Highlights and images for 11 October 2017

44th Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS 44)

Summary

On Wednesday, CFS 44 participants discussed policy convergence emerging from the HLPE report on Sustainable Forestry for Food Security and Nutrition, and the outcomes of the Forum on Women’s Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition held during the intersessional period. Members endorsed CFS’s Multi-year Programme of Work for 2018-2019, the first periodic update of the Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition, and a decision on monitoring the effectiveness of CFS.

In the morning, Akram Chehayeb, Chair of the FAO Committee on Forests (COFO) and Francois Pythoud, Rapporteur of the CFS policy convergence process on forestry, presented draft recommendations on sustainable forestry for food and nutrition, including on: cross-sectoral policy coordination; capacity building; and stakeholder involvement to integrate food security, nutrition and agriculture in forestry objectives. Members welcomed the recommendations and discussed national experiences in promoting food security and nutrition together with forest protection. The US, the EU, CSM and others lamented the lack of time to develop policy convergence, with Civil Society Mechanism (CSM) also expressing concern regarding the low level of participation and insufficient inclusivity. After some discussion, Members agreed to consider a meeting with the Rome-based Agencies (RBAs) to discuss the relation between commercial plantations and food security and nutrition, recognizing that this issue was not sufficiently discussed during the policy convergence process.

In the afternoon, keynote speaker, Helen Hakena, Leitana Nehan, Women’s Development Agency, Papua New Guinea, addressed the importance of women owning or governing land, the strain of climate change on women’s ability to make a living on agriculture, and the need for collective power among women for long-term sustainable solutions. She underlined that food security requires nutritional empowerment of women.

IISD Reporting Services, through its ENB+ Meeting Coverage, has provided daily web updates from CFS 44. In addition, IISD Reporting Services has published a summary report of CFS 44 which is available in HTML and PDF.