Cultivating Change in a Warming World

Cultivating Change is a global program designed to accelerate the transformation of food systems over the next five years, focusing on those most affected by inequality and compounding disasters. The program operates at the intersection of food, land, and the climate crisis, recognizing that systemic inequalities must be addressed through a multi-sectoral, integrated approach.

The long-term goal of Cultivating Change is to enhance the resilience of rural women and their communities by ensuring food, nutrition, and income security. Working alongside allies and movements, the program empowers them to challenge and transform the systems of inequality and rights violations driving hunger, climate disruption, and ecological degradation.

Implemented in Bangladesh, Nepal, Laos, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Peru, and Brazil, Cultivating Change in a Warming World aims to support rural women and their communities to:

Improve food, nutrition, and income security, and, together with their allies and movements, build just, sustainable, and resilient food systems for all;
Secure land and resource rights, and take the lead in inclusive governance and sustainable natural resource management;
Enhance climate resilience, and lead climate action in collaboration with allies and movements.

To support progress on these three core thematic outcomes, Cultivating Change integrates the following cross-cutting strategies:

Enhancing women’s voice, agency, and economic power: Women’s rights, living incomes, and the policies that affect them are advanced through women’s leadership, voice, and collective power.
Challenging corporate power: Corporate and financial actors are held accountable for meeting the 1.5°C climate target, and for harmful policies, exploitation of natural resources, and human rights violations.
Strengthening movements and civic space: Movements, networks, and activists are better protected, connected, and resourced. They are mobilizing public support and promoting new narratives to advocate for just and sustainable food systems, land and resource rights, and climate justice.