Participants in the Governing Council, including Governors, representatives from the private sector as well as academia, IFAD staff and other development practitioners, broadly agreed that investing in smallholder family farmers brings important development and poverty-reducing gains. As such, this strategy is central to addressing the global challenges that the world faces today. Saccomanni stressed this in his keynote address: “Supporting smallholder agriculture is the way out, as evidence and research shows: it breaks the vicious cycle of poverty while preserving scarce natural resources.” In his speech, Jummah Al-Shibli called for recognition of the importance of smallholder farming families and the link between their livelihoods and social and economic development. Polman underlined that investing in smallholder family farmers is one of the best investments that governments and businesses can make to solve the interlinked challenges of food security, employment and climate change. The two panel discussions allowed for further elaboration of the multiple benefits of investing in smallholder family farmers.