The CFS Collaborative Governance Dialogues are part of the UN Committee on World Food Security’s (CFS) four-year workstream on Collaborative Governance for Coordinated Policy Responses to Emerging Global Food Crises. Its aim is to exchange views on the evolving food security and nutrition (FSN) situation, track the actions being taken to address it, and reflect on how to improve the coordinated global response to these crises, as well as on the role the CFS itself should play in that response.
Unlike other CFS processes, this workstream does not produce a negotiated outcome, there are no Voluntary Guidelines or Policy Recommendations at the end of it. Instead, it convenes two dialogues a year where governments, UN agencies, civil society and other actors exchange experiences on issues affecting food security and nutrition, with particular attention to the constituencies and countries most affected. A summary report from the CFS Chair captures the discussion and feeds into the CFS Plenary’s debate on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World.
For CSIPM, these dialogues matter because they sit outside the consensus-driven negotiation process. They are one of the few open spaces at the CFS, and across the UN system, for direct testimony, knowledge-sharing and debate, with a focus on those most affected by food insecurity and malnutrition.
In 2026, the CFS convened two dialogues: Affordability of Healthy Diets and Data Gaps on Food Security and Nutrition (May, 2026) . and Addressing Gaps in Information and Data Availability Through Multi-Stakeholder Processes in Food Security and Nutrition (July, 2026). The CSIPM engaged in both as part of the Technical Task Team, alongside other actors, in the preparation of the dialogues, and by facilitating the participation of rights-holders as speakers and attendees.
Below we share the key messages delivered by CSIPM participants.
Affordability of Healthy Diets (7 May 2026)
CSIPM speaker: Ximena Moreno, Brasil/Chile, from URGENCI and CSIPM Coordination Committee.
CSIPM argued that the unaffordability of healthy diets is not an isolated market failure but a structural outcome of a food system built around profit rather than sustainability, respect for culture, or the right to food. She called for a shift from input-heavy industrial agriculture toward agroecology, and for public policies, such as public procurement programs that buy directly from small-scale agroecological producers for schools and hospitals, that make healthy food both accessible and financially viable for the people who grow it.
**Please note this message was delivered in Spanish; this is not a professional translation**
FEEDING BODIES, CARING FOR TERRITORIES: RESPONSES TO THE COST OF EATING WELL
Good afternoon, everyone:
First of all, I would like to emphasize that food must be understood in all its dimensions, not merely as a product to be consumed.
Food produced in monocultures using agrochemicals has a significant impact on the individual and collective health of those who consume it and those who grow it, as well as on ecosystems.
Food is shaped by social contracts; to be healthy, food choices must be based on the relationships established between farmers, ranchers, fishermen, shellfish gatherers, foragers, and the people who consume the food, as well as ecosystems, our traditions, and our gender roles—in contrast to ultra-processed food, which is disconnected and rife with commercial implications. Our discussions about food must highlight these relationships!
When discussing healthy diets, it is essential to understand how food relates to socio-agricultural systems—from cultivation and processing to its availability. These are key elements for affordability!
A second point is that the unaffordability of healthy diets is a structural consequence that reflects the deepest inequalities rooted in today’s economic and socio-agro-food systems.
On the one hand, there is the commodification of food and the capitalist economic system that prioritizes profit over environmental sustainability, culture, and the right to food. On the other hand, there are powerful private and philanthropic actors who shape policies and decision-making in favor of capitalist industrial food systems, based on the agro-extractive complex.
It is unacceptable that countries with the most productive land are exporting commodities, polluting their territories, while their populations are unable to afford healthy food.
We need to promote process-based agriculture rather than input-based agriculture, as the latter is bound to be continually affected by international crises.
Agroecological agriculture is grounded in the systemic organization of territories, fostering high biodiversity, improving ecological interactions—including those involving animals—and managing waste flows to transform them into low-cost inputs that have a high impact on soil revitalization and the maintenance of communities within their territories.
A third strategic point for us is that public policies must be geared toward addressing systemic challenges to ensure the availability of and access to food and healthy diets, especially for those who cannot afford them.
Public food policies must be aligned with food, trade, and investment policies to support local and diversified farming, regional markets, the communities that sustain agriculture, and other forms of solidarity-based economies.
Public funding must reach small-scale food producers who use socially and culturally appropriate agricultural practices.
They must promote living wages and social protection, and regulate misleading advertising of ultra-processed products.
It is important to educate urban consumers to choose healthy, socially just, and environmentally sound foods. However, we must not forget that the people who suffer the most from hunger on the outskirts of cities are women of a specific skin color. For this reason, public procurement that guarantees healthy food for schools, hospitals, and other facilities—and that in turn provides financial stability for farmers—must be supported. For example, Brazil has a national school feeding program that purchases food directly from agroecological producers through its food procurement program. However, we view with deep concern the decision by government officials to eliminate school feeding programs, leaving millions of children vulnerable and destined to suffer from hunger and malnutrition.
Furthermore, we must not forget that health policies are also needed to encourage sustained action within urban food systems, both for education and for food cultivation. An example of a bottom-up public policy is the biodynamic agroforestry medicinal gardens, which serve as spaces for community interaction and the production of food and medicinal plants within public health facilities in Brasília, the capital of Brazil.
The fourth point we wish to highlight is the need to establish spaces for participatory governance within governments.
For example, Brazil has created and funds the National Council for Food and Nutritional Security, where the government, civil society, and academics come together to analyze the best ways to ensure that healthy food reaches everyone. These types of actions have been fundamental in helping Brazil once again emerge from the ranks of nations affected by hunger.
Before concluding, I must emphasize that in 2022, this House recognized the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a fundamental human right. That is why we must work together to develop a program to reduce the production and use of pesticides and other practices that are harmful to our territories, as these are killing us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly—through various diseases.
Finally, I cannot fail to recall that the human right to adequate food is a fundamental right; that is why we cannot remain silent in the face of hunger being used as a weapon of war.
The world needs bridges of solidarity, not ruthless wars.
Thank you very much!
Addressing Gaps in Information and Data Availability in Food Security and Nutrition (16 July 2026)
CSIPM speaker: Lisa Shahin, Jordan/Palestine, Arab Group for the Protection of Nature,/CSIPM Coordination Committee member.
Lisa Shahin warned that in contexts of war and occupation data can become a weapon in itself. She pointed to the 2025 cyberattack that exposed data from roughly 600,000 Gazan households registered for humanitarian assistance, and to WFP’s data-platform partnership with Palantir, a company linked to Israeli military technology, calling for a new, rights-based, sovereignty-grounded framework for humanitarian data governance.
My name is Lisa Shahin from the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature. I am a member of the CSIPM Coordination Committee, facilitating for the West Asia region.
Much has already been said today about the importance of better data for food security and nutrition. I would like to focus instead on what is too often avoided from these discussions: the governance of data in contexts of war, occupation, and protracted crises.
CSIPM has consistently raised this concern since the negotiations on the CFS Policy Recommendations on FSN Data in 2023. We must not forget that data is never objective or neutral. Every stage of its collection, analysis, ownership, and use reflects particular assumptions, interests, and power relations. Data can be manipulated to serve political, military, or corporate objectives, at the expense of the rights and livelihoods of the very people from whom it is collected.
Without human oversight, data collection technologies can also risk becoming instruments that entrench the appropriation and exploitation of land, water, seeds, and other resources essential to sustaining life.
We have a collective obligation to guarantee that human rights are at the center of data governance. This means that rights holders determine how their data is produced and used. Yet across many contexts, we witness non-consensual data extraction and sharing without meaningful rights to access, correct, transfer, or delete it, and increasing surveillance by both governments and private actors. In contexts of wars and occupation, these risks become exponentially greater, where data itself can become a weapon and humanitarian information can be used to facilitate starvation, displacement, and genocide.
We are witnessing precisely these dangers in Gaza. The cyberattack targeting the World Food Programme exposed the personal information of approximately 600,000 households, collected through humanitarian assistance registration systems. This should not be viewed simply as a cybersecurity incident. It was a targeted attack against an extremely sensitive humanitarian database concerning a population enduring genocide, manmade famine, and pervasive surveillance; a population who is required to surrender personal information to access even the most basic necessities of survival, such as food, water and humanitarian aid.
The risks do not end with the breach itself. They also raise broader questions about how humanitarian data is governed, who has access to it, and the partnerships through which it is managed. These concerns are further compounded by WFP’s partnership with Palantir, a software company with a publicly documented relationship with the Israeli occupation. In her 2025 report, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese stated that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” Palantir has provided predictive policing technology, core defense infrastructure for military software, and an AI platform enabling real-time battlefield data integration for automated decision-making. Against this backdrop, reports indicate that Palantir provides WFP’s data platform which integrates humanitarian beneficiary data, raising profound concerns about the security and potential for weaponization of this data.
Humanitarian organizations have an obligation to apply the highest possible standards of data protection and due diligence. Partnerships with entities complicit in facilitating serious violations of international law are incompatible with these obligations. Our call for accountability is directed at the institutional decisions that permit such partnerships and fail to adequately protect the highly sensitive data entrusted to humanitarian organizations by populations seeking life-saving assistance.
Finally, we call for a new governance regime for data, grounded in human rights and data sovereignty. Such a framework must define the legitimate boundaries of data collection and prohibit forms of data processing that undermine or deliberately attack individual or collective autonomy, dignity, and self-determination.
Within this framework, we urge the adoption of much stronger safeguards to prevent the exposure and weaponization of humanitarian data, together with a thorough re-evaluation of partnership and procurement processes to ensure full compliance with international law.
Thank you.
CSIPM speaker: Tai Pelli, International Indian Treaty Council/United Confederation of Taíno People, CSIPM Data Working Group
Tai Pelli brought to the panel an Indigenous Peoples perspective on data sovereignty, describing decades of Indigenous knowledge and resources being extracted without consent or benefit-sharing, and the growing impact of data centers on water and land in or near Indigenous Peoples’ territories. She called for Free, Prior and Informed Consent, grounded in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), as the non-negotiable foundation of any data governance framework that affects Indigenous Peoples.
“An Indigenous Reality and Perspective on Data Sovereignty & Governance and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”
Taigüey, ituno kena itiaono, D’iri ka Tai Pelli kena Daka Boriken Taino. Good day sisters and brothers. My name is Tai Pelli and I am a Borikén Taíno, which you may recognize as Puerto Rico. I am currently residing in the United States.
This past April, I attended the 2nd Indigenous Peoples Data Sovereignty and Governance Summit which was hosted by the University of Arizona. While in the essence of time, I cannot be inclusive on all the issues that we, as Indigenous Peoples are encountering when it comes to Data Sovereignty and Governance, I would like to highlight areas that are of extreme and urgent importance. I will also share with you, areas for possible solutions as Indigenous Peoples, and about actions that can assist us in ensuring that our rights are protected, including the empowerment and education of our own Indigenous Peoples. We must protect and understand the ramifications of Artificial Intelligence; data extraction; digitalization; the impact to our water resources and other natural resources, including our Indigenous lands and territories. We must be proactive in preparation for the tsunami -(I am an islander)- that all of these can have for us, if we do not take measures of prevention.
Although I have been doing International Indigenous Human Rights Advocacy for a couple of decades and have been a socio-cultural advocate from a very early age, when I started hearing about Indigenous Data a few years ago, I assumed it to be just statistical numbers. When I finally learned about all the areas that this term encompasses, I became extremely worried. Most of our Peoples have little to no idea as to how intricate this subject is and how behind we are in ensuring the Protection of our Data.
For many decades, Indigenous Peoples have been the subject of studies with no shared benefits nor reported results back to the Peoples. If anything, they were subjects of continued studies of the studies, all without the Free Prior and Informed Consent of the Peoples involved.
While broadly or even publicly undermining the value of Indigenous knowledge, sciences and technologies, we see over and over how this same information is extracted from our Peoples and then marketed without any form of reciprocity. Our traditional medicines; our farming systems – including growing healthy crops without the use of pesticides for example, or our irrigation technologies; our spiritual practices; beadworks and other Indigenous Art forms; our ceremonies; our midwifery practices; our songs; biopiracy…are just a handful of examples of areas that have been targeted for Data extraction.
Currently, in the United States, we are reading about the number of non-Indigenous communities that are establishing local policy to ensure that no data centers are established in their communities. Interestingly, what we are not reading about are the many Indigenous communities that are already facing the impacts of Data Centers in or near their ancestral lands and territories, and how many are already experiencing water shortages. This is not just happening in the United States, but in other countries in Latin America as well as in other parts of the world.
Ni toh kakuhu! Water is Life! Indigenous Peoples are already enduring the impacts of Environmental Violence and Environmental Racism as it is, and diverting the limited water resources to these Data Centers is not only detrimental to human life, but to our flora, fauna, our agriculture, and has a tremendous unfathomable impact on the economic, social and cultural aspects for Indigenous Peoples. It is a menace to our ways of life, sustainability and cultural preservation.
During the Summit, we identified the need for: Education – utilizing layman terms so that youth and elders understand the meaning of Data Sovereignty and Governance, what it entails and how to establish protocols, specific to the Indigenous Peoples. Community Capacity Building and Train the Trainer sessions on targets, data collection methods, measure techniques and indicators. Integrate intersectionality – education – economics – research.
Fostering intergenerational dialogue – Elders have the gift of knowing our ways, our Youth is more comfortable in using modern technology. The elders have the stories and the knowledge and the youth and young adults possess the know-how’s, are computer savvy and can be creative with data technology.
Fostering partnerships, including those with other Indigenous Peoples who have established protocols for their Data Sovereignty and can bring insight based on their experiences.
Indigenous Peoples and Communities creating their own small Data Centers and iClouds, was one of the suggestions.
And because time is running out, I will stress on the most important one, in my opinion: creating protocols and frameworks utilizing a rights-based approach as the foundation. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, represents the minimum standards. We shall not accept anything that goes below those minimum standards. We need to encourage and foster Free, Prior and Informed Consent Protocols based on the decisions made by the Indigenous Peoples themselves. Whether it is Artificial Intelligence, Data Extraction, digitalization, and/or anything that affects Indigenous Peoples must be done with the Consent of the particular Indigenous Peoples. I remind all of you that Consultation is the means to obtain Consent. A Consultation process without the exercise of Free Prior and informed Consent is a violation of our Rights. Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance can only be achieved by the full respect and application of our Rights. However, and as I always stress, “If we don’t understand what our rights are, there’s no way we can defend them.”
I invite Member States to read the Special Rapporteur 2025 study on the recognition of Indigenous Peoples, which underscores the negative effects of conflating Indigenous Peoples with local communities.
I hope that the rights of Indigenous Peoples are on the forefront of the decisions made on this space.
Hahom. Thank you.
Join the conversation!
If you want to follow this process, share your experience, or contribute to building the CSIPM’s positions ahead of the next dialogue, join the CSIPM Working Group on Global Food Governance.
Read more:
- Food sovereignty is not possible without financial sovereignty. CSIPM at the CFS Collaborative Dialogue on Financing for Food Security and Nutrition, April 2025.
- Alert, denounce, act against hunger as a weapon of war. CSIPM at the Collaborative Dialogue on Protracted Crises, July 2025.
- Saima Zia (Pakistan / La Vía Campesina) on the wheat crisis in Pakistan. CFS kick-off meeting on Collaborative Governance, 30 May 2024.
- Why this CFS workstream matters for civil society and social movements. Explainer video by Tyler Short, 2024.