Proceso normativo del CSA para la formulación de las Directrices voluntarias sobre los sistemas alimentarios y la nutrición
La lucha contra la malnutrición en todas sus formas ―desnutrición, carencias de micronutrientes, sobrepeso y obesidad― es uno de los retos a escala mundial más acuciantes que enfrentan los países hoy en día. Se necesitan medidas urgentes para hacer frente a estos retos y a los efectos negativos vinculados a la malnutrición.
Fomentar la discusión y el debate en torno a las reformas políticas e institucionales es fundamental para promover sistemas alimentarios sostenibles que mejoren la nutrición y permitan introducir dietas saludables.
El Comité de Seguridad Alimentaria Mundial (CSA) lleva a cabo un proceso de formulación de políticas que conducirá a la elaboración de las Directrices voluntarias sobre los sistemas alimentarios y la nutrición. La preparación de las Directrices voluntarias se basa en los datos científicos proporcionados por el informe elaborado por el Grupo de alto nivel de expertos en seguridad alimentaria y nutrición (GANESAN) del CSA, titulado La nutrición y los sistemas alimentarios, publicado en octubre de 2017e pretende que las Directrices voluntarias sean un documento de referencia que proporcione orientación a los gobiernos, así como a las instituciones especializadas en estas cuestiones y otras partes interesadas, acerca de las políticas, las inversiones y los mecanismos institucionales adecuados que serán necesarios para abordar las principales causas de la malnutrición en todas sus formas.
Se adoptará un enfoque amplio y sistémico para abordar la fragmentación de políticas entre los sectores pertinentes, con especial hincapié en la alimentación, la agricultura y la salud, al tiempo que se tratan igualmente los retos vinculados a los medios de vida y a la sostenibilidad.
Tras la aprobación por parte del Comité en 2018 del mandato que incluye los principales temas y cuestiones que se abordarán en este proceso normativo, se ha redactado y distribuido un borrador cero de las Directrices voluntarias fruto de un proceso inclusivo en el que ha participado un amplio abanico de partes interesadas.
El borrador cero comprende cuatro capítulos. En el primero se presentan el contexto, los objetivos y la finalidad, así como las indicaciones acerca del carácter de las Directrices voluntarias, en tanto que en el segundo se tratan conceptos clave relativos a los sistemas alimentarios y la nutrición, así como principios rectores.
En el Capítulo 3 se incluye un texto descriptivo, cuya finalidad es servir de base para la preparación del borrador cero de las Directrices voluntarias. La formulación de este capítulo no implica que se sugiera un texto para las Directrices voluntarias, sino que se trata de ideas iniciales relacionadas con los problemas y temas que habrán de abarcarse en las mismas. Por lo tanto, no se prevé que las partes interesadas en el CSA propongan enmiendas al texto actual del Capítulo 3 durante las consultas regionales. Tanto la estructura como el contenido actuales del Capítulo 3 se modificarán en la próxima versión de las Directrices voluntarias, sobre la base de las aportaciones recibidas durante la consulta en línea Esta constituirá una oportunidad para que las partes interesadas en el CSA sugieran las esferas normativas e intervenciones más adecuadas para reconfigurar y fomentar sistemas alimentarios sostenibles que mejoren la nutrición. En el último capítulo, el cuarto, se presentan disposiciones relativas a la aplicación de las Directrices voluntarias y el seguimiento de su uso y aplicación.
Los resultados de la consulta contribuirán a la preparación del primer borrador de las Directrices voluntarias, que se negociará en la primavera de 2020. En el 47.º período de sesiones del Comité, a celebrarse en octubre de 2020, se someterá a la consideración y aprobación del Pleno del CSA la versión final de las Directrices voluntarias.
Mediante esta consulta electrónica, se invita a las partes interesadas del CSA a responder a las siguientes preguntas orientativas utilizando el formulario propuesto:
- ¿Refleja adecuadamente el capítulo 1 la situación actual de la malnutrición y las causas y efectos relacionados, especialmente en lo que respecta a los objetivos y metas de la Agenda 2030? ¿Cuáles son los problemas subyacentes que actualmente impiden a los sistemas alimentarios proporcionar dietas saludables?
- ¿Cuáles deberían ser los principios rectores para promover sistemas alimentarios sostenibles que mejoren la nutrición y permitan una dieta saludable? ¿Qué opinión le merecen los principios incluidos en el capítulo 2? ¿Son los más apropiados para sus contextos nacionales/regionales?
- Considerando los ámbitos normativos identificados en el capítulo 3 y los factores propicios sugeridos en el párrafo 41 del borrador cero, ¿cuáles son los primeros pasos normativos que deberían analizarse en el capítulo 3, teniendo en cuenta la necesidad de fomentar la coherencia de las políticas y abordar su fragmentación?
- ¿Puede proporcionar ejemplos concretos de nuevas políticas, intervenciones, iniciativas, alianzas y acuerdos institucionales que deberían tenerse en cuenta, así como de desafíos, limitaciones y contrapartidas relacionados con los tres elementos integrantes de los sistemas alimentarios presentados en el capítulo 3? En su opinión, ¿cómo sería el sistema alimentario "ideal" y qué objetivos/indicadores pueden ayudar a orientar la formulación de políticas?
- ¿Cómo podrían ser estas Directrices voluntarias más útiles para las diferentes partes interesadas, en especial a nivel nacional y regional, una vez aprobadas por el CSA?
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I have carefully reviewed the Zero Draft and would like to offer the following comments for consideration.
1. First is what I consider a major omission in the total effort for improved nutrition which I will provocatively refer to as the Genocide Omission. I hope the title gets your attention.
I come from an agronomy perspective with a primary concern for farmers to be able to produce the crops needed for a quality diet. In this regard I think we have done an excellent job of determining what constitutes a quality diet but have implied that accepting or rejecting a quality diet is 100% discretionary to the individuals and households. I seriously doubt this and think most decisions are highly compromised. Thus, the important concern now is to integrate the recommended improved diet into the economic situation of the beneficiaries. Unfortunately, most of the people with suffering severe malnutrition are poor with their economic opportunity heavily dependent on hard manual labor and proportional to the ability to undertake that manual labor. However, in your Zero Draft no mention is made of the dietary needs to optimize economic opportunities. I think this needs to be corrected.
As best I can estimate this, to do a full day of manual labor, be it agronomic field work or other manual labor, requires a diet of at least 4000 kcal/day. Any think less and the economic opportunity and ability to produce or purchase the recommended quality nutrition will be compromised. The calorie needs are rarely included in any nutritional reports I have seen. The best I have seen is dismissing the need by comparing it to an “active” person requiring 2800 kcal/day. This would be a FAO office worker with healthy exercise regime such as taking an extended lunch break for a walk around the Forum, Circus Maximus, and perhaps out to the Colosseum and back. Far short of what is needed for a full day of manual labor.
As this applies to smallholder agriculture there is suppressing little referenceable data available on the calories available to smallholder famers. The limited data I have found indicates between 2000 and 2500 kcal/day. Allowing 2000 kcal/day for basic metabolism and recognizing that hard manual labor such as land preparation with a hoe will require 300+ kcal/hour, the work day can be limited to a couple diligent hours perhaps paced over a couple more. The result will be a prolonged crop establishment period extending to 8+ weeks with declining potential yield as the delay progresses. The end result is if relying on manual labor you will never be able to cultivate enough land in a sufficiently timely manner to meet food security needs. Thus, improving quality nutrition will be impossible as basic economics of survival will force you to concentrate on high calorie crops. The bottom line will be if you want food security and quality nutrition the key will be facilitating smallholders access to mechanization, so they can get their crops planted in a sufficiently timely manner to have a chance at food security.
Please review the following webpage from the https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/ website I manage.
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/integration-an-under…
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/calorie-energy-balan…
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/ethiopia-diet-analys…
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/1028-2/
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/affordability-of-imp…
2. Part of the above concern is to look more at household needs than individual needs. That to improve the nutritional need of children, adolescent girls, nursing mothers s etc. who cannot be fully involved in economic activities someone in the household needs to be involved in heavy manual labor. To do this you need to aggregate the dietary needs for the entire household. The tendency is to look mostly at individuals.
3. The other concern is administrative overhead you are proposing in the Zero Draft. Please note that most of the countries you are concentrating on are what I refer to as Financially Suppressed Economies in which about 80% of earnings or food production is used just to feed the family. Thus, there is essentially no discretionary funds to provide a tax base for government to obtain the revenue to provide the services you are proposing. No taxes, no services. To expect a government to provide services beyond what they have the financial resources to fully fund, including the operations funds for officers to move about and diligently do their jobs, can quickly become a disservice to the general population. Too often it results in services being declared as provided based on the “honor/gratuity/baksheesh” system. This would limit the reliability of the service as I think is the case of the certified seed program in Keno, Nigeria. Unfortunately, no service is better than an unreliable service. Please be careful with the administrative overhead you are suggesting are affordable to host countries or make some notations about the financial viability of providing these services.
It should also be noted that administrative costs are far more associated with the number of people you must deal with rather than the volume. Thus, supervising food safety for large farms marketing produce in large 18-22-wheel trucks may be cost effective as was shown some 20 years go for the insecticide contaminated watermelons in Kern County, California. But would be prohibitively expensive for each ox-cart of produce being marketed by individual smallholders. Please be cautious with these administrative concerns.
Please review the webpages:
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/financially-suppress…
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/financially-stalled-…
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/impact-of-financiall…
https://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/informal-income-oppo…
Thank you,
Dick Tinsley
Thank you for this opportunity to contribute to a most interesting process.
General comments :
In the context of Agenda 2030, we cannot afford to loose any more time. Limiting the VGs to healthy diets (e.g. para 18 p.4), rather than sustainable diets means we are missing a major opportunity to explicitly address livelihoods and environmental issues. Sustainable food systems should be designed to deliver sustainable diets; and sustainable diets can provide the entry point to reorient failing food systems
What do we intend by evidence-based practice? For decades «evidence-based in the nutrition world has been equated to biomedical research. We need - and lack – practice-based evidence on successful practices at local/territorial level.
Catering should be explicitly mentioned as it is a key source of livelihoods, in particular for women and youth, it influences people’s diets (chefs are playing a key role in promoting diets), and together wih public procurementy, it provides an excellent entry point to integrate relevant food supply chains (see para 29., p. 6)
In the guiding principles, we may want to make more explicit reference to governance. In this perspective the work carried out on urban-rural linkages https://urbanrurallinkages.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/url-gp.pdf and territorial approaches https://collaboratif.cirad.fr/alfresco/s/d/workspace/SpacesStore/6daa60e1-d89e-4a59-9bfd-ff5f66a93130/TP4D_vENG.pdf could be useful.
On section III, we should not parcel out the food systems approach into three “constituent elements” (i.e. sub-systems which are actually not even complementary). This will eventually allow institutions to remain within their comfort zones and pay lip service to the need for an integrated vision (as has been the case for decades). We should avoid introducing and/or supporting yet more jargon and potentially confusing concepts (e.g. food environment)
It is regrettable that the importance of a territorial (bio-regional) approach and related traditional diets for sustainable food systems is not acknowledged. The importance of local markets as a key element of local economies should be spelt out.
Food safety and quality standards, and related legal and regulatory tools and procedures should be reviewed in terms of local relevance and impact on sustainable development (including environment and social justice)
The work carried out by the CFS in other work areas (e.g. on the Urbanization and Rural Transformation working group) could provide useful insights.
Specific comments
I 1 para 6 p. 2
This paragraph should come higher up: understanding the causes of malnutrition is essential to understanding food systems and provide a planning basis.
What about inadequate food–related practices (not limited to child feeding)? Changes in such practices are often responsible for changes in nutritional status.
P. 7, para 32 : according to this definition contaminated foods could contribute to healthy diets?
P. 8, para 36
b/ Sustainable development can best be addressed at local/territorial level. The order should be reversed with national and international institutions explicitly facilitating local action
c/ the present focus on « healthy diet , healthy planet » by and large disregards the social dimension, which is essential to sustainable development
e/ should aim to sustainable dietary practices and start with consumers. Only a demand driven approach can help correct the dysfunctions generated by the classical supply-driven approach
g/ capacity building should explicitly mention interdisciplinary (in particular food and health) and inter-institutional collaboration
p. 10, para 43,
this looks very much so far as a business-as-usual shopping list (and this is probably unavoidable if we keep these three distinct sections)
f/ the title should be reworded: schools have a key role to play to promote sustainable diets and sustainable food systems, this of course is not limited to production.
I of course remain available for any clarification or further discussion.
Sra. SOFIA BOUJIDA
A- Focus Monde rural, basé de fourniture d’aliments sains nutritifs :
1- promouvoir la recherche au niveau rural (lien entre pratiques agroécologiques durables et la recherche et résultats sur les apports en nutriments)
2 - inclusion financière du monde rural
3- Rapprochement université et monde rural
4- éducation financière et nutrition du monde rural
5- Focus sur les activités, sujets traités et impacts des ONG ou associations locales dans le développement des régions (actions de forestation, de gestion des bassins versants, gestion de l’eau, gestion des sols, niveau de renforcement des capacités)
6- promouvoir l’économie circulaire, d’utilisation des déchets comme source de nutriments
B- Action de recensement des pratiques agricoles durables et les diffuser au niveau national et régions, les digitaliser
C-Actions gouvernementales également pour limiter l’utilisation des pesticides, promotion des investissements ( économie circulaire, traitement des eaux usées, privilégier les eaux non conventionnelles)
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