This guide provides a methodology for the review of national legal and institutional frameworks related to responsible investments in agriculture and food systems. It also identifies key areas of regulation within a thematic context, with a focus on larger scale private agricultural investments in primary agriculture.

This Practical Handbook is directed to Members of Parliament and Parliamentary Advisors, who are considered “change agents”. It provides a comprehensive and systematic overview of the role that Parliamentarians can play in the creation of reliable, coherent, and transparent “enabling environments” in the range of areas related to investment in agriculture and food systems. The Handbook does so, not through a catalog of prescriptions, but through guidance notes, examples of good practices, and very practical indications. It does not aim to provide a blueprint to be implemented by each Parliament but rather it sets out key stages of processes and mechanisms for MPs and advisors to consider while promoting responsible investment in agriculture and food systems.Part 1 of the Handbook presents the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems and explains:why there is an urgent need to enhance responsible investment in agriculture and food systems: high levels of malnutrition and poverty (exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic), population growth and urbanization, increasing demand for more resource-intensive diets, climate change, and its severe impacts; what is responsible investment in agriculture and food systems: “Responsible investment in agriculture and food systems contributes to sustainable development by generating positive socio-economic and environmental impacts, enhancing food security and nutrition. It requires progressively respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights”; and how can it contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and national development plans - scaling up support to small scale farmers, engaging and empowering youth, closing the gender gap, and improving access to infrastructure, public services, and agricultural finance, and, in general, investing in the sustainable production of safe and nutritious food while contributing to improving inclusion in the food system, prioritizing vulnerable populations and adopting a human rights-based approach to food security, in line with the SDGs spirit of addressing inequalities and ensuring that no one is left behind. In Part 2, through specific Guidance Notes, Parliamentarians and advisors are guided through concrete actions they can implement in their countries to improve and increase investments, actions such as: executing a national policy, legislative, and institutional frameworks assessment; ensuring consistency in the legal and policy framework; advocating to reform existing laws and/or adopt new laws; ensuring adequate financing for the implementation of laws related to responsible investments in agriculture and food systems and ensuring effective parliamentary oversight are detailed throughout.In addition to their essential role for the enactment of legislation and adoption of budgets, and of ensuring accountability of governments for the effective implementation of commitments, parliamentarians, and parliamentary advisors are custodians of their country’s plans for sustainable development and have a strategic responsibility to raise awareness of citizens on issues of paramount importance. To support parliamentarians and advisors in creating effective partnerships with other stakeholders, such as other parliamentarians, the private sector, the civil society, and academia, Part 3 provides tailored key messages that can be used ad hoc in meetings, conferences, and in other kinds of communications such as reports, press releases, and social media. It includes useful explanations of how data and country-level statistics can support advocacy and communication activities.

Increased investment in agriculture and food systems—from both the private and public sectors—is critical to enhance food security and nutrition, reduce poverty, and adapt to climate change. To generate sustainable benefits, this investment must be responsible. What role should investment incentives play in encouraging such investment? This Guide helps to answer that question. Specifically, the Guide provides policymakers and government technical staff with guidance on how investment incentives can be used (and how they should not be used) to enhance responsible investment in agriculture and food systems. The Guide provides an overview of responsible investment in agriculture and food systems; examines common types of incentives; offers general considerations on how incentives can be used; and discusses how to plan for, design, monitor, and evaluate investment incentives for responsible investment in agriculture and food systems.

This paper summarizes the good practices by nine selected OECD countries that seek to promote responsible foreign investment in developing country agriculture, primarily by investors in their territory or jurisdiction. The study provides examples of the increasing trend of home countries in establishing binding legal norms and other mechanisms as safeguards that are relevant for agricultural investment. It finds that states apply some specific provisions to hold private corporate actors investing in agriculture abroad accountable, for example in regard to bribery of foreign public officials. Investment home countries are also increasingly using safeguards relevant for agricultural investment by companies that are controlled by the state or seek its support. Furthermore, Public‑Private Partnerships are increasingly used in development assistance projects as a means to promote responsible agricultural investment. In these cases, the safeguards usually imply the use of negotiated and approved instruments such as the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT). The Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (CFS-RAI), endorsed in 2014 by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), are likely to become a major guidance instrument, given recent declarations by the G7 and G20.

OECD and FAO have developed this guidance to help enterprises observe standards of responsible business conduct and undertake due diligence along agricultural supply chains in order to ensure that their operations contribute to sustainable development.

This handbook aims to help Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) parliamentarians play their role in operationalising the ASEAN Guidelines for Promoting Responsible Investment in Food, Agriculture and Forestry (ASEAN RAI). It is based on Responsible investments in agriculture and food systems: A practical handbook for parliamentarians and parliamentary advisors published by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in 2020. It adapts that earlier handbook to the ASEAN context and provides ASEAN parliamentarians with practical guidance on how to contribute to an enabling environment for responsible investment in agriculture and food systems in their countries, based on the ASEAN-RAI Guidelines.

Agricultural production more than tripled between 1960 and 2015, owing in part to productivity-enhancing technologies and a significant expansion in the use of land, water, and other natural resources for agricultural purposes. Today, more than ever, agriculture faces multiple and complex challenges. It has to provide sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet boosting demand by a growing and progressively more prosperous population, and ensure food security for all. Prepared to support the G20 Presidency of Japan and the G20 Agriculture Deputies, these three background notes provide an overview on the following interlinked issues: (i) the policy challenges for strengthening the participation of farmers into modern value chains and promoting value addition, inclusion, sustainability and rural economic growth; (ii) the need for a transformation in the skillset of agricultural workers and a renewed focus on human capital development in agriculture, and (iii) the contribution of agriculture to the realization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.