Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Reaching the goal to feed a growing world population is threatened by an important lack of investment in agriculture and a decreasing Official Development Assistance (ODA) in agriculture. To tackle this issue, Innovative Financing Mechanisms (IFMs) are being discussed as a means to complement ODA without replacing it to provide reliable and predictable financing for development and specifically for agriculture and food security and nutrition, especially by catalyzing and encouraging new projects.

FAO and WFP are in the process of each developing a Corporate Strategy on Information Systems for Food and Nutrition Security and will also work together on a Joint Strategy. These activities are based on the recommendations of the “Joint Thematic Evaluation of FAO and WFP Support to Information Systems for Food Security (ISFS)” and FAO and WFP management responses.

Confusion and lack of consensus still exist over conceptualising and dealing with the problems of Food Security. Many stakeholders may lack a fundamental understanding of the complex interplay and multi-dimensionality of factors due to food security’s complex nature and its cross-sectoral roots. This complexity is both the cause of much misunderstanding and the barrier to any real consensual solution. How can we improve this situation and what role do Food Security frameworks play?

Responses to food insecurity and malnutrition in emergencies have expanded dramatically in the past 5-10 years and improved needs assessment has increased willingness of donors to fund new alternatives to general food distribution and targeted feeding programs. However, the analytical process required to make intelligent choices among these new options has not always kept up. How can this process be improved?

Protracted crises, as described by the latest State of Food Insecurity - SOFI report, affect 22 countries worldwide and pose an ongoing and fundamental threat to both lives and livelihoods, from which recovery becomes progressively more difficult over time. While many solutions are well known or have been at least partially adopted, there are evident barriers to effective programming that are worth investigating.

 

The impact of biofuel production on food security remains a controversial issue. A number of initiatives have been established to develop voluntary sustainability standards for the certification of biofuels. Among them, the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) has developed a voluntary, third-party certification system for biofuel sustainability which encompasses environmental, social and economic principles and criteria, including on food security.