CSIPM Equity Working Group intervention during the CFS Open-Ended Working Group on Reducing Inequalities meeting on 7 October, 2024.
Intervention delivered by Dee Woods (UK, CSIPM Coordination Committee, Landworkers’ Alliance, La Via Campesina) and Taina Hedman (Pueblo Kuna, CSIPM Coordination Committee, International Indian Treaty Council)
We would like to start by acknowledging the importance of the process that has led us here today. Reducing inequalities for food security and nutrition is a central concern of the CSIPM’s constituencies as a prerequisite for inclusive, participatory, equitable, healthy and sustainable food systems.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the CFS secretariat and all those who have worked on the document throughout the short and difficult negotiation process. We would also like to extend our thanks to you, rapporteur, Lara Lobo, for your dedication throughout the process. Your commitment gave space and facilitated important, but at the same time difficult, conversations that for the first time found space within the CFS. This resulted in policy recommendations that address some of the structural causes of inequalities, such as concentration of power, debt, trade and sanctions. Not only did we recognise that racism, discrimination and disability are intertwined with food security issues, but we also maintained references to occupation and protracted crises, including the critical recognition that forced starvation as a method of warfare is unacceptable.
These recognitions demonstrate the value of the CFS process and space to raise critical issues at the global level.
As CSIPM we have engaged with the process, consistently prioritising the voices of the people most affected by these deep-rooted structural inequalities in our food systems, and elevating the experiences of people in conflict and war zones such as Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, Haiti, Congo, and now Lebanon. Since the beginning of this process, we have reiterated our ambition to have a policy document that makes a real difference for people most affected by intersecting forms of discrimination against race, gender, disability, age and by structural inequalities, particularly those living in protracted crisis situations and conflict zones. Unless we do not address the drivers of these inequalities, nothing will change. Therefore, continuing these discussions within the CFS is a priority for the CSIPM, and we do not see these recommendations as a point of arrival but rather as a point of departure.
Therefore, we also have important concerns that we want to address with a view to building on what we have learned in this process:
- We are concerned about the negotiation modalities being taken in recent CFS processes to find consensus for controversial issues. We see that in recent processes, agreements have been reached outside the plenary room, in parallel to the actual scheduled sessions of negotiations, losing hours of interpretation, which to a large extent ensures the inclusiveness of the CFS. These meetings organised outside the plenary, and sometimes without prior notice and behind closed doors, exclude CFS actors, which is the opposite of transparent and inclusive discussions and decision-making through plenary sessions, including for the Friends of the Chair sessions. For future negotiations, we call on member states and participants to return to making full use of scheduled sessions for negotiations to ensure interpretation, participation and transparency of discussions. These are founding principles of the reformed CFS that ensure a decision-making space within a human rights framework.
- The intersectionality of different types of discrimination remains a controversial issue. However, it continues to cut across the lives of the most marginalised people, who are often those who are food insecure but at the same time produce food. Although explanations of its importance for understanding the systemic and structural causes of multiple and intersecting inequalities were clearly set out in the HLPE report and explained by several member states and by the CSIPM itself, intersectionality still fails to gain acceptance as the language of the CFS.
- The rights of Indigenous Peoples continue to be undermined. During this process, we have at times witnessed the active denial or questioning of these rights in the negotiation room. This issue is much broader than the negotiating space here, it extends to other CFS processes, as well as to other multilateral and UN spaces. We call on the CFS and its Member States to take into consideration the latest developments and respond to these attacks against the respect of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that was recognised and adopted by the UN General Assembly after a 30-year struggle by our organisations.
Finally, we must underline that the policy recommendations are only the beginning, a foundation on which to build upon. It is crucial that we remain vigilant and ensure that these recommendations are translated into tangible change and action by all levels of government to ensure the right to adequate food and real transformative change for those most affected by inequalities, especially in situations of war and occupation.