CSM Final Statement at CFS 45
19 October 2018
Antonio González – (MAELA), Guatemala
The CSM would like to thank everyone – the Chair, member states, participants, the Secretariat and all other who have contributed to a productive week here at CFS 45, including the interpreters, the messengers, the technicians, the cleaners, and the meeting services team.
This year the CFS has made some strides – but more work is needed to focus our discussion and ensure CFS policies result in action on the ground.
We welcome the adoption of the implementation plan as a comprehensive response to the independent evaluation of the CFS. It provides us with the key elements, strategic guidance and the operational tools for the next years. We call on all members and participants of the CFS to engage constructively on the three adopted strategic objectives in support of the realization of the CFS vision. We have clear guidance on how to move forward and now we must deliver – it is time to recommit.
Inclusiveness must be a daily practice at the CFS. We at the CSM have taken the important step this year to change our name to better recognize the struggle of Indigenous Peoples all over the globe for their territories, natural resources, and identities. We are proud to be the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism. We are also encouraged by the commitment in this room to ensuring that women’s rights, women’s empowerment and gender equality are a central pillar to the CFS’s work. We will continue to work with all actors to both mainstream and focus on women’s rights. We must also make sure that other marginalized peoples like refugees, undocumented peoples, and migrant workers, be more strongly heard in this forum.
The successful Global Thematic Event from yesterday and the huge commitment of CFS actors to the process of monitoring the right to food guidelines, made evident the importance of monitoring here at the CFS and that the right to food guidelines are being used around the world to better to ensure that no one is left behind. The right to food is fundamental to achieving – food security, women’s rights, poverty eradication, sustainable livelihoods, peace and security, economic growth, and the 2030 agenda. We must build on our collective work this year to monitor implementation and share experiences as well as to collectively strengthen our efforts to put the right to food at the core of our work going forward.
In this respect, the next Global Thematic Event, monitoring the use and implementation of the Framework for Action on Protract Crises, offers an opportunity to have a deep insight into conflict and protracted crises as key drivers of high rates of food insecurity and violations of the right to food around the globe.
Looking forward, we have many important projects ahead and key opportunities to ensure that CFS does not fail and has an impact on the ground.
First of all, we have to take Rome home. The relevance of CFS policy outcomes can only materialize when they are used and applied broadly by all CFS actors on the national, regional and global level.
Second, the upcoming policy convergence processes on agroecology and food systems and nutrition, should be informed by carefully listening to people’s voices, and ensuring a holistic and human rights based approach, with the full commitment and engagement of all CFS actors.
Third, the CFS should better connect with other relevant UN bodies including those NY and Geneva, like the High Level Political Forum, the CEDAW, and the Human Rights Council. The CFS must also engage in ongoing processes such as the SDGs, the Decade on Family Farming, and the Decade on Nutrition, and take up new instruments to guide our work, such as the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other People Working in Rural Areas.
It was widely recognized in this CFS session, that we are not only off track – but partly on the wrong track. Nobody is more acutely aware of the challenges facing us than young people. We must ensure that intergenerational learning and dialogue occurs and that young people are supported as part of families and communities, living, working and building their future in rural areas. We are striving for a world in which ecological and social health flourishes and all human rights, including the right to food and women’s rights, are realized. It is an imperative that we all work together to achieve this more just, ecological and equal world.