Kenroy Roach, Head of the UN Resident Coordinator Office for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, writes in this opinion column that the Caribbean spends over US$6 billion a year on food imports while facing food insecurity, diet-related disease and climate vulnerability, and argues that private capital must now join public money to fix it.
He says governments have made food systems transformation a regional priority through the CARICOM 25 x 25 Plus Five Agenda, with National Food Systems Pathways setting out needed investments and reforms. But with high public debt and limited fiscal space, governments cannot fund the transition alone. That drove a recent forum in Barbados, which gathered governments, investors, development finance institutions, private sector leaders and the United Nations around the idea that food systems are an investable asset class. Its centrepiece was a regional Deal Book of roughly US$320 million in investment opportunities across seven countries, covering agriculture, fisheries, agro-processing, logistics and food systems infrastructure, plus four sector-focused deal rooms on blended finance, private equity and risk-sharing.
Roach credits the UN Resident Coordinator Office with uniting agencies such as FAO, WFP and the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub around a common food systems agenda, and says the forum showed the UN's value as a trusted broker. Success, he concludes, will be measured not by dialogue but by investments mobilised and businesses expanded.