المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

The Group that discussed food security and nutrition policies in the regional & sub-regional context had many vital contributions for the FSN Forum, and this I felt would be good to put down here since these are bound to expand the FSN Forum role in public policy dialogue.

The following are main pointers for FSN Forum consideration and suitable action:

• Firstly, it was widely agreed that FSN Forum has a larger role to play in the pre-formulation and formulation stage, and a much smaller one in implementation and M&E.
• FSN Forum has always been a facilitator providing conducive ground for wholesome and intellectual discussion. This is very successful, but somehow the process stops once the discussion is analysed and summarised.
• For policy influence and impact, FSN Forum needs not just to have focussed discussion around hot topics / issues with its members (primarily scientific experts), but encourage dialogue among Govts / Donors / policy influencers and then bring the two groups together. This process will bring ownership and strong commitment from the policymaker side.
• Pre-analysis of food and nutrition policies can form valuable baseline for policy-level dialogue and a post analysis looking at policy impact as a result of FSN Forum discussion will address the evaluation need for FSN Forum.
• Connecting with other UN organisation, particularly those with children and women as focus - these are vulnerable population for nutrition, encouraging their participation and agenda in policy-level dialogue. Their endorsement on final summaries / policy document will add credibility and help showcase a wholesome deal for Govts.
• Publish FSN Forum and partner of stakeholder policy process as practice papers, and encourage partners to share widely. This is will encourage citations, and ease the recommendation process.
• Policy advocacy is a role FSN Forum can do because of the huge network
• Capacity strengthening for partners to push the policy agenda once the FSN Forum dialogue has yielded concrete output.
• Sharing of good practices / success stories /failures / etc. by getting in voices from around the world
• Connecting with country / regional / and other global networks working to address undernutrition through farming systems / agriculture route and sharing these networks with partners to help boost the effort toward policy agenda.
• to have media as a vital stakeholder in the policy process dialogue. We will need for policy advocacy and periodic propaganda. Besides, constant pressure from the media keeps the fire lit, and works for many regions to drive public opinion and parliamentary debate
• connect FAO country office / regional office staff with partners to better regional facilitation ‎and stronger policy impact