Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Open until 31 January 2018



UNSCN NEWS is the flagship, peer-reviewed publication of the UNSCN. The 2018 edition will focus on equity and non-discrimination as drivers of good nutrition.



Inherent barriers exist in food systems that prevent people from overcoming persistent and intergenerational malnutrition and poverty. In order to overcome these barriers and ensure that no one is left behind, systematic analysis of food system dynamics, as well as the various causes of malnutrition, will help assess how equity impacts and is impacted by nutrition.



Inequality refers to differences, variation and disparities in the living conditions of individuals and groups. Inequity adds a moral dimension, referring to the process by which certain outcomes are produced, to the way in which wealth is distributed, and to how needs are assessed and addressed (adapted from Norheim and Asada’s definition, 2009). Equity is concerned with fairness and social justice and aims to focus on people’s needs rather than the provision of services to reach the greatest number of people.



Drivers of malnutrition can intersect and overlap, intensifying the exclusion of certain groups of people. These may be difficult for an external audience to address but are intimately understood by those affected. Therefore, marginalised and deprived people should be empowered to set their own priorities and be equipped to participate meaningfully in decision making processes, advise on the implementation of the approaches and monitor and evaluate the outcomes to ensure that the benefits reach the intended targets. If this goes ignored, the international community will fail to utilise the local knowledge and expertise available and continue holding people back from reaching their full potential.



The progressive realisation of the right to adequate food requires States to fulfil their human rights obligations under international law. There are several international instruments available in which the progressive realisation of the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, is enshrined. These include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, (Art 25), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Art 2 and 11), UN Charter (Art 55 and 56), the Convention of the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the four Geneva Conventions and their two Additional Protocols. Only when a human rights approach is taken will the international community be able to work according the principles of universality, indivisibility, participation, accountability, transparency and non-discrimination. In the forthcoming edition of UNSCN News, we intend to explore the principle of equity and non-discrimination.



In September 2015, more than 193 member states adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Agenda is people centered and prioritizes leaving nobody behind. This means not just focusing on ensuring progress for entire countries, reflected by averages, but looking specifically at the people who do not benefit from development because current strategies have been unsuccessful in reaching them. The proclamation of the Nutrition Decade amplifies that message and provides a springboard for the realisation of the SDGs. It intensifies the urgency to act and generates new energy in support of the achievement of the Global Nutrition Targets, diet related NCDs and invites the nutrition community to work with non-traditional sectors such as trade, environment and human rights.



KEY QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION

• How do different forms of inequity affect malnutrition and how can the barriers in the food systems preventing people to get out of malnutrition be overcome?
• How can human rights law and institutions more systematically underpin efforts aimed at bettering human nutrition?
• How can the insights and tools of the socially oriented nutrition community help to identify how human rights principles should guide development, enhancing sustainable positive effects for the human being and for society?
• What examples demonstrate the potential for nutrition to unveil the biological outcomes of discriminatory practices?
• What is the role of full transparency, especially when it comes to the availability of data and nutrition relevant information?
• How can the collection of disaggregated data be improved to ensure that inequalities become visible?
• How can the nutrition community help the development community better recognize that, in many situations, the connection between income and dietary adequacy is not linear?

We welcome contributions on the following categories:



Feature articles: 3,000 words articles related to the general topic of the publication. The articles will be submitted to peer review and can include conceptual contributions or practical examples of policies and programmes.



Publications: recent publications of relevance to nutrition, including manuals, tools and guidelines that are usually not found in regular bookstores. Max. 200 words per submission.



Speaker's Corner: 1,500 words articles with the authors’ views regarding a hot topic in nutrition policy or programme. The section sometimes features a counterpoint by another author holding an opposite opinion to stimulate debate on important issues.



Please send your contributions electronically to the UNSCN News to [email protected] with the title “UNSCN NEWS 43 Proposal”. For editorial information, please refer to the UNSCN News Guidelines for Contributors available here.



Deadline: 31 January 2018

A technical workshop titled: The drivers and impacts of migration and labour mobility in origins and destinations: Building the evidence base for policies that promote safe, orderly and regular people’s and labour mobility for poverty reduction and sustainable development will take place at FAO headquarters, Rome.

The workshop will bring together researchers and policy makers from around the world in an effort to provide evidence, promote understanding, enhance dialogue on migration, labor and people’s mobility for poverty reduction and sustainable development.

The objectives are: 

1. Understand the diverse patterns, drivers and impacts of migration and labor mobility to address challenges for achieving sustainable livelihoods transformation, food security and nutrition and poverty reduction.

2. Promote multisector policy approaches to the development of rural areas and rural-urban linkages to facilitate rural transformation and agricultural and food systems’ transitions for economies and societies at large.

The event is available on webcast: 

• Webcasting Morning Session: http://www.fao.org/webcast/home/en/item/4547/icode/
• Webcasting Afternoon Session: http://www.fao.org/webcast/home/en/item/4549/icode/

 The Asia Pacific Symposium (10-11 November 2017, Bangkok) links to the FAO and WHO International Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition held in Rome in December 2016, and is one of four follow-up events focused on specific world regions. The aims are to enhance agriculture and food systems’ visibility, create policy and programme options, promote sustainable diets and build partnerships through taking stock of evidence on transformational change in food systems toward sustainability, and their link to positive health and nutrition outcomes.  The Symposium will also develop and strengthen information platforms on nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food systems for countries in the region so that they can share that knowledge amongst consumers, producers and other stakeholders. Major interventions for good nutrition governance and effective local level implementation will be identified and promoted. 

The Asia-Pacific region, home to most of the world’s undernourished people, needs urgent action to improve diets and reset its food systems which are critical to the delivery of healthy, nutritious foods, FAO said today. According to the findings of FAO’s 2017 Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition report, there is a pressing need to tackle malnutrition alongside further promotion of the consumption of healthier foods while curbing the growth in consumption of unhealthy foods.

This new publication presents the work of the FSN Forum, offering an overview of how Forum activities and its vast network of participants around the world help FAO to tackle the root causes of poverty and hunger and support countries, organizations and communities in their efforts to improve lives.