Indonesia Builds Cross-Sector Coalition to Strengthen Food Systems on the Global Stage
Pijar Foundation and Indonesia’s Coordinating Ministry for Food Affairs bring together government, philanthropy, and investors in New York to strengthen Indonesia’s food systems.
NEW YORK, 23 September 2026 – Millions of Indonesians continue to experience moderate or severe food insecurity (BPS, 2025). At the same time, climate change is placing growing pressure on food systems through rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall patterns, and extreme weather events that threaten food production, distribution, and food and nutrition security.
These challenges underscore that strengthening food systems is not simply about increasing production. It also means ensuring that more people have access to sufficient, nutritious food while supporting the livelihoods of farmers, fishers, and communities that sustain the food supply chain.
In Indonesia, achieving this ambition requires coordinated action across sectors, connecting policy, innovation, financing, markets, and sustainability to enable promising solutions to reach a broader scale.
Recognising this need, Indonesia’s Coordinating Ministry for Food Affairs and Pijar Foundation have begun building a cross-sector coalition that brings together government, philanthropy, investors, and development partners to strengthen the resilience and sustainability of Indonesia’s food systems.
This effort was advanced through a dialogue in New York on 23 September 2026, supported by the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations in New York. The gathering brought together leaders from across sectors to explore opportunities for collaboration and accelerate solutions towards broader adoption.
Held on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 81) and Climate Week NYC 2026, the dialogue examined how policy, financing, markets, and implementation capacity could be better coordinated to strengthen Indonesia’s food systems.
Leaders from government, philanthropy, finance, and investment participated, reflecting the breadth of the ecosystem needed to advance food systems transformation. Discussions extended beyond innovations at the production level to consider how policy frameworks, financing mechanisms, and sustainability priorities could create the conditions for promising solutions to scale.
In his remarks, Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Food Affairs, Zulkifli Hasan, emphasised the importance of building more open, responsive, and coordinated cross-sector collaboration to strengthen the country’s food systems.
“We want to bring together businesses, investors, philanthropic organisations, and development partners to work towards a shared direction. Through increasingly integrated coordination across food, marine, forest, and land sectors, we aim to ensure that cross-sector collaboration can move faster and deliver greater impact,” Zulkifli said.
For Pijar Foundation, the dialogue also reinforced the role of philanthropy in bridging early-stage innovation with the systems needed to support wider adoption.
Cazadira Fediva Tamzil, Executive Director of Pijar Foundation, highlighted that the next step is ensuring that solutions with demonstrated potential can connect with the institutions, resources, and partnerships necessary to sustain their growth.
“Innovation can reveal new possibilities, but transformation happens when the systems around those ideas allow them to grow. Philanthropy can help connect innovators with governments, capital, research, and other partners, while creating opportunities to test, learn, and build evidence. Ultimately, the goal is not simply to support more pilot projects, but to help establish the conditions for solutions to deliver lasting public value,” Cazadira said.
Three Priorities Emerging from the Dialogue
The New York dialogue was not intended to produce a single solution to the complex challenges facing Indonesia’s food systems. Instead, it helped identify several areas where further collective action is needed.
First, building stronger and more coordinated demand for sustainable and nutritious food. Changes in food production practices are less likely to endure without reliable markets and economic incentives that encourage better practices. Strengthening demand is therefore essential to making sustainable production commercially viable over the long term.
Second, aligning policy and financing around promising approaches. Innovations have a greater chance of scaling when government priorities, regulatory pathways, philanthropic capital, investment, and financing mechanisms work in alignment rather than operating in isolation.
Third, strengthening platforms that sustain dialogue and connect supply with demand to drive concrete action.This requires institutions, partnerships, evidence, and implementation mechanisms that enable promising approaches to expand beyond individual projects or locations.
Bringing these discussions to New York during UNGA and Climate Week NYC placed Indonesia’s food systems transformation agenda within a broader global conversation on food security, financing, sustainable development, and inclusive economic growth.
More than a forum for discussion, the gathering marked a step towards building a cross-sector coalition capable of connecting policy, capital, markets, and implementation.
For Indonesia, the challenge is no longer solely about discovering new solutions. It is about ensuring that proven approaches can become embedded within the systems that sustain them, creating broader and lasting impact for farmers, fishers, families, and the future of Indonesia’s food systems.
