The Faith-led Food Systems Transformation Summit was convened by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) in December 2024 in Kigali, Rwanda. This two-day event brought together a diversity of food system stakeholders, including faith actors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and government representatives to discuss the opportunity presented by a faith-led food systems transformation. The summit was designed to explore how faith-based organizations (FBOs) are engaged in food systems transformation, with the goal of identifying accessible, relevant opportunities for intervention through inclusive multi-stakeholder collaboration.

Key Findings

There are five key recommendations for enacting faith-led food systems transformations in Rwanda and beyond:

  1. Promoting Regenerative Agriculture: FBOs should leverage their assets and deep-rooted connections with communities to adopt, scale, and disseminate regenerative agricultural techniques, especially for the local production of indigenous crops like vegetables to feed marginal communities.
  2. Raising awareness and educational initiatives: FBOs are uniquely positioned to lead awareness-raising and educational activities on food systems transformation, especially among underrepresented groups like women and youth. Developing tool kits that align scriptural principles with sustainable food systems interventions provide important insights and tools to facilitate long-term behavior change and advocacy. Based on these tool kits, FBOs should lead faith-based awareness campaigns through social media, school-based initiations, religious gatherings, community outreach programs, women’s groups, and faith-based radio programs.
  3. Expanding existing efforts: To reduce food loss and improve food security, FBOs can play a pivotal role in developing and implementing post-harvest interventions, including handling facilities, storage, drying, processing, and waste-management systems. FBOs can strengthen existing food distribution networks to ensure equitable access to nutritious food while reducing post-harvest losses. To do this, FBOs can establish formal partnerships with other FBOs or sectors to collaborate, ensure coordination, and avoid duplication.
  4. Institutionalizing faith actors as key stakeholders: As trusted community voices, faith leaders can bridge the gap between policymakers and grassroots communities, advocating for food systems policies that reflect both ethical principles and practical solutions. They can drive systemic change by creating multi-stakeholder advocacy platforms that engage governments, civil society, and the private sector.
  5. Facilitating partnership building and multi-sector collaboration: The summit showed a clear alignment between the needs of FBOs and the offerings of other stakeholders, revealing the opportunity to create matchmaking mechanisms that connect FBOs with private-sector actors, donors, and research institutions to facilitate funding, technical expertise, and innovative solutions. Such collaborations could include promoting community-based composting and biogas initiatives to manage organic waste effectively, supporting the establishment of women-led and youth-led agribusiness ventures, partnering with waste recycling firms and agricultural cooperatives to create market opportunities for compost and organic fertilizer, and engaging with local financial institutions to develop faith based financing mechanisms tailored for sustainable food system initiatives.