Call for contributions
On February 3rd, 2017 the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) of the CFS on Urbanization and Rural Transformation (UR&RT) adopted a “CALL FOR EXPERIENCES AND POLICY APPROACHES IN ADDRESSING FOOD SECURITY AND NUTRITION IN THE CONTEXT OF CHANGING RURAL-URBAN DYNAMICS”, which includes the template for submission of case studies in all UN official languages EN, ES, FR, RU, AR, CH.
The aim of the CALL is to collect short summaries of experiences and policy approaches addressing food security and nutrition in the context of urbanization and rural transformation with the primary focus on rural-urban linkages.
For relevant thematic areas and criteria for selection of the submissions the please refer to this link.
Please note that the call does not intend to collect only successful case studies, but rather the experiences, regardless their positive results, as failed policies are food for thought and improvement in the future. The main focus should be on lessons (positive and negative) and on how gaps, obstacles and other adverse conditions (administrative, economic, political etc.) were addressed.
The case studies can be submitted in all official UN languages (AR, CH, EN, ES, FR, RU), using this template and should not exceed 1000 words.
In addition to using these experiences in the CFS process, as CSM we will use them to also create our own understanding of how we view rural transformation that supports the right to food and nutrition in the context of food sovereignty.
Deadline for submissions is March 15, 2017, however as we intend to collect CSO case studies and submit them together in the name of CSM though CSM WG on Urbanization and Rural Transformation, please send your submissions before March 10 to Imogen Ebsworth at Imogen.k@gmail.com
Why is it important for the CSM to contribute?
The CFS lunched the work stream on urbanization and rural transformation in December 2015 and so far it was focused on the identification of the policy relevant areas for the CFS arising from urbanization and rural transformation.
As a second stage the work steam wants to collect case studies reflecting the experiences in this regard. It is expected that based on the analysis of the submitted documents, the CFS will identify key messages to be discussed on the CFS 44 forum.
In general the topic of the work stream is very important for the civil society as it covers food security problems related to the socio-economic changes currently taking place in the world called urbanization and rural transformation.
Rural areas stewarded by peasants, pastoralists and small scale fishers, as well as indigenous territories, have not only always been main providers of culturally appropriate food to the world, but also the sources of agricultural biodiversity, locally bread varieties, as well as the centers of knowledge related to local ecosystems; today, these historically fundamental systems as changing dramatically.
We believe that the great shift in the history of mankind, called by this work stream as a “rural transformation”, is caused together with other reasons mainly by external factors and city centered policy approaches. Thus it is very important that civil society facilitates that the voices of the most affected – smallholder rural producers, women, youth, urban poor and other vulnerable groups – are heard and reflected in the policy analysis and documents.
We believe that integrating the rural vision, listening to the voices of the rural people and exploring the potential of rural areas through innovative approaches such as agro-ecology and local food systems is key to understand how to do RT without dismantling peasant agriculture.
Please contribute yourself and/or help us to disseminate the call though forwarding this email to:
- Relevant organizations and
- Constituencies!!!
Thank you for helping us to bring the voices of the most effected in the discussion of the CFS!
Best regards,
Elene and Kuria
Coordinators of the CSM Working Group on Urbanisation and Rural Transformation