Honorable Minister Younten Phuntsho, Minister of Agriculture,

Representatives of the Monastic body,

Partners, farmers, youth representatives, colleagues,

As we prepare to leave Bhutan, we each take away something different.

The need to reconnect farmers with consumers, food with culture, and science with traditions;

The acknowledgement of food and nature as sacred;

The courage to call out injustice and entrenched power structures;

The audacity and power of youth;

Leaders championing inner transformation, so food systems regenerate;

And of course, Bhutan’s warm hospitality!

One lesson I hope we all take forward is:

How food systems connect to the multiple planetary crises we face. Reconsidering our relationship with food, the soils that produce it, and the people living off it, can be a powerful start to fixing our broken relationship with nature.

For this to happen, we need good policies, stronger institutions, greater finance and tech.

But we also need new ingredients. Inner change - a shift in values and minds to transform systems, and pull us back from the brink of climate catastrophe, and mass extinctions.

And we must respect nature’s ancient custodians, with traditional wisdom. Because this is also about whose voices are heard, and what we reward.

This summit put that idea into practice...

Uniting farmers, policymakers and young people, across countries, communities and generations, to learn from one another. We’re delighted that National Food Systems Convenors of Bhutan, Lebanon and Mongolia, along with Agro-Ecology and Indigenous Peoples Coalition members, were with us.

No one nation, institution, sector or group can fix food systems alone. Progress depends on combining different knowledge, experiences and leadership, around one, shared purpose.

The Conscious Food Systems Framework, launched here, paves a practical foundation to apply those insights back home. It offers policymakers:

• A vision for conscious food systems articulating values and principles, from which regeneration, health and equity can grow

• Along with case studies from across the world, already putting this into action

Next year, CoFSA and its partners will add guidance on how to apply those inner change values in food systems projects, policies and investments.

Our task now, is to use that guide to carry the spirit of this Summit beyond Bhutan... sowing food systems that are regenerative, resilient, and morally right... That nourish people, while restoring nature.

To realise this, farmers, Indigenous Peoples, women, youth and local communities must have seats at the table, as they do here. And we must be ready to listen; to forge policies, investments and partnerships for action.

This Summit was made possible by the fertile collaborations cultivated in recent years, through the Committee for World Food Security and UN Food Systems Summit in 2021, yielding a more balanced food policy diet. Among them, National Food Systems Pathways and coalitions.

UNDP stands ready to continue this pioneering journey with the Royal Government of Bhutan, the Conscious Food Systems Alliance, the GEF, the GAFSP, and our partners globally, including the wider UN family.

My sincere thanks to the Royal Government of Bhutan, the organizers, facilitators and every participant for their thought-provoking contributions to this gathering.

Its success will be measured by the choices we make after we leave, the relationships we sustain and our courage to turn consciousness into change.

That work begins now.

Thank you, and Tashi Delek.