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

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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
4. CSO PARTICIPATION WITHIN THE RENEWED CFSAs stated above, the participation of civil society organizations, and particularly the IPC, during theContact Group process was fundamental to the production of the reform blueprint the great potentialof which has been one of the central messages of this briefing paper. Many of the positions advocatedby the IPC during this time were successfully incorporated into the final document. This includes:• <strong>The</strong> importance of the roles of policy formulation and the production of a strategic frameworkto CFS functioning;• <strong>The</strong> necessity of meaningful linkages between the CFS and the different levels, especiallythe local;• <strong>The</strong> importance of securing a privileged space for smallholder producers;• <strong>The</strong> need for civil society participation within the CFS to be founded upon the principleof CSO autonomy;• <strong>The</strong> need for representative mechanisms – the Advisory Group – to facilitate the workof civil society within the CFS during the intersessional period.Following the successful adoption of the reform document in October 2009 – and much celebrationby those that had been working hard throughout the entire Contact Group process – the renewedCFS became one of the major focuses of attention at the People’s Food Sovereignty Forum in Rome,November 2009. During this event a number of key principles for future CSO participation in the renewedCFS were reinforced, including the importance of ensuring that the CFS provides a space for“those most affected”, and that civil society should review their participation within the renewed CFSafter a three year period, considering whether or not it has become an effective body for them. Importantly,the People’s Food Sovereignty Forum acknowledged the commitment and effectiveness oftheir representatives who had been participating in the Contact Group process, and mandated themto continue their work as the CFS moved forward into the implementation phase.32
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