The International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) calls on CSOs to endorse their letter of concern to the UN regarding the 2021 World Food Summit

Since the 1996 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation’s (FAO’s) World Food Summit (WFS) in Rome, civil society organisations (CSOs) supporting food sovereignty have created alliances across movements and initiated dialogues with governments and institutions to influence shifts in policy.

This inclusive participatory process has involved, “thousands of representatives of small-scale food producers and Indigenous Peoples organisations in many crucial events and fora on agriculture and food systems all over the world, where their voices were previously absent.”

A notable milestone was the 2002 WFS, also in Rome, where social movements led the planning and development of the forum, with the support of the FAO. However, it appears that the proposed 2021 summit has shifted direction in a way that puts the participatory mechanisms towards democratic and multilateral food governance in grave jeopardy.

Not only is the World Economic Forum slated to be involved in the hosting of the conference but the appointment of Agnes Kalibata, the current President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), as Special Envoy for the Summit, “presents a clear conflict of interest with regards to the stated purpose of the Summit.”

The ACB wholeheartedly supports this call for a review of these processes and we encourage other organisations to sign on to the letter, by clicking here.