1. With regards to regaining lost ground and leaving no one behind, the FAO needs to re-difine it's scope of operations tot the partner CSO community. In the experience of Zimbabwe the parameters off UN agencies often suffer from misunderstandings by players in the CSO sector leading to entirely avoidable regressions. As such it is important that terms of operations, reference and collaborations are clear and constantly echoed.
2. As an active player in food security, safety the CCZ is of the view that whereas the FAO is specialized and capacitated in all things food, it's important for it to deepen it's reliance on the localisation advantages inherent in most CSO players as it is these that are on the ground and can act as strategic conduits between the cultural and practical undercurrents of locales and the FAO. Not enough can be said about many well meant interventions floundering as a result of lack of proper consultation, sensitivity and buy-in .
3. The FAO and Chaos can be more engaging of each other in the full glare of the generality of the communities they serve and articulate positions that easily translate into something these communities understand around climate change. Inspire of the phrase climate change being a buzz word, not many in society AND indeed CSO grasp what it entails. As a result, there is a dearth of messaging that can be bridged through this deliberate mechanism of visible partnership riding on agreed yet scientifically valid localizations of the phenomenon of climate change.This submission is made from the standpoint that most CSOs would be local to the environments they serve. There is gravitas in packaging concepts in terms organic to recipients and these partnerships can achieve this important feat.
4. The partnerships of the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) over the years around food safety, security and handling have consistently shown that mutual respect of each entity by the other is crucial. For this reason the constant high level meetings between the leadership's of the two bodies from inception of interventions to the back channelling amongst officers and engagement of gatekeepers as a unit have always pointed to mutual recognition of what each brings to the table. This is important in that there is no overbearing by the international development agency and had always allowed us to be confident of what we bring to the table. To be sure, the same has been our experience with other UN agencies we collaborate with.
5. We are of the view that, in the case of our area, CSOs face the challenge of capacity building for staff that daily interacts with communities. As highlighted above, as a passing example, capacities around climate change are not a given in the CSO sector and the FAO with it's expertise around such and other matters can ameliorate these through provision of capacity building to CSOs. The CCZ takes the view that a capacitated player is an asset to the communities they serve, particularly so because most CSOs are held in high esteem by the communities and what they say, declare or promote is taken as truth
Mr. Selby Tapiwa Mutukudzi