The Reformed Committee on Food Security. A briefing paper for ...

<strong>The</strong> Contact Group Process:Producing a Blueprint for CFS Reform<strong>The</strong> mechanism for producing the reform document was a Contact Group especially established bythe Bureau of the CFS under the visionary leadership of its Chair Maria Del Carmen Squeff, AlternatePermanent Representative of Argentina to FAO. In a departure from the normal working practicesof the CFS (and other inter-governmental bodies) the Contact Group provided unprecedented participationopportunities for civil society, who were more or less entitled to the same degree of accessand participation as member states - tabling and responding to reform proposals through the ContactGroup’s website and attending and intervening at the Rome meetings. Though civil society were notthe only actors invited into the extended Contact Group, and the full list of participants also includedother UN bodies and, in theory at least, the private sector, it was widely recognised by member statesthat civil society participation was fundamental to the successful conclusion of the process and thevision of the final document.From its first meeting in April 2009 to the adoption of the reform document in October later thatyear, the Contact Group met physically a total of seven times, with much website mediated activityin-between. During this time the reform document went through a number of different drafts, as ContactGroup participants worked within four Working Groups to consider 1) the Role and Vision of therenewed CFS; 2) its Membership and Decision Taking; 3) its Mechanisms and Procedures, and; 4) itsHigh Level Panel of Experts. Within the context of these working groups discussion and negotiationfocused implicitly upon such questions as:• Who should be entitled to participate in the renewed CFS and what should their participationrights be?• What roles should the CFS play within the global food security “system” and how authoritativeshould it be?• With which other parts of the international system should the CFS be related, andhow?• What “mechanisms” does the renewed CFS need in order to be able to fulfill its roles?11