inclusivity. Nonetheless, such policy requirements are to be encouraged.
2. Agroecology
During the SB62 workshop on “systemic and holistic approaches,” multiple Parties and Observers presented their evidence and experiences highlighting the many benefits gained through agroecological approaches to agriculture.
Agroecology is a key strategy for resilience and adaptation in agriculture, while also providing substantial mitigation benefits by reducing the GHGs associated with deforestation and fossil-fuelled agrochemicals. Agroecological approaches to farming are also associated with improved rural employment, biodiversity, lower costs for low-income farmers, and health benefits for local communities and consumers. Agroecological approaches can be complemented by farm-to-fork interventions that boost and meet consumer demand for alternative healthy sources of protein such as nitrogen-fixing legumes, thus reducing pressure on land, ecosystems and climate, which are currently harmed by large-scale intensive production of livestock and feed.
These benefits have been confirmed by multiple global bodies and experts including: the IPCC AR6 report (2002) which said that “the adoption of agroecology principles and practices will be highly beneficial to maintaining healthy, productive food systems under climate change”; the UN Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) Global Biodiversity Framework Target 10[2] which states that agroecology “contributes to the resilience and long-term efficiency and productivity of production systems and to food security, conserving and restoring biodiversity, and maintaining nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystems functions and services”; and the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) 2019 report by the High Level Panel of Experts which confirmed that agroecological systems, which are biologically and structurally diverse, are more resilient to shocks and stressors such as climate change and market volatility.[3]
Recent years have seen steady progress in policy changes, in recognition of the need to scale up agroecology. Climate-vulnerable regions, particularly Eastern and Southern Africa have seen unprecedented momentum in the implementation of national strategies aimed at upscaling agroecology.[4]
However financing trends do not yet match or adequately support this momentum towards policy change and climate action. Food systems generate one-third of GHGs, yet were found to receive just 2.5% of public climate finance, down from 3% in 2022. Even less – just 1.5% – supports truly sustainable solutions.[5] Instead of supporting the agroecological climate solutions in agriculture that the planet and its people urgently need, conventional and/or efficiency oriented approaches (such as so-called “sustainable intensification”) were found in 2020 to be receiving 79.3% of GCF agricultural finance, and 78.9% of EU funds channelled through the FAO, IFAD and WFP.[6]
The multiple benefits of agroecology offer a huge opportunity for efficient and effective financing approaches. Climate finance, ODA and national budgeting allocations should be oriented around agroecology’s ability to deliver on multiple international commitments, including those under the UNFCCC, the CBD, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) as well as multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Financing agroecology responds to the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES). In 2024, the IPBES concluded that “scenarios that prioritise single-sector objectives or actions in isolation, such as biodiversity conservation, water provision, food production, human health or climate change mitigation, do not achieve nexus-wide benefits due to interdependencies between the elements that can create trade-offs.” The report also found that scenarios prioritising climate over other targets can have negative effects on biodiversity and food, as this can reinforce competition for resources, especially land.[7]
3. Locally-led solutions
Financing in agriculture to deliver on climate adaptation, mitigation and food security objectives must move away from top-down approaches and instead be structured to respond to local needs, support community-owned solutions, and cultivate local decision-making and implementation. Drawing on Locally-Led Adaptation (LLA) principles[8] when undertaking climate action in agriculture can offer multiple, deep-rooted and long-lasting benefits. Agricultural and adaptation approaches that shift control to local actors and communities, and that empower women and marginalised community members are more likely to respond effectively to the specific needs, challenges, opportunities and insights of those that need the most support, and be relevant to each community’s unique context.
Approaches – including participatory methodologies that include and encourage marginalised voices – should seek to build women’s empowerment and identify gaps to address, for example in training, literacy, support for preservation, processing, value addition and marketing, as well as social protection[9] as a means to supplement incomes during temporary dips in yield from climate impacts or agricultural transitions.
Local solutions can also be based on communal ownership and community structures such as systems for water harvesting and irrigation, or solar technologies for pumps, which can be implemented in collaboration with local committees and structures.
4. Technology transfer and capacity building
Technology transfer – if governed by the correct principles – has the potential to contribute to climate action in agriculture and food security. Key examples of beneficial technologies might be applications that breach the digital divide by enabling farmers to access weather information, early warning systems or marketing opportunities.
For such technologies to truly benefit the farmers and communities most in need, however, such technologies must be managed for the public good. Public interest and ownership must play a key role in the innovation, research, development, testing and oversight of technologies, in co-creation with farmers themselves,[10] and based on key principles for social justice that include securing rights, respecting the precautionary approach. Service sharing between agencies, and sharing of intellectual property rights, should play a role in technology transfer. It is important to note that if such principles were properly applied, much corporate-owned and patented agritech would be rendered irrelevant for delivery of climate action in agriculture in the public interest.
Capacity building is an essential yet largely overlooked component of climate action in agriculture and food security. Successful adaptation and mitigation approaches can be unleashed through capacity building for farmers (with a strategic emphasis on targeting women farmers and marginalised community members) in areas such as education, literacy, empowerment, agroecological farming techniques, seed saving, preservation and processing, value addition, strengthening value chains, and accessing marketing opportunities. Farmer-to-farmer knowledge systems and exchanges, farmer field schools, community networks and farmer-led research can enable communities to access key knowledge, and build their confidence and empowerment for climate action and leadership.
Improving quantity, quality and delivery of MOI in Agriculture
5. Need for scaled up grant-based climate finance
The single biggest challenge and barrier to implementing climate commitments and climate action in agriculture, is the lack of sufficient, predictable and equitable access to grant-based climate finance.
It has been estimated that USD 500 billion dollars per year is needed for global food system transformation,[11] and that the unmet general financing needs of smallholder farmers comes to USD 170 billion.[12] Yet one study has found that sustainable food system approaches only received USD 9 billion in climate finance in 2022,[13] while another study found that climate finance targeting small-scale agrifood systems in 2020 was as little as USD 5.53 billion.[14]
The provision and scaling up of grant-based climate finance from developed countries to developed countries is essential to the implementation of climate action in agriculture, as well as a fundamental principle of the UNFCCC convention. Wealthy developing countries that are responsible for the majority of the GHG emissions heating the planet today must provide their fair share of grant-based climate finance – ideally trillions per year – based on the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR-RC) so that developing countries on the front lines of the climate crisis can take the necessary steps for addressing loss and damage, adaptation and mitigation.
6. Problems with debt-generating finance
The lack of grant-based climate finance is partially disguised yet deeply exacerbated by rising substitution of private finance, in the forms of loans that deepen climate-vulnerable countries’ debt burdens. Developing countries have done far less than developed countries to cause the climate crisis, yet are being forced to accept loans to fill the gap in urgently needed climate finance. In 2022, over two thirds of public climate finance consisted of loans, the majority of which were on non-concessional terms,[15] at high interest rates.
Research in 2023 found that 93% of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis were in, or at significant risk of, debt distress.[16] The mounting costs of climate disasters play a key role in this injustice, in addition to the ongoing costs of devastating colonial exploitation, which are still being paid for by many developing countries today. 38 out of 63 of the most climate vulnerable countries (60%) were found to be spending so much on debt servicing that they were likely to be cutting spending on public services, making investment in climate action just as impossible.
But the problems with deepening debt do not end there. The obligation to earn foreign currency in order to service debt repayments forces many countries to produce commodity exports – in particular climate-destructive industrial agriculture commodities and fossil fuels. Indeed, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was found to have advised over a hundred countries to expand fossil fuel infrastructure for debt repayment[17] – while ironically claiming to be taking major strides in climate leadership, and seeking a larger role in global climate financing.
Thus global debt practices – including climate finance in the form of loans – are part of a destructive pattern that drives climate change and exacerbates climate vulnerability – a vicious cycle.
Unfortunately, this trend towards destructive loan-based climate financing has worsened since the disappointing COP29 outcome on the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance (NCQG). Since then, proposals to “fill the finance gap” have led to growing calls for what little grant-based climate finance there is, to be diverted to financial institutions to “de-risk” and “catalyse” more loans that would then be branded as climate finance. Finance that should be going in the form of grants to countries and communities in need, are instead being used to protect and enhance the profits of financial institutions headquartered in developed countries.
Debt is increasingly becoming understood to be a climate issue. Scaled-up grant-based climate finance, debt cancellation, and a new and fairer multilateral global debt architecture are needed to enable appropriate climate action in agriculture and food security.
7. Direct financing approaches
Accessibility of climate finance by local actors is a key determinant of effectiveness. Unfortunately, climate financing allocations largely favour major allocations to large and global institutions, with relatively little of the financing reaching local community-led organisations. But when climate finance goes to community-led organisations, this empowers those involved and affected by projects to design and implement activities to address their specific needs and challenges. Direct financing better builds local capacity, ownership and empowerment, and improves effectiveness of projects and climate finance. And when local organisations’ capacities are strengthened, their ability to continue leading interventions, implementing activities and benefiting communities and farmers continues beyond the lifetime of a project, bequeathing long-lasting impacts. Direct financing approaches are often better suited to climate action in agriculture than financing that goes to international or national institutions that are not locally rooted – but which currently get the lion’s share of climate finance.
A forthcoming publication analysing the impact of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP),[18] a multilateral funding mechanism hosted by the World Bank, offers valuable insights of relevance to the SSJW, the UNFCCC and its funds and operating entities. The GAFSP manages three different funds that allocate grants to countries, private sector financing, and direct grants to producer (ie farmer) organisations[19]. Another good practice established in the GAFSP is producers’ organisations and civil society participation in the governance of the fund, as members with a mandate in the Steering Committee of GAFSP. The fund seeks independent evaluation from civil society actors: GAFSP actively funds evaluations from an independent CSO consortium that can develop their own methodology of evaluation.
Initial analysis of the GAFSP’s fund for Producer Organisations has revealed that this direct financing approach, with its emphasis on local institutional capacity building, offers excellent value for money in multiple ways. Salaries and costs are far lower than for international institutions, while local organisations better understand and respond to local contexts. These are the organisations that are best positioned to bring about transformative action and resilience in agriculture – including knowledge generation, sharing information, training, building empowerment, and ensuring that the perspectives of those most vulnerable to climate impacts are shaping local strategies in agriculture. A particularly interesting finding came from a country facing armed conflict. When international institutions were required to leave the region for the safety of their international staff, local farmer organisations continued operating and successfully delivered project objectives in spite of challenging conditions.
Direct financing approaches therefore offer financial efficiency, sustainability, and resilience in the face of challenges such as conflict. UNFCCC and international funding streams must therefore protect and increase their direct financing windows.
8. Just transition principles in MOI
A key outcome from COP30 of relevance to the future work of the SSJW (or its successor) on agriculture, came under the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP).[20] Key JTWP principles to guide just transitions were agreed in this landmark decision, which include recognising the importance of smallholder farmers, Indigenous Peoples, rural economies, food production, adaptation, rights, food security, social protection, as well as community participation in the shaping of climate plans. With the COP30 decision to set up and operationalise a new Mechanism for Just Transition, further discussion on just transition approaches in agriculture can be anticipated.
Unfortunately, a 2025 analysis of multilateral climate finance flows found that barely any climate finance is adequately fulfilling just transition criteria.[21] With agriculture as the world biggest employer, providing the livelihood for one quarter of the world’s population, approaches that ignore the livelihoods, basic needs and voices of communities, pose major risks for global economic security – and increase the risk of backlash and resistance to climate action. The 10 indicators used by the report to analyse climate finance (Participatory and inclusive processes; direct financing of community-led organisations; Support for income and livelihood diversification; Training, education, skills-building and reskilling; Social protection & public services; Grant-based financing; Improving access to energy and food; Security and protecting rights; Gender inclusiveness; and Transformative practice in energy or agriculture) can offer valuable guidance to strengthen effectiveness of MOI in agriculture.
9. Alternative sources of financing
Efforts to address the climate crisis are being vastly outspent by massive amounts of public financing directed to climate-destructive industries including industrialised agriculture. Agriculture subsidies are almost entirely being spent supporting practices that lead to deforestation, soil erosion, fossil-fuelled fertilizers and factory farmed livestock. Not only do these practices account for the bulk of agriculture’s GHGs emissions, but they also increase inequality in the rural economy as profits are channelled upwards to corporations and wealthiest actors, further squeezing rural communities’ incomes.
Agriculture subsidies in the EU have even been found to harm farmers and food systems in Africa, with subsidised exports in the form of cheap food (such as factory-farmed meat, or milk powder) undercutting farmers’ livelihoods, resilient local food systems and climate agendas.[22] Such patterns undermine and outweigh global climate financing efforts to strengthen resilient agriculture. Indeed, the hidden cost of industrial food systems to climate, ecosystems, water sources, economies and more, was calculated to be more than USD 10 trillion per year, according to the FAO’s annual State of Food and Agriculture report in 2023.[23]
This disastrous state of financing nonetheless offers a huge opportunity, however. Re-direction of these massive harmful subsidies and hidden costs towards climate solutions such as agroecology [24] could offer a vital way forward for addressing Means of Implementation in climate and agriculture.
In addition, fairer and more progressive tax regimes offer potential to generate much-needed revenue for climate action.
10. Avoid exacerbating inequality through technology-generated data-focused MRV systems
It is important to note that data technologies for Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) for mitigation in agriculture should not be considered “neutral” – but in fact can pose particular risks for farming communities when linked to climate financing. If financing policies rely on the use of highly technological and expensive MRV (for example the use of satellites, drones, soil monitoring technologies, smart tractors, apps etc to gather data[25]) this will likely create a bias towards the well-off and highly technology literate farmers or farming businesses that least need support. Thus, low -income farmers in climate-vulnerable countries with limited digital access and literacy will be further cut off from receiving climate finance. An emphasis on data-based technologies for MRV of mitigation in agriculture thus has the potential to exacerbate inequality and hunger.
Modalities of SSJW workshop at SB64
The SSJW should continue with the pioneering approach implemented consistently since the UNFCCC work on agriculture done under the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA). As CAN we welcome the practice of inviting women, smallholder farmers, Indigenous Peoples, and youth on the frontlines of the climate crisis as workshop keynote speakers. Hearing from these perspectives ensures the conversation is grounded in real needs, opportunities and insights from the ground. Purely technical conversations on finance or MOI might otherwise end up disconnected from the ultimate objectives of the UNFCCC.
The workshop format must also ensure dedicated time for rights-based constituencies to speak about their concrete challenges, and to hear their propositions as to how MOI should concretely be designed to overcome challenges. The practice of allowing the space for rights-based constituencies and observer observations to ask questions to speakers and make interventions, should also be continued. The KJWA and SSJW have been one of the most inclusive UNFCCC workshop spaces, and it is important that this legacy continues.
Perspectives and lessons from other Rio conventions, and on how climate finance and MOI can support the implementation of policy recommendations and guidelines of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), in particular the Policy Recommendations on Agroecology and the Voluntary Guidelines on the Governance of Land Tenure and Fisheries, should also be welcomed.
The workshop should produce action-oriented recommendations on how Parties can overcome the challenges to unleash and direct MOI that invests appropriately in real solutions for climate action in agriculture and food security. In particular the workshop should result in:
- Recommendations to increase and improve grant-based finance and support related to agroecology and transformation of food systems;
- Recommendations to increase direct grant-based financing to local organisations, to improve effectiveness of climate finance;
Speakers suggestions:
- Presentation on obstacles to accessing MOI from the perspective of a small-scale farmer organisation from the Global South.
- Opening by a representative of IPO: Taily Terena, International Indian Treaty Council (IITC)
- Presentation of learnings from the independent CSO evaluation of GAFSP direct financing to producers organisations: contributions from members of the CSO consortium