Host: Mercy Corps
Food systems transformation holds immense potential for advancing adaptation goals across the Global South while facilitating low carbon development, but it won’t be won on farms alone. A critical engine of this transformation lies in the “hidden middle” — the rural entrepreneurs, processors, traders, and cooperatives who move, store, and add value to what farmers grow.
Yet across the Global South – where the impacts of the climate crisis are felt daily - these actors still struggle to access climate finance and enabling policy support to adapt, while supporting just transitions and leapfrogging polluting practices and technologies.
As countries move from the UAE Declaration to delivery under their NDCs and NAPs, this session asks: how do we make the hidden middle more visible and investable in these commitments? Drawing on examples from across Africa and Latin America, speakers will explore how blended finance, inclusive market systems, and renewable energy that powers food systems can drive just rural transitions beyond regenerative farming practices—creating green jobs, reducing food loss, cutting emissions, and building resilience across the entire chain from production to consumption. The discussion will surface practical levers for governments and partners to turn climate pledges into real economic transformation.
The session will bring in perspectives of government, private sector, donors and implementing partners driving the just rural transition.