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

Inclusivity Realising the inclusivity of the reform document is going to require a major shift inthe way that both member states and perhaps UN officials are used to operating. Sharing space with“those most affected by food security”, finding modes of communication which enable their participation;creating methodologies and processes for weighing the multiple inputs that the CFS is goingto receive – this is going to require both special effort and good will. Moreover, whilst private sectorparticipation has been underwhelming up until now, if the CFS starts to acquire political authoritythere is a danger – and very real prospect - that they will seek to deploy their considerable resourcesto try and influence it work. <strong>The</strong> same could be said also of member states that fear that their commercialinterests are being threatened by CFS interventions. What impact might this have upon civilsociety participation?Political relevance <strong>The</strong> CFS seeks to be “the central United Nations political platform dealingwith food security and nutrition” (CFS: 2009/2: Paragraph 2). <strong>The</strong> idea of centrality impliesestablishing a relationship between the CFS and the other parts of the UN system of relevance forfood security in which the latter are politically subordinate to the former. <strong>The</strong> obstacles to this arepotentially quite considerable. <strong>The</strong>se would include, generally speaking:• A high degree of fragmentation across the different parts (different entities with diffe-rent mandates) of the UN system of relevance for food security (including weak coordinationlinks between them);• State incoherence at the global level in different fora of relevance to food security, (differentministries pursue different objectives) related to;• State internal incoherence within Capitals (countries rarely have inter-ministerial foodsecurity coordination, and where this is attempted it has proven quite difficult).Another important challenge related to establishing the political relevance of the renewed CFS emergesfrom the new roles that have been assigned to it. <strong>The</strong>se new roles imply the transformation of theCFS from a fairly dead space in which Ministers make (unrelated) declarations (the old CFS), to onein which a serious engagement with policy is required (the renewed CFS). Ministers carry politicalauthority, but they lack the time to sustain a serious engagement with policy. <strong>The</strong>re seems to be a tension,therefore, between these two ambitions of the CFS’s roles, and preparations for the 2010 Plenarysuggested that this was the case.31