Empowering the Vulnerable: How South-South Collaboration is Strengthening Resilient Food Systems

By Dr. Himanshu Pathak, Director General, ICRISAT

At the recent Africa Food Systems Summit (AFS) in Dakar, I felt a strong blend of urgency and opportunity. Climate change, land issues, malnutrition, and rural poverty are growing problems. But there is hope. We are seeing new energy around the idea that solutions should be created together and shared across borders. This teamwork is essential for building food systems that work for everyone.

The summit highlighted Africa not just as a region with challenges, but as a hub of innovation and resilience. For over fifty years, ICRISAT has contributed to this progress.

A key theme emerged: collaboration among countries in the Global South is critical to transforming food systems. Often, the Global South is seen as needing help from outside. In reality, it has produced some of the world’s most innovative agricultural solutions. For instance, Niger has launched the world’s first biofortified pearl millet, helping combat iron deficiency. Similarly, ICRISAT developed early-maturing groundnut varieties, enabling farmers in drought-prone areas to achieve reliable harvests quickly.

These innovations are valuable models of resilience, ready to be adapted across different regions. Our main challenge is to build connections that allow these successes to be shared quickly and effectively.

This is where the ICRISAT Centre of Excellence for South–South Cooperation in Agriculture (ISSCA) plays a crucial role. ISSCA aims to be a hub for knowledge exchange, linking governments, research institutions, and farmer organizations across the Global South. By facilitating this exchange, ISSCA ensures that breakthroughs in one country can aid farmers in others facing similar challenges.

But talking isn’t enough. To truly secure food and nutrition across Africa, we need to invest more in platforms and networks that help us learn from each other and act together. Proven technologies must reach more farmers to boost productivity.

Programs like TAAT (Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation) show what’s possible when science meets investment and enthusiasm. In this spirit, the United Nations International Day for South–South Cooperation on September 12 is more than a symbolic event. It’s a chance for ISSCA and its partners to pave the way for the future of agriculture in the Global South.

On that day, ISSCA will gather a diverse group of stakeholders to reflect on successes, identify gaps, and determine where investments are urgently needed. Policymakers, scientists, and farmers will come together to find solutions, whether through climate-smart seeds or digital innovations for farming.

The Africa Food Systems Summit teaches us the importance of collaboration. We can’t afford to wait for help from outside; the expertise and innovations we need are already in the Global South. Our goal now is to connect these resources through collaboration, shared investment, and a commitment to collective progress.

As we look toward the future, we recognize South–South cooperation as a pathway to mutual growth through strong partnerships. ICRISAT, through ISSCA and beyond, is eager to support these collaborations. The journey is long, but together, we can achieve the aspirations of millions in drylands and beyond.

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