Multistakeholder Partnerships to Finance and Improve Food Security and Nutrition
In the Framework of the 2030 Agenda – e-consultation on the report’s scope
- The description of the scope is a great improvement over the somewhat confused text that was contained in the MYPoW. A good indication of the importance of dialogue between political process and balanced technical/academic consideration!
- The HLPE’s analysis of the topic should, of course, take into consideration and be coherent with concepts/values/norms that are at the heart of the CFS’s mandate or that have been adopted in the course of prior policy negotiation even though these may not be part of the mainstream literature on multistakeholder mechanisms. In particular:
-The HLPE should consider defense and realization of the right to food as fundamental, along with FSN outcomes. Reference to the HR framework has important implications for the discussion of the roles and responsibilities of different actors.
- In discussing the various stakeholders in FSN the HLPE should also recall the priority that is assigned in the CFS reform document to actors who are most affected by food insecurity, and are often those most active in seeking ways of improving food security.
- In discussing the issue of ‘financing FSN’ the HLPE should keep in mind the important CFS conclusion (subsequently documented by FAO and now fairly universally recognized although often ignored) that small-scale producers are themselves by far the main investors in agriculture, as well as being responsible for most food production. In the CFS context it has become clear that effective strategies for FSM and the RtF – both public policies and investments – need to defend and support small-scale producers’ own investments. This puts a different spin on the discussion as compared with the overall AAAA conclusions.
- In discussions of multistakeholder mechanisms there is considerable confusion among the various purposes which they may serve and the levels at which they may operate. It is extremely important to distinguish between policy forums (where issues of conflict of interest are particularly serious), PPPs that are put in place for operational purposes (keeping in mind, however, that in the absence of clear public policy and legislative guidelines operational programmes may lead the way like a tail wagging the dog…), and multistakeholder regulatory mechanisms. The level is also important in terms of which actors should be around the table. It could be argued that only national actors should be around the table when it is a question of determining national policies (with particular attention, in the case of FSN and RtF, to participation by the marginalized), whereas participation by development partners and external actors can be appropriate when the discussion has to do with programmes geared to putting policies into operation.
- There is a dearth of serious evidence regarding the impacts and effectiveness of PPPs in the domain of programmes targeting food security and nutrition objectives in the Global South. One of the most basic and important tasks that the HLPE can undertake would be to collect and collate what little does exist and identify the gaps that need to be filled before confidently touting PPPs as win-win propositions for all concerned.
- It is also extremely important that the HLPE highlight the necessity of contextualizing its conclusions and recommendations. The literature is full of documents that praise the contributions that PPPs can potentially make but then list a series of conditions for success that could be met in very few countries.
- It would be very important for the HLPE report to avoid treating the private sector as a single constituency, and to make distinctions instead between the corporate PS and SMEs in developing countries, which have quite different roles to play. Where the corporate private sector is involved issues of conflict of interest need to be addressed, as does the question of the models of production and of processing/distribution (value chains) that they introduce, as compared with sustainable family farm production and markets linked to local, national and regional food systems (cf. the recommendations on ‘Connecting Smallholder to Markets’ adopted by CFS43).
- Distinctions need to be made also among different constituencies of civil society (as in the CFS/CSM) rather than treating CS as a single category.
Nora McKeon