What does food system resilience look like on the frontlines?

The Frontlines Learning Exchange 2026 webinar series creates learning spaces to tackle complex agricultural challenges in a changing world.

As climate shocks intensify, cities expand, conflicts reshape livelihoods and islands confront mounting environmental pressures, food systems are being tested in unprecedented ways. Yet some of the most valuable lessons for building resilience emerge from the very places facing these challenges most acutely.

The people living through these realities are not waiting for ideal conditions. Every day, they are adapting, innovating and finding new ways to sustain livelihoods, strengthen food security and manage risk. Recognizing and learning from these experiences is at the heart of the Frontlines Learning Exchange (FLEX) webinar series.

Lessons from the first year

Launched in 2025 by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) under the CGIAR Food Frontiers and Security Program, FLEX was created as a platform where researchers, community leaders, humanitarian practitioners, local governments, entrepreneurs and development partners could exchange experiences on what is working and what still needs to change in some of the world’s most dynamic and vulnerable contexts.

In its first year, the FLEX series focused primarily on fragile and conflict-affected settings. The conversations brought forward concrete stories rather than abstract frameworks. Participants shared stories of youth-led efforts in Nigeria that turned water challenges into energy and nutrient solutions; collaborative flood mapping in Ethiopia that blended drone technology with local knowledge; inclusive irrigation approaches tested in refugee-hosting areas of Jordan and Lebanon; and disaster-risk management tools helping communities in Nepal and Zambia ease tensions over land and water resources.

“So we now train youth in how to build drones, pilot them, maintain them, how to use them for transport, image acquisition, and how to use AI techniques in order to harvest data that’s relevant for UNICEF programs,” said Michael Scheibenreif, Program Manager of UNICEF’s African Drone and Data Academy, describing youth drone training during one of the webinars.

These were not curated success stories presented from afar. Rather, they were lived experiences of people navigating compounding risks, such as climate stress layered on displacement, resource scarcity, market disruption and fragmented governance.

What emerged was a clear pattern: technical solutions matter, but they only travel when they are grounded in trust, local leadership, gender-responsive approaches and financing models that bridge humanitarian response and longer-term development. The FLEX sessions explored the details of the innovations, while also exploring the institutional, social and financial systems that enable or constrain them.

Participants left with practical insights they could adapt, relationships they could build on, and a stronger sense that the knowledge held by those closest to the challenges is essential for global progress. Those lessons are feeding into how the CGIAR Food Frontiers and Security Program works, helping ensure evidence from fragile contexts informs strategy across its three frontier areas.

Expanding the frontier in 2026

FLEX 2026 broadens the focus beyond fragile and conflict-affected settings to encompass urban and peri-urban food systems and island contexts.

While these three frontier spaces differ in many respects, they face remarkably similar pressures from climate and environmental stresses, resource scarcity, market disruptions, migration, shifting diets and fragmented governance. At the same time, they are hubs of innovation and adaptation. Communities, governments, researchers and businesses are continuously developing practical solutions to navigate uncertainty and build resilience.

FLEX seeks to bring these experiences together, connect them across geographies and generate insights that can inform action far beyond individual locations. Rather than promoting one-size-fits-all solutions, FLEX seeks to understand how lessons can travel across contexts while remaining grounded in local realities. It also aims to strengthen relationships among the diverse actors working at the frontier of food-system transformation.

Looking ahead

The FLEX 2026 series continues the interactive format of panels and peer-learning dialogues, rather than one-way presentations. Discussions will explore questions that matter on the ground: how nature-based solutions can restore climate and water resilience in fragile settings; what “food of the future” looks like in low-resource environments; how early warning and anticipatory action can strengthen pastoral systems; what responsible innovation scaling looks like amid instability; and how foresight and rapid-response modelling can support timely decisions.

The goal remains simple but ambitious, to elevate knowledge from the frontlines, connect experiences across diverse contexts and translate learning into action. The first FLEX series demonstrated that some of the most valuable insights for food system transformation already exist in the places facing the toughest challenges. FLEX 2026 aims to amplify those voices, connect across contexts, and turn these experiences into pathways toward more resilient and food-secure futures.