المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Forests can play a vital role in supplementing global food and nutrition security but this role is currently being overlooked, a report suggests.

The study says that tree-based farming provides resilience against extreme weather events, which can wipe out traditional food crops.

It warns that policies focusing on traditional agriculture often overlook the role forest farming could play.

The findings were presented at the UN Forum on Forests in New York, US.

The report is the result of a collaboration of more than 60 leading scientists, co-ordinated by the International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO) on behalf of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF).

"The report is not trying to suggest that people should start relying on forests more than conventional agriculture," explained Bhaskar Vira, the chair of the panel which compiled the report.

"It is very much about the complementary roles that forests can play alongside conventional agriculture.

"The evidence shows that a large number of people still rely on the food from forests and trees to supplement their diet," Dr Vira, director of the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute. Read more

The FSN Forum hosted a presentation of the book “Street Food. Culture, Economy, Health and Governance” in FAO, 9 December 2014. This book provides a comprehensive perspective on street food, on its immense cultural diversity and economic significance both in developing and developed countries. Stefano Marras, editor of the publication, presented an overview of the research hereby included and gave a snapshot on street food issues and challenges across Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Please find an interview with Stefano Marras by Max Blanck of the FSN Forum.

FSN Forum Workshop - Inclusive policy dialogue to make trade policies conducive to food security and nutrition

FAO, Rome, 16-17 December 2014 - Food security is an international issue that requires collective global and regional action and an integrated approach. In recognition of this, the FSN Forum has created the Food Security and Nutrition Forum in Europe and Central Asia (FSN Forum in ECA), a network of experts and stakeholders in which to discuss regional food security and nutrition initiatives and generate innovative solutions.

To support the further development of the FSN Forum in ECA and to ensure its full ownership by regional actors from different backgrounds (including from civil society, academy, research and government), the two day workshop “Inclusive policy dialogue to make trade policies conducive to food security and nutrition” will take place in FAO Rome on 16-17 December 2014. The overall objective of the workshop is to stimulate the debate on trade and food security and nutrition policies and strategies that will feed into national and regional policy processes. The workshop will be held back-to-back to the first meeting of the CIS Agricultural Trade Expert Network organized by the Trade and Markets Division (EST), supporting the members of the new CIS Agricultural Trade Expert Network to be part of the regional and global policy debate on food security. 

More information on the workshop is available here

The Right to Food Timeline highlights national, regional and global milestones for the realization of the right to adequate food as well as other substantive contributions to the implementation of the Right to Food Guidelines.

The fifth issue of the IPC Newsletter highlights important initiatives and technical developments undertaken at global level, among them the 10th Anniversary of IPC, the Roll-out of the IPC-Chronic Classification, the Piloting of the IPC Nutrition Phase Classification, and the IPC Global Awareness Raising for Decision Making.

This issue also features recent IPC impacts, results and progress achieved at regional and country level in Africa, Latin America, Asia & Near East.

Please download the newletter here

This free online course provides guidance on how to design and implement agriculture policies and programmes that are gender-responsive, sustainable, contributing to gender equality, and therefore able to improve food and nutrition security.

Monitoring commitment and capacity to act on food insecurity and malnutrition: the Food Security Commitment and Capacity Profile methodology

There is a global consensus that strong political commitment by Governments and development partners is key to the elimination of hunger and malnutrition. It is against this background that FAO has developed a methodology to assess and track efforts of national stakeholders to act on food insecurity and malnutrition: the Food Security Commitment and Capacity Profile (FSCCP) ( http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3998e.pdf ).

The methodology provides a tool that helps stakeholders to:

1. Carry out a systematic assessment of political commitment and capacity of countries to act on food insecurity and malnutrition;

2. Engage in evidence-based policy dialogue, planning and prioritization of investments in food security and nutrition; and

3. Monitor performance over time;

The methodology has been applied since 2013 in the context of FAO’s corporate Results Framework (http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/030/mk234ea1.pdf) for planning and monitoring progress of efforts to reduce hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition.

The food security commitment and capacity country profile is designed as a balanced score card which provides a concise view of countries’ commitments and institutional capacities in terms of four key dimensions of the enabling environment, namely:

i. Policies, programmes and legal frameworks: i.e. the country has comprehensive policies/ strategies and investment programmes (based on evidence, addressing underlying causes of food insecurity and adopting a twin-track approach) that are supported by a legal framework;

ii. Human and financial resources: i.e. policies/strategies, programmes and legislation that are translated into effective action through the allocation of the necessary financial and human resources and solid administrative capacity of governments;

iii. Governance, coordination mechanisms and partnerships: i.e. the government regards food security and nutrition as an interdisciplinary priority by setting up a high level inter-ministerial unit responsible for the design, implementation and coordination of food security and nutrition responses, while ensuring accountability through its support to independent human rights institutions that provide people with means to file violations of the right to food. Furthermore, a government that takes on a lead role in managing partnerships and coordinated action across a broad range of actors and sectors involved in food security and nutrition at national/decentralized levels, creating space for civil society participation;

iv. Evidenced-based decision-making: i.e. decision-making on food security and nutrition that draws on evidence generated from functional information systems that make it possible to monitor trends; track and map actions; and assess impact in a manner that is timely and comprehensive, allowing for lessons learned to be fed back into the policy process.

For each of these four dimensions, the methodology paper outlines:

1. A set of core indicators and associated qualifiers;

2. The approach to producing a score for each of the qualifiers and indicators;

3. Details on the sources of the required data and information.

4. A survey instrument and secondary data collection tools.

Apart from helping FAO to measure the outcome of its work on food security and nutrition, it is expected that the country profiles will also stimulate debate on how to improve the enabling environment for food security and nutrition and promote more systematic learning and sharing of experiences.

It would be interesting to hear from the experiences of other agencies and sectors that are monitoring political commitment.

SOFI 2014 presents updated estimates of undernourishment and progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and World Food Summit (WFS) hunger targets.

The 2014 report also presents further insights into the suite of food security indicators introduced in 2013 and analyses in greater depth the dimensions of food security – availability, access, stability and utilization.

In addition, this year’s report examines the diverse experiences of seven countries, with a specific focus on the enabling environment for food security and nutrition that reflects commitment and capacities across four dimensions: policies, programmes and legal frameworks; mobilization of human and financial resources; coordination mechanisms and partnerships; and evidence-based decision-making.

You can read the key messages or download your full copy from the FAO website: www.fao.org/publications/sofi.