FAO holds informal dialogue to strengthen engagement with civil society organizations
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Rome - On 6-7 June 2023, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) held a two-day informal dialogue at FAO’s headquarters with civil society organizations from around the world to take stock of good practices in FAO-CSO relations and explore ways to foster meaningful engagement at all levels.
FAO worked with the organizational support of the International Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty to bring over 30 CSO representatives to Rome. After years of predominantly virtual interactions due to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, this dialogue provided a fresh opportunity to meet face to face and have an open exchange with FAO technical units, sharing experiences, good practices, challenges and different approaches in FAO-CSO engagement at various levels. Specific sessions of the event were also broadcast via webcast.
During the second day of the dialogue, CSOs had the opportunity to have a direct exchange with FAO senior management, including FAO Director-General QU Dongyu and FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol. During this session, the Director-General presented in detail FAO’s reinvigorated approach towards partnership engagement within the context of the FAO Strategic Framework 2022-2031.
The Director-General invited CSOs to be proactive and innovative in how they engage with FAO, encouraging them to consider increasing their participation in the World Food Forum as a new way to foster inclusive debates, innovation, and promotion of vulnerable groups, particularly women and youth, as agents of change in transforming agrifood systems.
This dialogue served as an initial brainstorming with a number of or some but let s avoid selected? CSO participants, based on their knowledge and diverse experiences of the ways in which they collaborate with FAO at various levels. As a next step, to engage as wide a range of CSO actors as possible in the discussion of how to strengthen FAO-CSO engagement, an online consultation process will soon be launched via the Food Security and Nutrition Forum.
Continue to check the FAO Civil Society Partnerships webpage for more information!