Highlights from SUN CSN coordinator attendance to CFS

The 40th Annual Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) was held in FAO, Rome, Italy from 7 - 11 October 2013.

There is increasing attention to addressing the multiple forms of malnutrition (undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight and obesity) through agriculture and food systems. Agriculture and food systems are best placed to influence food production and the consumption patterns of nutritious foods necessary for a healthy and active life. Nutrition-sensitive agriculture aims to maximize the impact of the food and agricultural sector on nutrition outcomes while minimizing any unintended negative nutritional consequences of agricultural policies and interventions on the consumer. It is placing a nutrition lens on the food and agricultural sector, without detracting from the sector's own goals which include production, productivity and income.

This year side events at the CFS looked at how to integrate nutrition more actively in CFS, processes and moving forward on post-2105, preparing for ICN2, International Year of Family farming amongst other things. Quite a large section of the main CFS session focused on biofuels and food security.

The objectives of my participation included:

• connecting with key stakeholders in nutrition,

• gathering additional information on post-2015 process, actors and efforts towards defining targets and indicators

• connecting and developing relationships with Brazilian actors and get additional information on Brazilian context and concerns

• connecting with, hearing concerns from and starting to explore avenues for collaboration with the Civil Society Mechanism of the CFS.

Civil Society mechanism (CSM) for CFS

• CSM recognising the need for greater nutrition in food security and agriculture

• CSM has concerns about the SUN movement mostly linked to not enough emphasis on right to food and social determinants of nutrition and SUN’s inclusivity, specifically with regards to businesses

• Meetings with CSM secretariat indicated that, though there are concerns about the SUN movement, CSM was opened to starting to work together and engage in discussions on how to make that happen.

• I feel we, as SUN CSN, need to engage more smallholder farmers and communities directly suffering from malnutrition in post-2015 discussions and specifically regarding common messaging and suggesting targets and indicators for nutrition. This is one of the ways of starting to address concerns. I would suggest the Steering Group of SUN CSN engage in discussions around positioning ourselves on this matter.

Post 2015

• There are many players engaging in post-2015 process

• There is an open working group towards shaping the goals for the post-2015 sustainable goals and are aiming for about 12 universal goals. Goals will thus be general but targets in relation to these goals will need to be more specific to be applied at country level and regional level and will need to have actions related to them and recommendations for means of implementation (e.g. multi-stakeholder partnerships, within principle framework contributing poverty reduction through sustainable development):

o MEASURABLE TARGETS & BASELINE DATA with M&E PLAN- sustainable, resilient, supportive of sustainable ecosystems and productive agriculture

o MEANS OF IMPLEMENTATION BUILT AROUND THESE TARGETS

o WHAT WHY HOW WHO and WHAT kind of impact can it have

o EACH OF US WILL HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY

o STAKEHOLDERS / SPACE (CREATE SPACE TO COMFORTABLY WORK TOGETHER) / SYSTEMS (WITHOUT SYSTEMS VERY DIFFICULT)

• The SUN CSN working group on post-2015 should look at some of these recommendations, connect with key players, understand process to adapt and develop advocacy strategy at country level.

ICN 2 – November 2014

• Participants – national policy makers from nutrition and Ministries, CS, private sector and consumers association / MoH, MoAg and MoFinance can attend from national delegations as well as thinking of beyond government.

• Outcome – a flexible policy framework and identify priorities

• Outputs- progress report since 1992, new challenges for improving nutrition, policy options for improving nutrition

• Linkages at ICN2 - Link with post-2015 and Zero Hunger challenge

• Preparation - Countries will be involved and countries are being asked to prepare country case studies

• Would it be possible for ICN to have a true CSM-like structure to ensure active and comprehensive engagement of CS? –ICN2 is an inclusive conference www.fao.org/icn2. Mechanisms for that 19-21 November 2013 – CS and Private Sector formal members will be invited to attend that meeting. There will be a preparatory meeting and we can ensure CS engaged in that process. Organising team is in deliberations and looking at ways in which all CS can be involved. It will be important for us as SUN CS to try and find a way of ensuring SUN CS representation at the event.

• How can we ensure that ICN2 builds on momentum that we have? - Depends on all of us to ensure that commitments are translated into concrete actions. ICN2 will bring key people from the country level (as opposed to top-down) as already through SUN and other activities, country leaders want to make this a priority. And as such slightly different to the 1992 ICN.

• What are other countries doing in terms of preparation for ICN2? – All countries have been asked to get involved by preparing nutrition profiles and progress made (to be jointly prepared by several Ministries in each countries), how to address key issues such as climate change. Sharing experiences is very important. We should try and obtain this information when it becomes available.

Brazil

• 2016 will be an election year and will thus be a busy space and a sensitive one to navigate. Might be worth getting insights from Milo from CARE Peru on this.

• Brazil is under a lot of pressure and having a clear idea of the narrative will help navigate this scene.

• I was not able to meet with Brazilian delegations or CONSEA but please refer to notes on Brazil session.

• I did however briefly meet with Alessandra da Costa Lunas (CONTAG & COPROFAM and SUN lead group member). Alessandra was keen to ensure the SUN movement took on board some concerns about current lack of engagement with organised family farmer groups and a stronger focus on addressing the double burden of malnutrition as obesity is an important issue in Brazil.

• As we move forward, I think it will be important to keep the dialogue going and get examples of experiences in Brazil both in terms of family farming and nutrition efforts but also in terms of how CS successfully engages with the government. It may be worth exploring in a first instance ways of getting this experience sharing going (e.g. Webinars)

• There are many roads to Rio and let’s keep exploring different avenues. As SUN CSN coordinator, I am keen to do this through country efforts.

• As we move forward we need to be conscious of concerns and try our best to address them as best we can to be as inclusive as possible.

International Year of Family Farming and the SUN CSN Global Day of Action

• From meetings with Stineke Oenema from CSM Nutrition Working Group, it seems that an avenue for collaboration could be organising a dialogue at country level / regional level (Stineke interested in Western Africa – Mali, Benin, Niger (CS of women farmers), Burkina Faso, Chad, Ivory Coast)). This could be explored as an additional day or two to a potential regional forum to exchange experiences in Africa (as is starting to be discussed and could be part of our efforts towards a global day of action). This would need to be facilitated by neutral actor.

• The Global Day of Action working group, in addition to discussions in New York, should consider integrating the International Year of Family Farming dimension in plan and explore how to best do this. Connection with National committees on the 2014 IYFF could be a first step.

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