By Dr Harry Hoffmann (TMG) and Nathalie Demel (WHH) The United Nations Food System Summit (UNFSS) was held in 2021 despite a partial boycott by civil society - now, two years later, a stock taking was held for the first time in Rome from July 24-26, 2023. The primary goal of this large-scale event with about 2,000 participants was to analyze the progress made by states and voluntary associations in achieving their transformation agendas. The final result shows: initial steps have been taken, but the achievement of a real transformation of our food systems is still a long way off.
Nathalie Demel is Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition Policy at Welthungerhilfe. She has been advising Welthungerhilfe programs in their advocacy work around nutrition issues for more than 2 years.
Dr Harry Hoffmann ist Senior Forschungsmitarbeiter für Governance of Food Systems Harry Hoffmann is Senior Research Associate for Governance of Food Systems Transformation at TMG Research gGmbH as part of the TMG Think Tank for Sustainability. His research interests are in food and nutrition security, natural resource management, bioenergy, and food systems transformation.
The consensus is that the way we produce, process and consume food needs a fundamental transformation if we are to achieve the global sustainability goals. Because, as Viktoria de Bourbon de Parme, head of Food and Agriculture Transformation at the World Benchmarking Alliance, put it on a panel,
„Currently our food systems reinforce business as usual“.
But how which sectors and actors or groups of actors should approach this required transformation of systems, in what way and, above all, with what specific goal, is and remains largely unresolved. In order to address these complex challenges - which are local and national, but above all ultimately global in nature - the so-called United Nations Food System Summit (UNFSS) was realized in 2021 at the instigation of the UN Secretary-General. One of the main outcomes of this summit was to initiate and politically shape transformation processes at the national level (the so-called "national pathways"), which should initiate a fundamental transformation of food systems. An essential building block for this were various dialogue formats, the results of which were to be incorporated into the National Pathways; according to their presentation, they were "a powerful opportunity to engage meaningfully, explore collectively and emerge resiliently for sustainable food systems."
Now, two years later, the first stock was taken as planned: Almost 2000 experts and decision-makers met in Rome from July 24-26 for stock taking, in order to review in four different exchange formats (plenary sessions, leaderships dialogues, special and side events) what has been achieved, what remains to be done and, above all, how the (further) systemic transformation can be promoted and supported. It already became clear in the run-up to the summit that the adequate participation of various groups of actors, including marginalized groups, in the governance of the transformation of food systems was and is one of the main weaknesses of the National Pathways and consequently of the entire UNFSS process (Canfield, Anderson, and McMichael 2021; Fakhri 2022; Montenegro de Wit et al. 2021). The latter is also highlighted in the UN Secretary General's Summit Report,
„Engagement with youth and indigenous people groups however is still limited“.
To actively address this challenge, BMZ, BMEL, Welthungerhilfe and TMG, among others, jointly realized a side event entitled "How to re-set the table? Challenges and opportunities for civil society actors and marginalized groups in shaping the governance of food system transformation" with the aim to highlight the importance of civil society and marginalized groups for the transformation of food systems, but also to present successful participation models as role models. The importance of this event was underlined by a key note from Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food (RaN) at the United Nations, who emphasized the fundamental importance of the RaN: "the UNFSS presents the right to food as a policy choice among other policy choices on how to tackle food security and transform food systems but [...] the right to food is not just a policy tool as it provides governments with a clear, cohesive and detailed framework grounded in law and legal obligations". Above all, he emphasized that "the right to food gives people the right to participate in all aspects of the food system," which explicitly includes governance processes. This importance of diversity was also emphasized by St.SK Jochen Flasbarth (BMZ) when he stated that "inclusive societies are the much stronger societies" and specified that "the more involvement of local communities [...] the better the solutions will be".
In addition, regional case studies from South America, East Africa and South Asia have shown examples that, despite political exclusionary tendencies, there are promising regional approaches to actively involve previously disadvantaged populations in transforming food systems. One example is the Lake Region Food System Network Kenya, which has successfully established mechanisms to involve local people in five counties along Kenya's Lake Victoria in local government planning processes.
Beyond this special side event, the conference was characterized by thematic complexity: There were, for example, rather special events on school feeding (in the context of which State Secretary Flasbarth committed a corresponding 5-year funding of €22 million) and on the transformation approach of Bangladesh, but also broader topics such as actively strengthening the resilience of transformation processes or their financing were brought into focus. Some of the criticisms already raised for the 2021 UNFSS Summit were certainly addressed - for example, the Agroecology Coalition was able to hold a side event - however, beyond the SDGs as a basis, there is still no uniform and binding agreed targets and indicators or negotiated outcome document against which to measure a successful transformation at both national and global levels. However, this is an important basis for making the right policy and governance decisions and for accountability.
On the German side, the political participation by Federal Minister Cem Özdemir and State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth was high-ranking, who also supported the expert dialogue organized by WHH and TMG.
In summary, it can be said that this conference made an effort to give direction and actively address points of criticism - but it was certainly not a game changer regarding the global systemic transformation of food systems.
Fakhri, Michael. 2022. „The Food System Summit’s Disconnection From People’s Real Needs“. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 35 (3): 16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-022-09882-7.
Montenegro de Wit, Maywa, Matt Canfield, Alastair Iles, Molly Anderson, Nora McKeon, Shalmali Guttal, Barbara Gemmill-Herren, Jessica Duncan, Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, und Stefano Prato. 2021. „Editorial: Resetting Power in Global Food Governance: The UN Food Systems Summit“. Development 64 (3): 153–61. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-021-00316-x.
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