Press and News An Appeal to G20 Policy Makers to Increase Public Funds Toward Agricultural R&D to Strengthen Enabling Environment for Innovation

by Gianpiero Menza, Megan Steele

onJuly 25, 2023

CGIAR’s A4IP and AUDA-NEPAD have coauthored a policy brief for the G20 under the Think20 (T20) Task Force on Accelerating SDGs: Read on for context on the importance of public funding to develop and derisk innovation and more information on the initiatives involved.

Amongst the multifaceted challenges in agriculture and food systems, technological innovation emerges as a crucial pathway to achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Numerous research projects, databases, and technologies to accelerate SDG progress already exist, but without better access and resources, they often remain trapped in their conceptual stage. More support is needed to reach the potential of these science-based innovations, making agricultural products ready for local and global markets.

Currently, several barriers including the lack of resources and entrepreneurial expertise for researchers to further develop or de-risk innovations and the private sector's unwillingness to invest at precommercial and conceptual stages inhibit the potential of such technologies to be optimally developed, tested and deployed. How to address these barriers? G20 policymakers can play a pivotal role in strengthening the enabling environment for innovation by investing in innovative agricultural research and development.

To this end, we announce the publication of the policy brief,

"Creating an Enabling Environment and Accelerating SDGs through Increased Public Funding of Innovative Agricultural Research and Development"

This publication explores the critical importance of public funding in turning early-stage scientific advancements into tangible solutions for agriculture and food security.

These initiatives provide examples for means of implementation to support early-stage innovative agricultural research and development (R&D). The objective of this policy brief is to allow policymakers, scientists, partners, and other stakeholders to understand the importance of public investment in innovative agricultural R&D, and to learn more about the initiatives working towards this objective.

The policy brief is jointly authored by a team from CGIAR’s Accelerate for Impact Platform (A4IP), and the African Union Development Agency’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDANEPAD)’s Center of Excellence for Science, Technology, and Innovation. The publication is a contribution to policymakers within the context of Think20 (T20) - an official Engagement Group of the G20 presidency in India, within its Task Force 6: Accelerating SDGs: Exploring New Pathways to the 2030 Agenda.