The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) is moving forward to the last round of negotiations on the Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in the context of Food Security and Nutrition (GEWGE). A full week of negotiations will be held in a hybrid format from 15 to 19 May 2023, and will be based on the 31 March 2023 version of the Draft for Negotiations, which is available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.
The continued process, restarted on February 2023, has gathered CFS Member States and participants in an Open-Ended Working Group on 7 March, where the CSIPM Women and Gender Diversities working group brought an intersectional view of the different forms of discrimination and the diverse oppressive and violent conditions faced by women, girls, and non-cis heteronormative persons. Participants also called the CFS Member States to take a supportive position vis-a-vis the most marginalized, disenfranchised, and oppressed. Interventions from the Working Group participants are available here, and the recording is available at this link.
On 24 March the Women and Gender Diversities Working Group provided written comments to the revised draft of the VGs on GEWGE.
The next OEWG hybrid meeting will be held on 5 May. The final Voluntary Guidelines are expected by June, and are planned for endorsement during the CFS 51st Plenary Session in October 2023.