Statement delivered by Tyler Short, CSIPM participant from the United States, the organization Family Farm Defenders, and Technical Task Team member of the CFS Workstream on Collaborative Governance.
Thank you, Chair, for giving us the floor. Thanks to Brazil and Hungary on behalf of the EU’s 27 Member States for your support toward respecting CFS practice and procedures and thank you so much for your support toward our Mechanism’s right to intervene during Plenary.
The CSIPM is an official participant of this Committee. We are not observers. We are participants. The CFS reform document clearly establishes that we have the right to intervene in Plenary. Direct and meaningful participation for our Mechanism requires that we are provided the opportunity to add our collective voice during the decision-making process, understanding that Members are who actually take the final decisions.
We engage here in order to contribute toward building consensus. We believe that the current procedure could set a very bad precedent calling into question the inclusivity of the CFS. We underscore that the CSIPM was not consulted today on the compromise text that has recently been agreed. And this continues a pattern from recent policy negotiations in which Member States reached conclusions behind closed doors, never inviting the CSIPM to engage in building compromise. So, respectfully we disagree with the procedure by which the CSIPM could only intervene after text is agreed by Members. We also sincerely disagree with the approach by which our right to intervene was put under the decision of Member States earlier. This should not set a precedent.
We understand that since the 2009 reform participants can be asked to refrain from intervening when a vote has been called, and set into motion, or when the Chair feels that consensus among Member States is about to be reached. However this morning we were not even allowed to express the views of the constituencies whose voices we bring into this room on new paragraphs which were just then being opened up for discussion, and which concern issues that strongly impact people on the ground.
Although the discussion has already been closed for some time, it is crucial to note regarding the paragraph on unilateral economic measures, that the CSIPM believes it would have been better to use text already agreed by CFS instead of referring only to the Pact for the Future. We wanted to recall paragraph 3 on page 33 of the Right to Food Guidelines, from the section on “International cooperation and unilateral measures” which already speaks about that matter.
Regarding the para on debt and finance, our position centered on the importance of the CFS leading a coordinated strategy to address the systemic drivers of these matters within its mandate and anchored in the current MYPoW and not only focus on mobilizing funding.
We reiterate our commitment to the CFS. Currently, the credibility of the entire UN is at risk, and apparently the inclusivity of the CFS is also at risk. The platform function opened by the Workstream on coordinated policy responses gives the possibility to address issues such as debt and reinforces the legitimacy of the CFS. Therefore it can greatly increase the visibility and impact of the Committee across the UN. Intentionally connecting with other UN spaces would allow the CFS members and participants to gain important insights and lessons while also creating opportunities to promote the uptake of CFS policy agreements. Thank you.