Unlocking Financing for Regenerative School Meals in Low- and Middle-Income Countries - Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Convening - June 2025
Under the leadership of the Rockefeller Foundation, Convene worked alongside Bankers without Boundaries, Nature Finance and CGAP, to design, prepare and curate an exceptional Bellagio Convening. We brought together a blend of senior government officials, MDBs, financers and experts to co-design novel financing mechanisms that will unlock funding for regenerative school meals.
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Build Actionable Financing Pathways: develop a concrete country-context specific playbook outlining how to unlock financing for regenerative school meals (prototypes), from leveraging World Bank instruments to repurposing subsidies and exploring sovereign bonds.
A Cohesive, Committed Coalition: build a coalition of committed champions across finance, policy, and implementation, ready to advocate for and implement regenerative sustainable school meal financing solutions.
Urgency Meets Opportunity: identify clear, scalable opportunities to transform school feeding programs into a driver of both nutrition security and regenerative agriculture, with recognition that the challenges are real (climate change, diminishing livelihoods for farmers given environmental challenges, malnutrition, and fiscal constraints).
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Prior to the Convening, bilateral meetings and a Kickoff meeting with convening participants to inform, onboard and connect across this unlikely group of individuals!
Prior to the Convening, a Reflect-Share-Blend process over two rounds surfacing areas of divergence and convergence, understanding and interest across the group of participants.
Co- development of a BwB-led Financial Instruments Toolkit for Regenerative School Meals, acting as a key reference to the Convening.
Curation of a five day convening with a selected group of RSM experts and policymakers. Live sensemaking and documentation through a carefully designed Play Book that integrated both process and content.
Post-Convening, an on-line debrief session with participants and project team ensuring follow-up and momentum maintained.
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After Action Executive Brief shared with participants, including country prototypes and indicating forward looking action plans.
Financial Instruments ToolKit for Regenerative School Meals
Country Playbook

