Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

The United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN) mandate is to provide global strategic guidance and advocacy in nutrition to ensure engagement and investment at the highest level and to ensure progress towards nutrition security for all.

The UNSCN is open to UN Agencies and platforms and includes a number of the major UN players in the international food and nutrition fields.

International Forum on Eurasian Food Security and Nutrition Network and Eurasian Soil Partnership will present the opportunity to discuss and analyze current trends in food security management in the Eurasian region; generate the discussion about best and most effective practices to promote and expand multi- and cross-sectoral collaboration on a country, regional and global level; and offer the floor for the Eurasian Soil Partnership Plenary meeting.

At this event, we are delighted to host food policy makers and policy professionals from Armenia, Republic of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and other countries from the ECA region; members of globally-known international organizations such as IFAD and various CG centers; members from global and regional food policy think-tanks, academia, extension services and agro-business representatives from the Eurasian region.

The Forum is jointly organized by the Eurasian Center for Food Security (ECFS), FAO, the World Bank, IFPRI, and GFAR.

ECFS acts as a hub for agro-policy, agronomics, and agribusiness knowledge management, contributing to the improvement of food security in the Eurasian region. Simultaneously, ECFS in partnership with FAO Global Soil Partnership facilitates the Eurasian Soil Partnership (EASP), which is dedicated to examining soil management issues in the Eurasian region. One of the major goals of the Center and the EASP is to create a dynamic network of agricultural researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to exchange knowledge and promote effective practices in managing food insecurity in the Eurasian region.

• Forum Agenda
• Participant Guide

The SAVE FOOD Initiative will be hosting a two-day partnership meeting in Rome on 10 and 11 December this year, to discuss further collaboration and the roles partners can (or want to) play in reducing food loss and waste. The meeting targets the 170 current partners in SAVE FOOD, and reaches out to other organizations and companies that are active in food loss or waste reduction.

http://www.fao.org/save-food/44242

The Eurasian Food Security Network has just been launched with the first online consultation Food Security issues in the Eurasian region: major challenges and G8/G20 initiatives in relation with the regional situation.

The Eurasian Food Security Network was set up for the Eurasian Center for Food Security (ECFS) as a result of the collaboration between the ECFS, the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

The ECFS was established in June 2011 within the Moscow State University with the vision to contribute to sustainable agriculture development and natural resource management and to provide research and advisory services on food security matters to beneficiaries in the Eurasian Region and globally.

In support of this objective, the ECFS and FAO's Global Forum for Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum) will be running online consultations to bring together stakeholders from governments, civil society organizations, research institutes, academia, and associations allowing them to enter into a dialogue.

Through inputs from a wide set of stakeholders the ECFS aims to get a clear picture of the main challenges to food security and to understand the priorities of the different countries and stakeholder groups.

The main questions tackled in the first online consultation are:

• What are the major challenges facing Eurasian countries in improving their food security situation?
• Are current policies conducive to ensure food security in your country?
• What do the decision makers from the Eurasian region expect from the G8/G20 initiatives in relation to food security issues?
  
   

The first online consultation, which is being held in both Russian and English, will run until the 16th of June 2013 and is open to everyone interested in the subject.

Given the rapid expansion of the internet and the increasing number of users, including in the global South, the full potential of online platforms for promoting inclusive consultation of issues of high global interest is certainly not yet realised. An online discussion was organised to share views and perspectives on how online platforms could be used more creatively and effectively to share experiences on a key area where information and lessons learned through various interventions from around the world are generally dispersed, that is the area of monitoring women’s land rights.

The objective of the online discussion was twofold: (a) engage a collective reflection on ways of optimising the use of online platforms in efforts to promote equitable and sustainable natural governance and social justice; and, (b) to share experiences on approaches to monitoring women’s land rights.

The discussion was running simultaneously on landportal.info and across the following five platforms:

• Wikigender (http://www.wikigender.org/index.php/New_Home);
• E-agriculture (http://www.e-agriculture.org);
• AIMS (http://aims.fao.org);
• FSN-Forum (http://www.fao.org/fsnforum);
• Open-Development list (http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-development).

This discussion will be facilitated by the International Land Coalitions (ILC) (www.landcoalition.org) Women’s Land Rights team.