UAE support for food security and climate resilience

The Gates Foundation is a longstanding partner of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in its efforts to support global collaboration on food security, scientific innovation, and climate adaptation and to advance progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In 2023, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, the UAE and the foundation announced a partnership to accelerate the development of innovations to help smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia build resilience and adapt to climate change. New joint commitments totaling US$200 million from the UAE and the foundation will go toward responding to immediate and long-term threats to food security and nutrition caused by climate change. This includes funding for CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future, across the CGIAR’s research portfolio , food systems innovations and investments , and a new CGIAR artificial intelligence hub in the UAE. Through this commitment, the UAE also became the first Arab government to join the CGIAR Systems Council, the organization’s governing body.

The partnership includes an initiative called the Agriculture Innovation Mechanism for Scale (AIM for Scale ), which seeks to rapidly expand access to climate-related innovations for farmers in the Global South. One of the first innovations is the AIM for Scale Weather Package , which is expanding access to improved weather forecasts for millions of farmers in low- and middle-income countries.

The foundation matched the UAE’s commitments, helping to bring CGIAR funding for the 2023–2024 funding cycle to close to US$800 million. The additional funding is helping to scale up and expand access to an array of proven innovations that help farmers adapt to challenging climate conditions, including climate-resilient crop varieties, strategies to revive degraded lands, and long-range climate forecasts to help farmers anticipate and navigate weather extremes and shifting rainfall patterns. CGIAR aims to reach 500 million farmers by 2030 with such innovations and to reduce emissions from the agricultural sector by 1 gigaton per year by that date.

The foundation and UAE commitments to CGIAR at COP28 accompanied the landmark COP28 UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action, which was adopted by 134 countries that are collectively responsible for 70% of the world’s food production. The declaration is a shared commitment to strengthening food systems, building resilience to climate change, reducing global emissions, and contributing to the global fight against hunger, in line with the SDGs.