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The true test of the Committee on World Food Security will be whether, for all its open discussion, any change is felt at local level. Photograph: AFP/Getty
The true test of the Committee on World Food Security will be whether, for all its open discussion, any change is felt at local level. Photograph: AFP/Getty

World food security talks: challenges of bringing everyone to the table

This article is more than 10 years old
A strength of the food security talks in Rome is the coming together of civil society and the UN. But how much impact the outcomes have on the poor is questionable

Inside a large, grey UN complex in Rome, just south of the Colosseum, the latest chapter in a high-stakes political experiment is quietly unfolding as the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) meets for its 40th session this week. Once a relatively mechanistic, high-level event, today the CFS stands alone among big UN meetings for bringing everyone to the table and is often hailed the most inclusive global governance forum.

"I don't think it's an exaggeration," says Kostas Stamoulis, director of the agricultural development economics division at the UN food and agriculture organisation, and secretary of the CFS. "It's the most inclusive forum that I know of. Especially for issues of food security and nutrition, there's no match."

Unlike other conferences, where civil society groups scramble for two-minute speaking slots, are shunted to the side for parallel meetings, or opt for counter-summits and demonstrations instead, at the CFS they sit and speak alongside government delegates in the plenaries where debates are held.

Big business comes along too, as do representatives from institutions such as the World Bank and philanthropic donors including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The CFS embarked on a thorough reform five years ago, amid the 2008 global food price crisis and the subsequent series of protests and food riots that erupted worldwide. That sense of urgency, say observers, helped push the body to finally open its doors.

Civil society groups and farmers organisations had fought for years for space at the CFS table, and many delegates are quick to credit them with the committee's reform. Others worry, however, that it lacks the standing it deserves and that too much of its work flies under the radar.

"We really gained a political space here and have to maintain it," said Leà Winter, co-ordinator of the global Right to Food and Nutrition network. "We would like the CFS to be the number one platform to discuss food and nutrition but still we're being bypassed by the G8. How is the G8 more legitimate?"

Last year, negotiators at the CFS agreed a "landmark" set of voluntary global guidelines on responsible governance of land tenure and access rights to land, fisheries and forest resources. While hailed as a major success for the forum, not everyone is convinced that voluntary guidelines will be enough to protect the rights of vulnerable communities however.

This week, negotiators hope to find a consensus on the particularly prickly debate about how to balance biofuels and food security concerns. Other issues on the table include how to deal with food insecurity in protracted crises, and what principles for responsible investment in agriculture should look like.

The stakes are undoubtedly high. Last week, UN estimates suggested that although 30 million fewer people were chronically undernourished today than in 2010-12, the number of hungry people in the world remained above 840 million. Meanwhile, reports of dramatic and often violent land grabs continue to multiply and concern over how to balance competing demands over natural resources is intensifying.

Biofuels is this week's most contentious issue, with civil society and private sector groups at loggerheads over what acceptable recommendations would look like.

In the runup to this week's meetings, 80 civil society organisations signed an open letter calling on the CFS to recognise the promotion of biofuels is undermining the right to food and not allow itself to be "captured by biofuels interest groups". Industry groups, meanwhile, issued their own statement arguing that discussions so far had largely excluded and disregarded the views of the private sector.

Stamoulis says the CFS's multi-stakeholder process is both its main asset and major challenge. "Getting consensus and agreement on issues that are extremely controversial like climate change or biofuels is very difficult. So the challenge is how to get a consensus that is still meaningful, because if you dilute it too much then it gives the stakeholders no guidance on what it is they have to do. So this process takes time. Negotiation, consultation, it takes time."

This year, more than 120 member states are in attendance, along with hundreds of representatives from more than 90 civil society organisations and almost 50 private sector and philanthropic groups.

Some dislike the very vocabulary of the CFS, however, where everyone is a "stakeholder" and working "in partnership", arguing that this fails to acknowledge and risks tacitly accepting the fact that there are often stark power imbalances between those at the table.

On biofuels, Stamoulis is optimistic that an agreement will be reached by Friday's closing session, but says it will not satisfy everyone. "That's negotiation. Nobody will be 100% happy. Everyone will have to give up something. That's the essence of meaningful negotiation."

But the true test of the CFS will be whether, for all its inclusive negotiating and open discussion, any change is felt where it is needed most – at the local level, where millions of the world's most vulnerable people remain locked out of political processes and at the greatest risk of hunger, poor nutrition, and land rights violations.

"The CFS doesn't have any means to enforce decisions, it's not like the security council," says Stamoulis, though he adds that governments do feel "peer pressure" to implement decisions, and groups in-country can use CFS statements to hold their leaders to account. "Because they are negotiated decisions, everybody participates, everybody has the chance to put together their position, they have a political legitimacy they wouldn't otherwise."

But at the very least, he says, some kind of monitoring mechanism is needed to track what happens to decisions when delegates leave Rome.

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