The Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSM) for relations with the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS)
has the pleasure to invite you to the webinar
‘Learning about the COVID-19 crisis in the Committee on World Food Security’
Wednesday 16 April
15.00 – 17.00 (CET)
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You can now see the recorded webinar here!
Panelists:
Máximo Torero – Assistant DG, Economic and Social Development, FAO
Francesco Branca – Director Nutrition and Development,WHO
Olivia Yambi – Co-Chair IPES-Food
G.V. Ramanjaneyulu – Executive Director, Center for Sustainable Agriculture
Sophia Murphy – Senior Specialist, Agriculture, Trade, Investment, IISD
Mamadou Goita – Executive Director, IRPAD
Co-facilitators: Nettie Wiebe and Ruchi Tripathi (CSM)
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EN/ES/FR Interpretation will be provided. If you are planning to attend through ES/FR interpretation please write to cso4cfs@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
It is increasingly evident that the tremendous impacts of the COVID19 pandemic on human health will be accompanied by a food crisis of global dimensions in which food import-dependent countries and vulnerable sectors of the population will be the hardest hit.
CFS members and participants are already engaged in monitoring and assessing the impacts of COVID19 and tracking responses at all levels. The CFS can count on its own High-Level Panel of Experts and, importantly, on the data collection and knowledge generating activities of the RBAs, FAO in particular. At the same time, through the multiple constituencies that comprise it, the CFS has unprecedented access to the evidence and proposals of the most vulnerable, who are also responsible for the bulk of food production in the world. Putting these insights and perceptions together can help us to learn lessons regarding what makes food systems resilient and what normative process needs to be engaged to work towards inclusive, equitable and sustainable food systems.
We invite you to a webinar on Impact of Covid-19 on food systems and policy responses to it. The panel comprises of speakers from international organizations and the academic and research world, from different regions. The format will be one of facilitated dialogue, inviting active engagement by CFS Members and participants.
The Committee on World Food Security key in facilitating a coordinated global policy response around covid-19 and food crisis
The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) was reformed in 2009 in response to a previous food crisis, making it the foremost inclusive international and intergovernmental platform working towards ensuring food security, nutrition and the right to adequate food for all. Drawing on the experience of multi-actor dialogue and the negotiated outcomes it has achieved over the past decade, it is incumbent on the CFS to make its contribution to the search for policy solutions to the fragilities of the world’s food system which COVID 19 is dramatically setting in relief.
In meetings that have taken place over the past few weeks CFS Members and participants have begun to build a shared understanding of the implications of COVID19 for food systems and the kind of instruments that need to be put in place to address them. The CFS’s role, it has been recalled, is not one of operational response but rather of policy coordination, convergence and coherence and, indeed, the food crisis that is building up will require a coordinated and effective global policy response. The dramatic multiple crisis that is unfolding in front of us is characterized by high levels of uncertainty and complexity. Science is plural and there are divergent scientific views on any topic. In democratic settings, public authorities are well advised to acknowledge this and to organize deliberations listening to diverse, plural knowledges and perspectives.