Devex Dish: At COP30, Brazil carries forward its food-first agenda

Greetings from Belém, where tens of thousands of delegates have poured into the city at the mouth of the Amazon for Brazil’s first United Nations Climate Change Conference, aka COP30. There are 56,118 delegates registered for the conference — second in size only to COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

And while the event officially began on Monday, the food systems buzz began earlier. On Friday, at the high-level leaders summit that preceded the opening of the conference, the leaders of 43 countries and the European Union signed onto the Belém Declaration on Hunger, Poverty, and People-Centered Climate Action. The declaration commits to supporting small-scale farmers, enabling just transitions for people living in forest regions, and making social protection a foundation of climate plans. The document establishes a 2030 progress review and calls for international cooperation and climate financing to accelerate support for countries’ actions.

This declaration right at the start of COP30 set the stage for food systems to be treated as a central part of the climate conversation. And while it’s undeniably a political document, it isn’t just feel-good language — it gestures toward action. Countries are expected to hit measurable goals such as expanding social protection coverage by 2 percentage points each year and improving their ability to anticipate both short- and long-term climate risks.

“This is a very good political signal,” said Marie Cosquer, advocacy analyst on food systems and climate crisis at Action Against Hunger, as we were, ahem, illegally speaking English after-hours at the Francophone pavilion. She welcomed how the declaration centers social justice and treats agriculture as a just transition issue touching the livelihoods of billions — not just a box to tick for emissions cuts and adaptation.

Still, the “how” remains fuzzy. Monitoring and follow-through are the open questions to watch. And some would have wanted the text to stretch further. Elisabetta Recine, who leads Brazil’s National Council for Food and Nutritional Security, tells me that it should have leaned harder into agroecology and treat family farming not only as social policy but as economic strategy.

Brazil, after all, has credibility on food issues. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made hunger eradication his top priority in his first term in 2003, launching the Zero Hunger strategy that helped lift millions out of food insecurity and shape the country’s social policy model. Now that legacy has come full circle: Brazil managed to lift roughly 40 million people out of hunger in just two years and got itself off the U.N.’s hunger map in July. Now it’s flexing those credentials on the world stage, ensuring that food plays a central role in multilateralism. We saw it last year when, as president of the Group of 20 major economies, Brazil launched the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty to connect governments with hunger-tackling solutions. Now we’re seeing it at COP30.

Indeed, it’s the same muscles Brazil is flexing on the world stage — political will and coordination — that helped it tackle hunger at home, Recine says.

Brazil’s National Food and Nutritional Security System, known as SISAN, was designed to make the right to adequate food a state priority and to coordinate policies across every level of government. At its core is the National Council for Food and Nutritional Security, or CONSEA — a formal advisory body to the president that brings ministries and civil society to the same table.

CONSEA isn’t just symbolic. It gives farmers, researchers, and social movements — including women’s, Indigenous, and urban groups — a direct line into policy discussions alongside government officials. That setup elevated civil society from stakeholder to policymaker, Recine explains, giving the government a sharper understanding of how people actually live withhunger and poverty. Rural families, Indigenous peoples, and city residents all face them differently, and that dialogue helped make programs more flexible and grounded in local realities.

She also frames ending hunger as a demand born from Brazil’s social movements — one that predates any single administration. “Eradication of hunger and poverty is a historical demand of Brazilian civil society because we live with hunger and poverty since the beginning of our history,” she says. Civil society, thus, has many lessons to offer the government. And Brazil’s experience, she adds, should have lessons to offer the rest of the world, too.

Background: One year on, global hunger alliance shifts into execution mode

Hot off the grill

I covered five key stories to watch at COP30 in last week’s edition of Dish, so I won’t repeat them here. But a few more developments are worth keeping an eye on:

• Methane watch: The Changing Markets Foundation has launched the Methane Action Tracker, an interactive platform to monitor and compare agricultural methane emissions across companies and countries. It’s an attempt to bring more transparency — and accountability — to one of agriculture’s most underscrutinized drivers of climate change.

• Menu of solutions: The COP30 Food Systems Transformation Science and Philanthropy Advisory Group, or FST-SPAG, was launched in March to help identify science-backed, investable food systems projects for the official COP process. Its portfolio spans Africa, Latin America, and Asia and is mobilizing about $522 million in targeted investment to scale proven, farmer-centered innovations. On Monday, it launched its portfolio of investable solutions, which includes a tropical livestock cooperation and innovation initiative and portable soil testing kits and blended fertilizers for African farmers. 

• Big money: In Belém, the Gates Foundation announced a $1.4 billion, four-year investment aimed at helping smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia adapt to extreme weather. Funding will expand:

• Digital advisory services — mobile and SMS tools delivering tailored planting and risk management advice, including the expansion of the AIM for Scale initiative, launched in 2023.

• Climate-resilient crops and livestock — varieties bred to withstand drought, heat, and new pests.

• Soil health innovations — solutions that restore degraded land and reduce emissions.

Keep up to date on all things COP30 by reading the latest via our Devex reporters’ notebook. My colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz and I are filing several entries daily.

Read: COP30 reporters’ notebook — Day 1 and Day 2

Background: Food and climate at COP30 — 5 things to watch in Belém

+ Next Wednesday, Nov. 19, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar will have a sit-down with Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO of World Resources Institute, to discuss the gaps in climate finance flow and implementation challenges facing COP commitments. Save your spot now and submit your questions in advance.

TFFF, everyone’s BFF

And of course, there’s the belle of the ball: Brazil’s Tropical Forest Forever Facility, or TFFF.

Launched just before the official start of COP30, the new fund made a splash with $5.5 billion in first-day pledges — far short of the $25 billion goal, but higher than expected, Jesse reports. Hosted by the World Bank, TFFF aims to pay countries to protect tropical forests using investments, not aid — a shift that reflects growing pressure to mobilize private capital for climate action.

The idea has been more than a decade in the making, first floated by former World Bank Treasurer Kenneth Lay in 2009 and revived under Brazil’s leadership as COP30 host. The model calls for governments to provide the first layer of capital — roughly $25 billion — to absorb risk and attract another $100 billion from private investors, with returns funding annual payouts of $4 per hectare to countries keeping deforestation below 0.5% annually. At least 20% of proceeds must go to Indigenous and local communities.

Norway, Brazil, and Indonesia led with major pledges, joined by smaller contributions from France, Portugal, and the Netherlands, while Germany’s larger commitment is still pending. The United States and United Kingdom are sitting it out — at least for now.

But not everyone’s convinced. Critics warn that tying forest protection to market performance could make funding volatile and prioritize investors over ecosystems. Others fear it could inflate climate finance totals if counted toward global targets.

Supporters say it’s exactly what the system needs: investment-driven, codesigned by developing countries, and structured to reward results. As one observer puts it, it’s a “win-win” — if the markets hold up.

Read: The untold origins of COP30’s flagship multibillion-dollar forest facility
ICYMI: World Bank poised to host Brazil’s $125 billion forest facility

See also: COP30 opens in Amazon amid pressure on forests, finance, adaptation (Pro)

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Chew on this

How did the Global Environment Facility spend $6.4 billion? [Devex Pro]

Sudan war: Lifesaving community kitchens on verge of collapse. [BBC]

The World Food Programme may have to pause food aid in the Democratic Republic of Congo due to record-low funding. [Reuters]

The World Bank’s big agriculture promise: What is the role of the International Finance Corporation? [CGD]