Welcome to a new number of the CSIPM Update!
In this issue you will find the latest information from the Women and Gender Diversities, Data and Inequalities Working Groups, and the MYPoW 2024-2027 process. We walk you through the activities led by the Autonomous People’s Response to challenge the UNFSS+2 stocktaking moment. And we inform on the steps to register to the CFS 51 plenary and the CSIPM Forum.
Please note that the Secretariat team will be on a break throughout August. The CSIPM Secretariat will remain closed from August 14 to August 25. We will return with renewed energies and full capacity at the start of September. For any urgent matters, please contact us at cso4cfs@gmail.com
We wish you a pleasant reading!
The CSIPM Secretariat
Marion, Luca, Giulia, and Betsy
CFS 51 Plenary Session
Deadline for registrations 15 September 2023
23 – 27 October 2023. FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy
Participants should send an email to CFS51-Registration@fao.org by 15 September 2023 indicating name and last names, organization, official title, address, and email address, together with a recent passport-size digital photograph. Personalized links to access the virtual meeting will be made available upon receipt of the above information. If you wish to attend the CFS Plenary in Rome, please specify that you will participate in person. If you are a civil society or Indigenous Peoples organization, please specify that you participate through the CSIPM. Please note that the CSIPM can provide financial support only for the participation of the Coordination Committee members.The Plenary will begin with a high-level opening ceremony and a discussion on strengthening coordinated policy responses to the food crises. In continuation, the Plenary will explore global interlinkages with other key moments that relate to global food security and nutrition, including the 2023 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Summit, UN Food Systems Summit Stocktaking Moment 2023, the 2024 Summit of the Future, COP27 and COP28, and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.CFS 51 is set to endorse the Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition, Policy Recommendations on Strengthening Food Security and Nutrition Data Collection and Analysis Tools for Food Security and Nutrition, and the Multi-Year Programme of Work (MYPoW) 2024-2027. Additionally, the Plenary will include two stocktaking sessions: a presentation on the progress of the follow-up to the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) as well as a global thematic event on the monitoring of the two CFS Policy Recommendations on Price Volatility and Food Security, and on Social Protection for Food Security and Nutrition. Plenary sessions will be conducted in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
Read the CFS51 Provisional Agenda | Visit the CFS 51 website
CSIPM Forum
21 and 22 October 2023. in Rome, Italy. Details about the venue will be communicated to the registered participants in October.
Deadline for registration: 13 October
Register by filling in this form https://forms.gle/Z3kSypsTdsvMTvhMA
Every year, the CSIPM organizes its Annual Forum ahead of the CFS Plenary Session, welcoming all interested participants from civil society and Indigenous People’s organizations. This two-day event serves as a critical juncture and platform for the CSIPM. Participants get the opportunity to discuss, solidify, put forth, and finalize their political positions, which are then articulated during the CFS Plenary Session. The CSIPM forum is also a space to assess past processes, to consolidate common positions for the present and to identify key challenges and steps forward for the future.
Prior to the Annual Forum, the CSIPM Coordination Committee conducts its yearly meeting. The Forum also functions as a platform for accountability, where CC members share updates on their work, achievements, and undertakings with all participating CSOs.
The Draft Agenda and background document of the CSIPM Forum will be posted on the CSIPM website in October. Please check the website to find out more information.
Vacancy announcement
The CSIPM Secretariat is looking for a full-time logistical support person to join the team in September and October 2023.
Apply by 31st August 2023 | Read and share the vacancy announcement
Updates from the CSIPM Secretariat
Due to personal issues, our Secretariat coordinator has stepped down after nine months of dedicated service. The secretariat has reorganized tasks internally to ensure a smooth transition, financial survival and continuity of CSIPM activities. In this interim period, Giulia Simula has assumed the role of Secretariat coordinator. She is working together with Luca Bianchi, Betsy Diaz, and Marion Girard, who are stepping in as needed to cover the facilitation and coordination of all CSIPM bodies. Your support and understanding during this transition phase are greatly appreciated. We will keep you updated as soon as possible concerning the next steps as regards the Secretariat coordinator position.
Women and Gender Diversities Working Group
After more than a year, the negotiations of the Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls Empowerment concluded on 14 June 2023. The final document is expected to be endorsed at the CFS 51st Plenary on 23-27 October 2023. Recognizing the relevance of this process, the CSIPM Women and Gender Diversities Working Group will now conduct an assessment process.
A diversity of voices joined the Twitter Storm, uniting under the hashtag #WeExist on 15 May, which was the first day of the last round of negotiations. If you are a Twitter user, don’t miss the coverage of these concluding discussions! Our CC member Dee Woods delivered a powerful closing statement to express the CSIPM’s concern about how the negotiations unfolded on the last day.
- Read the final document of the Voluntary Guidelines on GEWGE (the official document is currently only available in English but non-official translations have been provided by the CSIPM in French and Spanish.
Data Working Group
The negotiations of the CFS Policy Recommendations on Data Collection and Analysis Tools for Food Security and Nutrition culminated on 20 July, following two intensive rounds. The CSIPM Data Working Group was a key participant in these discussions, advocating for significant issues such as the importance of data governance, acknowledging the multitude of data sources, specifically the value of Indigenous Knowledge, and protecting and defending the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) among others.
These concerns are also reflected in the CSIPM on Data for Food Security and Nutrition which was drafted by the working group with the participation of organizations from different regions and constituencies who are engaged in, or impacted by, the digitalization of the food systems. This document is continuously being refined and the group welcomes additional insights. To further enrich this vision statement, the Working Group is organizing a series of virtual regional roundtables to collect more perspectives. If you are interested in contributing or participating in a roundtable, you are encouraged to send a message to cso4cfs@gmail.com.
Read and share the CSIPM Vision Statement on Data for Food Security and Nutrition
MYPoW process
The CSIPM has outlined key proposals for the CFS multiyear plan of work (MYPoW) from 2024 to 2027, whose final draft will be published in August in the CFS website and which will be endorsed at the next CFS Plenary Session in October. The MYPoW is the political agenda of the CFS for the upcoming 4 years, and the Advisory Group of the CSIPM strongly advocated for the centrality of two main issues. The first is to have global coherence and coordination in policy responses to the multiple crises and to have a structural transformation of the food systems. The second main priority expressed by the CSIPM is that the voices from the most affected countries and constituencies should be put at the centre of the discussions on how to respond to crises and how to transform the food system. The CFS should be a space where even the most difficult discussions can be held and where the most affected by hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity should shape food policies that lead to the realization of the right to food and food sovereignty. Between 2024 and 2025, two very important themes will be discussed in the UN Committee on World Food Security: how to reduce inequalities for food security and nutrition and how to strengthen urban and peri urban food systems. If you want to join these discussions, you are welcome to join the CSIPM working groups.
Other political issues that will be discussed in the coming years are: building resilient food systems, the importance of Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems and sustainable fisheries and aquaculture.
Other critical features which the CSIPM has highlighted during the latest Advisory Group discussions can be found in the CSIPM comments to the latest draft of the MYPoW.
Read the CSIPM comments to the latest version of the MYPoW and the CSIPM comments shared during the 27 July CFS Advisory Group and Bureau meeting.
Reducing Inequalities Working Group
The High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) launched the report on “Reducing inequalities for food security and nutrition”, which provides a conceptual framework for assessing inequalities and a set of recommendations to address them and their impacts for food security and nutrition worldwide. The report will serve as the basis for the CFS thematic Workstream on Inequalities, which aims to address the root causes of food insecurity.
During the launching event on 15 June 2023, the CSIPM Inequalities Working Group delivered a statement to highlight key issues important for this debate.
Opposing the UN Food Systems Summit + 2 stocktaking moment
The Autonomous People’s Response to the UNFSS is once again denouncing the corporate capture of decision-making in food systems. During July, a series of activities took place in opposition to the stocktaking moment of the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS+2), convened by the UN Secretary-General, which took place from 24-26 July in Rome. We have launched a public statement and a press release.
The UNFSS+2 is one of many events that are poised to repeat the failures of the Summit itself, further opening the door of the UN to even greater influence from companies and their networks, such as the Summit of the Future. In response, the Autonomous People’s Response has recently organized events involving experts, civil society organizations, social movements, and Indigenous Peoples to call for genuine food systems change.
Watch and share:
Webinar “Multistakeholderism and Multilateralism: The Case of Food”
Webinar “Multistakeholderism and corporate capture of global food governance”
Furthermore, on 24 July, during the first day of the UNFSS+2, diverse voices joined a Twitter Storm under the hashtag #FoodSystems4People.
Stay tuned for the upcoming activities! And join the social media video testimonial campaign to share what food systems transformation looks like in your community, or how corporate capture of food policy decision-making impacts you and your community with the hashtag #FoodSystems4People.
And if you have material you would like to post on foodsystems4people.org, or would like to join the communications campaign please, write an email to call4actionfss@gmail.com
Don’t miss the reports:
In the media
In case you missed it !
The United Nations recently warned that the period 2023-2027 will be the warmest on record. This will have serious and irreversible impacts on health, food security, water management, and the environment. Droughts increased by 29% compared to 2000 and more than 2.3 billion people are suffering from water scarcity.
Smallholder farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk, Indigenous Peoples, agricultural and food workers, women, and youth from across the globe reveal the impacts of climate change and water crises on their food rights and how they address them in this eye-opening interactive monitoring report on the CFS Policy Recommendations on climate change (CFS 39, 2012) and water (CFS 42, 2015).
Read and share the CSIPM Monitoring Report on Climate Change and on Water