UNDP FACS works in a holistic manner, considering Food and agricultural commodities as part of an interlinked, complex global system. Therefore, any attempt to tackle the crises in food and agricultural commodity production must take a systems approach and address multiple issues and multiple aspects of the issues, together.

Following this approach, UNDP FACS focus on 3 key areas. Click on the images below to discover them:

Our Mission

Food and Agricultural Commodity Systems (FACS) are fundamental to the sustainable development of the 170 countries UNDP supports. FACS are often the largest contributor to their economies; food and nutrition is fundamental for citizen health; and FACS have a key role to play in achieving the SDGs.

UNDP aims to shift to a new paradigm for food and agricultural commodity systems (FACS) based on diversified, resilient, agroecological systems and value chains which work simultaneously on achieving economic, environmental, social and health outcomes, with smallholders central to the transformation as the engine of economic development.

UNDP works to transform FACS through collaborative action among stakeholders, to build trust and generate breakthrough solutions on systemic issues. With the current multiple crises of climate change, conflict, food and fertilizer shortages and the cost of living increase, UNDP is supporting governments and other national actors to transition their FACS from recovery to resilience for them to become equitable, inclusive and environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable systems. 

As incremental change is not enough in the current scenario, we need to put food and nature at the heart of development. For this reason, UNDP launched the Nature Pledge(link is external), bolstering its commitment to provide accelerated and upscaled support to over 140 countries to reach their ambitious targets in the historic Global Biodiversity Framework. The Pledge builds around a Global Value Shift, to transform the value we place on nature and drive changes in people’s behaviour.

How FACS are linked to