Exclusive interview with Stefanos Fotiou, Director of the FAO Office of Sustainable Development Goals: "Agrifood transformation is the most powerful catalyser of positive change for the SDGs"

You joined FAO less than a year ago to become Director of the Office of Sustainable Development Goals, an office newly created by the FAO Director-General. Why this office and why now?
FAO’s new Strategic Framework has been developed in the context of major global and regional challenges in the areas of FAO's mandate, including the COVID-19 pandemic, and has set the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a cornerstone. Our Director-General decided to establish the Office of Sustainable Development Goals with a view to ensuring effective mainstreaming of the SDGs across all FAO´s work areas and the coordination of integrated solutions to support countries to design and implement SDG agrifood system transformations. To enhance FAO’s engagement in the 2030 Agenda follow-up and review, the Office will work closely with all units across the Organization and will collaborate with other UN organizations to achieve coherence and synergies in implementing the 2030 Agenda. It will coordinate FAO’s contribution to the High-Level Political Forum, and support the Voluntary National Reviews process through technical support – on countries’ request – and through the UN Country Teams and FAO decentralized offices. Moreover, under the direct supervision of the FAO Director-General, the Office will host the recently established UN Food Systems Coordination Hub, set up to support countries in their transformational efforts toward more sustainable food systems, in order to achieve the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.

You seem to have very diverse responsibilities within FAO and we can tell that you are excited about the role. What was the first thing the Director-General told you and what are your current priorities?
I am 100 percent excited, yes! This new role is energizing because it offers us the chance to work better together. I am inspired by the vision of our Director-General, who at the first meeting we had after my appointment told me that “the purpose of the Office of SDGs is to support SDG-based agrifood transformations for the benefit of the people”. He clearly highlighted that the Office is not about creating new implementation mechanisms, but it is about connecting the dots between several topics in the sustainable development agenda, based on the excellent technical work done by all FAO technical divisions and offices on various SDGs. More than an end, we want to demonstrate that agrifood transformation is the most powerful catalyser of positive change for the SDGs. The impressive leadership of our Director-General is stimulating. He is committed to more effective, inclusive and transparent action. I am thus more than honoured to have this challenging and rewarding opportunity to empower countries and stakeholders to become more resilient to shocks and ensure a healthy future for people and the planet.

With only eight years left to go, do you believe that we can still achieve the SDGs, particularly given the hurdles that the COVID-19 pandemic has put in our way? What would be the most important ingredient of the recipe to achieve the SDGs in your view? 
Science is here to confirm that we are not on track to achieve the SDGs. Even before the pandemic, this was a sad reality. COVID-19 only made things worse. At the same time, we have understood that we can no longer escape from complexity, and the role of the UN is to help us to simplify this complexity and combat the triple planetary emergency of a climate crisis, a nature crisis and a pollution crisis, which leaves millions behind. The ingredients for achieving the SDGs are known and I believe that to accelerate progress toward the SDGs we should focus on three main areas. First, we must ensure that we are tapping into everyone’s talents, such as the energy of youth and traditional knowledge, and making decisions with multiple voices at the table. Moreover, it is important to bring to the decision-making tables the people who suffer disproportionally from the consequences of the crises that I mentioned, such as poor small-scale farmers and women. Second, we need to completely change the way we are currently thinking and acting on financing and investments. The private financial system, in particular, needs to become the agent of change by supporting decarbonization, a shift to sustainable agrifood systems and clean energy. Thirdly, we need to think in terms of systems and partnerships. There is no future for single-sector, single-actor decisions. We need to co-create out-of-the-box SDG-based solutions with all, for all.

The Food Systems Summit made it clear that transformative action in food systems is fundamental to achieving the SDGs. For that reason, the Food Systems Coordination Hub was created and hosted at FAO. What should we expect to see from this hub that you are heading?
Let me start by stressing that the Summit’s mission is not over yet; in fact, it is only beginning to bear fruit! That is why the UN Secretary-General committed the UN system to establish a UN Food Systems Hub that collaborates with and draws upon, wider UN system capacities to support follow-up to the Food Systems Summit. The Hub is committed to putting national priorities for food systems transformation at the very core of its activity and we are meticulously designing the Hub and its work plan, so that it can quickly start providing broad and needs-based support to countries. The Hub will be hosted by FAO on behalf of the UN system under the direct leadership of the Director-General. Oversight of the Hub will fall to a Steering Group comprising the Principals of the Rome Based Agencies, Development Coordination Office, and UN Environment Programme. The Hub will act as the catalyst inside the UN system in relation to food systems and the 2030 Agenda. As we design the offer of the Hub – together with other UN colleagues – we are paying close attention to having clear milestones and progress evaluation elements in its work structure, so that it can perform in a tangible and accountable manner. We are also keeping our eyes focused on the first Summit Stocktaking event in 2023, which will review the overall achievements and lessons learned. Ultimately, the success of the Hub can only be measured by how much we help countries in moving from aspiration to action for sustainable food systems.

The SDGs were adopted by world leaders in September 2015. However, when you ask most people, they do not know what these mean in terms of their daily lives. What could the UN have done better? How do you plan to tell the world the FAO-SDGs story?
The UN system makes huge efforts in promoting Agenda 2030 and the SDGs worldwide, by engaging stakeholders, working in partnerships and steering advocacy for the Sustainable Development Goals. Stronger emphasis could be put on localizing the SDGs through tailor-made messages, which involve the practical definition of how the SDGs can change action at the local level. A mistake we often make is that we do not ‘speak’ the local language, and I am not referring to a linguistic problem. It is about communicating in a way that provides solutions to local problems and does not ‘instruct’ people on what to do. When this knowledge and its importance is transferred to the local level, it can be communicated to the wider public and translated into actions in people’s daily lives more easily. We are about to release an advocacy document that tells the FAO story on SDGs through the impact and results of our work and how they contribute to the achievement of specific SDG targets through cases from the ground, grouped together around the lines of better production, better nutrition, better environment and better health.

Thanks so much for being with us today! As a last question: we wanted to ask you if you have a special message for our readers:
FAO’s work on the Sustainable Development Goals is not about implementing short-term activities; it is about coordinating a cross-sectoral paradigm shift. I invite readers to acknowledge the complexity of the intrinsic ecological and social relationships that underlie agrifood systems. If we are determined to meet the goals of the 2030 Agenda, we should all start by challenging the common mindset of how agrifood systems are thought about. Addressing the systemic nature of hunger is the first step to eradicating poverty, exploitation and gender discrimination from agrifood systems. The Office of SDGs aspires to support inclusive global cooperation in order to capitalize on the indivisibility of the 2030 Agenda and the interlinkages between the SDGs to achieve agrifood transformation for better production, better nutrition, a better environment and better life, as per the vision of our Director-General.