Navigating through global volatility: A blueprint for the Zero Hunger Pledge 2.0
The world needs the Zero Hunger Pledge more than ever. This was the key conclusion of a gathering of companies to discuss how the Pledge can evolve to meet the realities of a rapidly changing global environment.
Launched at the United Nations Food Systems Summit in 2021, the Zero Hunger Pledge provides a roadmap for companies to align their business investments to help end hunger and malnutrition alongside governments, international organizations, and NGOs. Based on the recommendations from the landmark Ceres2030 report, the Pledge identifies 10 intervention areas and 90 priority countries where these investments can have the greatest impact.
The results have been impressive. More than 100 companies have pledged nearly USD 800 million across 54 countries. To date, companies have deployed USD 440 million, with several surpassing their original commitments.
Yet the global context has changed significantly since 2021. Hunger and malnutrition levels remain stubbornly high, while climate shocks, conflict and geopolitical instability continue to disrupt food systems and supply chains. At the same time, development aid budgets are shrinking, increasing pressure on the private sector to play a larger role in driving progress.
Against this backdrop, the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge invited companies to share their experiences to help understand how the Pledge can better advance its mission. Participants agreed that the Pledge remains highly relevant. However, it now must evolve to meet the demands of a changing world.
Defining the value of the Pledge
Participants stressed that their commitment to food security and improved livelihoods is consistent with their mission and, for some, is even articulated as an explicit organisational objective. However, while the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge does not drive many company investment decisions, it does reinforce them. Shareholder priorities ultimately shape decisions, but the Pledge provides a framework that validates these efforts and signals what responsible business looks like.
Companies highlighted both internal and external benefits. Externally, participation in the Pledge provides credibility and builds trust with shareholders. Internally, it strengthens support for sustainability efforts, furthers cross-functional team integration and enables organizational learning.
Participants also highlighted the burden of ESG reporting requirements. While fragmented reporting requirements can be time-consuming, there was broad consensus that the Pledge’s third-party verification accountability process provides credibility, strengthens internal discipline and encourages reflection on progress. Participants called for ways to reduce reporting burdens while improving the comparability of data, lessons learned and impact across projects.
Above all, however, participants agreed that the Pledge's greatest value remains its convening power. As one participant observed, the next phase of the Pledge should focus on taking this committed community to the next level of collective action to accelerate progress against hunger and all forms of malnutrition.
How companies address the challenges of volatility
The operating environment for companies working in food and agriculture has become significantly more challenging since 2021. Climate shocks, political instability, conflict and economic volatility are no longer occasional disruptions but defining features of the landscape. Participants described how these pressures are testing the resilience of farmers and food supply chains while making long-term planning increasingly difficult. In countries such as the Philippines, climate risks are threatening agricultural production, while in Nigeria soaring prices are reducing farmers' purchasing power. Elsewhere, deteriorating political and security conditions have forced companies to relocate investments.
At the same time, disruption can create opportunities for innovation. Several companies highlighted how food security and nutrition initiatives can be reframed as business opportunities rather than social investments. In the Philippines, for example, workforce nutrition programmes are helping to feed tens of thousands of workers while creating incentives to diversify crop production and strengthen relationships with farmer cooperatives. Investments in sustainable technologies, such as bio-stimulants that reduce dependency on chemical inputs, are an example of helping businesses become more resilient in response to droughts and rising costs for chemical fertilizer.
Flexibility and adaptive partnerships emerged as critical success factors. Companies increasingly need the ability to adapt projects, shift investments and redesign business models when circumstances deteriorate. Internal security challenges in Ethiopia prompted one company to relocate a project to Pakistan where it was able to successfully connect with local businesses through its partner’s network. Similarly, another company successfully re-established operations in Egypt with the support of its partners after a factory was destroyed in Sudan. These experiences reinforce the importance of flexibility – both in terms of business operations as well as between partners and their networks.
Some challenges linked to volatility are more difficult to overcome. Because risk aversion increases alongside volatility, access to finance becomes more and more challenging. Long-term planning is made difficult as operations must continually cope with shifting situations. Companies indicated that the Pledge could help in addressing these challenges.
What comes next?
The discussion indicated growing interest from participating companies in having the Zero Hunger Pledge become a more active platform that can leverage its partners and convening power.
Participants suggested stronger partnerships, more flexible financing models and greater advocacy with financial and development partners. This could include peer learning to facilitate candid information exchanges on issues such as operational resilience and managing structural volatility, matchmaking to help access investment opportunities and collective advocacy to align policies and build the business case for sustainable agrifood investments.
As the discussion showed, sustainability investments are a strategic necessity. To remain effective, the Pledge must continue to evolve in response to an increasingly uncertain global environment. As the session moderator Lawrence Haddad noted, our imagination is the only limitation in how companies and the development community move forward together to accelerate the progress in ending hunger and malnutrition.
Let’s continue the conversation.