Since the 1996 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation’s (FAO’s) World Food Summit (WFS) in Rome, civil society organisations (CSOs) supporting food sovereignty have created alliances across movements and initiated dialogues with governments and institutions to influence shifts in policy.
This inclusive participatory process has involved, “thousands of representatives of small-scale food producers and Indigenous Peoples organisations in many crucial events and fora on agriculture and food systems all over the world, where their voices were previously absent.”
A notable milestone was the 2002 WFS, where social movements led the planning and development, with the support of the FAO.
The proposition for the 2021 summit, however, marks a shift that puts the participatory mechanisms towards democratic and multilateral food governance in jeopardy
Not only is the World Economic Forum slated to be involved in the hosting of the summit but the appointment of Agnes Kalibata, the current President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), as Special Envoy, “presents a clear conflict of interest with regards to the stated purpose of the Summit.”
The ACB wholeheartedly supports the call for a review of these processes and we encourage other organisations to sign on, by clicking here.
credit: African Centre for Biodiversity
