Are corporations taking a backseat in their global development goals? The short answer is yes, but ending hunger globally and other life-saving development goals remain no less important. Witness the following examples: the demise of the Net Zero Banking Alliance, the restructuring of several similar initiatives, corporate backtracking on environmental, social and diversity (ESG) commitments, the postponement of the EU Deforestation Regulation and the scaling back of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.

With dwindling official development assistance budgets and a retreat from multilateralism we are far removed from the heydays of 2015 when the global community coalesced around a common vision for the future as defined by the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement.

Yet the spirit that inspired leaders in 2015 and imbued the launch of the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge in 2021 has not fully disappeared. This is the key conclusion that we have drawn following a review undertaken this year to verify whether companies in the Zero Hunger Pledge had indeed converted their commitments into action on the ground.

The Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge calls on the business community to invest in projects that end hunger and malnutrition based on the recommendations from the Ceres2030 project that identified 90 priority countries and 10 high-impact investment areas. To ensure the credibility of the Zero Hunger Pledge, every two years, independent consultants verify how much, where and in what areas companies have deployed their pledges.

This year’s findings surpassed our expectations. Between 20023 and 2024, 16 companies invested US$214 million through 138 projects in 40 countries. Cumulatively, the Pledge has now deployed US$440 million since its launch. Even more impressive, four companies—AGREA, Nutriset, Rabobank, and Soilless Farm Lab—exceeded their original commitment by a combined US$151 million. This means that, all together, the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge has mobilized nearly US$800 million in commitments, from its previous tally of US$645 million, from over 100 businesses worldwide to end hunger and malnutrition.

Through this verification process, we have gained three key insights about company priorities with regards to ending hunger globally.

Read the full article about ending hunger globally by Lawrence Haddad and Carin Smaller at Food Tank.