Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Policy outreach and communications – what works for improving food and nutrition security?

Suggested Success Story Template for Producers/ Disseminators of FSN Information ( feel free to write short notes or use bullet points)

Name of your organization, country

Devarao Shivaram Trust, INDIA

Your role

Trustee

Who are your target users?

Governments, Multilateral Organisations, International Research Institutions, Donors, CSO/ NGOs, Producer org/ companies (PC), etc.

How do your target users use the information you provide and how do they give you feedback on their emerging  needs?

Information is provided as soft copy for use in the manner most appropriate for achieving their objectives.

They will either support my contributions, disagree or just keep silent when they do not want to be seen folowing a line/ stand. 

What role do intermediaries* (‘champions’ in government, media, etc) play ?

Intermediaries become champions and make appropriate interventions at meetings, conferences, at different levels, putting across their points of view having had exposure to the reality on the ground.

What is the main communications or policy outreach challenge you face?

Outdated institutional mandates, curriculums and TORs as a result of which the wrong people are in high places, allowing little or nothing to change over the last 15 years, except using some sexy words like smallholder producers, increased incomes, inclusive, climate change, etc., but the mainstream system sticks to their market oriented high cost economies of scale green revolution technologies being the cause of the present crisis in agriculture, with most rural producer communities deeper in debt, hungry, malnourished, getting poorer, committing suicide.

What recommendations would you give to someone, in a similar organization, wishing to improve the uptake and relevance of the information  they produce?

UN orgs – UNCTAD, UNRFC, FAO, IFAD, Donors, etc., have put on top their focus on ‘Public Funds for Public Good’, being directed at meeting the AR4D and funding needs of the rural poor smallholder producer communities’, for them to set up producer org/ company (PC) staffed by professionals (general practitioners [GPs]/ MBAs in agriculture) to take over all risks and responsibilities and managing the cash to cash cycle, leaving members to on farm activities. Convert to and follow low cost agro ecological – organic systems of their area primarily to produce and thus have access to nutritious food for their own requirements, at little or no cost, since they do not have the money to buy from the open market.

In your own words , tell your success story !

I have been a part of GFAR since its formation, as I happened to be living in Rome at the time. My interventions at the time was for AR4D to move in the direction of meeting the needs of the dry land and rain fed farmers following organic principles. For obvious reasons most ignored, some even looked down upon me as the numbers involved were less than 1%.

I then shifted gears and coined the phrase ‘rural poor smallholder producer communities’, writing a paper on the subject, jointly with Dr O P Rupela, Principal Scientist, ICRISAT, circulated to the GFAR, Delhi,  invitees/  delegates/ participants . This paper did attract attention, thus giving us reason to focus and pursue our advocacy for these communities, at all platforms (e consultations, face to face meetings, etc.,  in preparation for GCARD I), especially as most smallholders do follow organic principles by default and we did succeed in persuading Dr R B Singh, former ADG, GCARD's Senior Consultant, to re write the outputs and focus on meeting the needs of the smallholder producers. A few weeks before GCARD I, Monpellier, a few of us CSO/ NGOs intervened in the consultation process and voluntarily contributed a ‘White Paper’, as attached, which then came to be the conference document as the Uma Lele, contracted to write the conference document, held it back in light of our document having reached the delegates/ invitees/ participants and was circulated by the GFAR secretariat after the conference.

I am happy that our efforts has put the smallholder producer communities’ AR4D needs on top of the table, reports, etc., and will continue till the UN orgs’ focus on meeting the AR4D needs of these communities,  converting back to their low cost agro ecological – organic systems thus access there nutritious food requirements, at little or no cost, reducing hunger, malnutrition, poverty, effects of climate change, suicides whilst improving livelihoods, increasing net incomes & purchasing power and  long term sustainability is pursued.

Dear Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum),

Please find below and attached my contribution. I hope you will find it interesting.

With best regards

Dr. Santosh Kumar Mishra (Ph. D.),

Technical Assistant,

Population Education Resource Centre (PERC),

Department of Continuing and Adult Education and Extension Work,

S. N. D. T. Women's University,

Mumbai - 400020, Maharashtra, India.

1. What innovative strategies and channels have you used to reach policy makers and get feedback on their emerging needs?

I am researcher & demographer employed with the Population Education Resource Centre (PERC), S. N. D. T. Women’s University (SNDTWU, http://sndt.ac.in/), Mumbai, India. My academic activities at the PERC primarily include research and publication/material production. I resort to make direct contact with the policy makers through my research views and findings. I look at research not only as a tool for discovering innovative ideas, but also as medium for communication and dissemination of information and policy level strategies. 

1. Have you ever significantly changed your communication or policy outreach strategy? How did you change it? Did you get better results? 

No, I have not significantly changed my communication or policy outreach strategy.

1. What role do intermediaries (the media, “champions” in the government, etc.) play in helping you communicate your recommendations to policy makers? 

Print media (including journals), in particular, influence policy makers to some extent. Of course, this strategy alone does not yield desired result. It also requires lobbying by influential social activists, researchers and other like-minded personnel. There has to be network of all these people in order to transport the recommendations to policy makers.   

1. If you are a policy maker or user of FSN information, how do you communicate your information needs to the information producers? What should information producers consider when trying to increase the use of their evidence by policy makers?

It is possible to communicate about the information need to the information producer ONLY IF both I and the information producer are PART OF THE SAME PROJECT/ORGANIZATION. The more people who enter this positive loop, the faster it spins. The more people who take part, the faster the human species learns.

1. More than anything we would like to hear your success stories about what actually worked in terms of your information being used by policy makers! 

In terms of what actually worked, it is an uphill ask to get insight into whether or not policy makers use the information provided. Information and input might have been institutionalized by the policy makers in one or several programs within the region of a country. But there is no mechanism to find out if this has actually happened.

Dear moderator,

Policy outreach is critical in improving the implementation and dissemination of Food and Nutrition Security messages at country level. Giving the multisectoral nature of FNS partnership, harmonisation of FNS polices of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and partners is one of the major challenge in policy outreach and communications.

In Sierra Leone we have the challenge of mandate imbalances in terms of FNS policy implementation by both state and non state actors which has direct effect on decision making (state and donor). However the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS) and Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Food Security (MAFFS) polices are already mainstreamed in FNS implementation plan (common result framework).

In view of the above, the national SUN secretariat is currently analysing the polices of the other MDAs such as Education, Gender and Children Affairs, Water Resources, Trade, fisheries and relevant partners. This exercise will identify nutrition direct and nutrition sensitive polices, roles and responsibility of each MDAs and partners with the aim of solving implementation conflict due to policy imbalances.

Regards

Mohamed Ajuba Sheriff

Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Food Security

Sierra Leone.

Dear all,

My contribution on this topic:

Some decision makers are either unaware of this problem or they may conceal it or deny it for political considerations.  Institutions involved in this work and NGOs should approach the decision makers and provide them with the information, facts  and case studies relevant to the situation. Decision makers should be invited to seminars, workshops for discussion . FAO and WFP country representation can play an important role in this awareness campaign.

Kind regards

Mahmud Duwayri. Professor

Getting the facts about the need for food security to shape the policy.

In an ideal world, this would be something obvious, but, in the real world, the obvious is all too often ignored.

In the discussion so far, the emphasis seems to be on how may the experts of many an ilk could influence the relevant political decisions with reference to factual information.

Here, one runs into two difficulties; first, it assumes that the decision-makers are willing and able to comprehend the facts, and secondly, that they are likewise willing and able to act in accordance with those facts. It is difficult to see how one may justifiably make such sweeping assumptions.

Perhaps, it is time to try an indirect approach, at least as an adjunct to the inclusive approach one contributor has already suggested. What I propose is to explore the possibility of expanding that inclusiveness.

Here, one may resort to education in its widest sense. Would it be possible to initiate some appropriate public education schemes in order to make the public aware of the need for food security and how it may be achieved within a given geographic area?

If successful, it may induce the public to exert pressure on the decision-makers to undertake actions that would benefit the community.

En passant, may I add that a holistic solution to any given problem can only be achieved through a top-down approach, and this is a logical fact.

Best wishes!

Lal Manavado.

***

Please let me expand on the last sentence of my contribution. 

I think most of us would agree that a holistic solution to a problem is the best, because it takes into account all aspects of the problem. These include not only how to  resolve it, but also the undesirable consequences  implementation of a given solution may entail. For instance, steam locomotion has many advantages over the horse drawn vehicles and sailing, but it also entails a considerable environmental degradation as well as health hazzards. A holistic solution then, would have striven to minimise the latter disadvantages before adopting steam power. Of course, this is too much to expect in the real world, still ...

The possibility of undertaking such an approach depends on one having all the relevant information and the ability to synthesise a reasonable solution to a problem  with reference to those facts.  Implementation  of this solution can then be entrusted to one or more appropriate institutions. This of course, represents a top-down solution to a problem.

In the bottom-up approach, one focuses one's efforts on one aspect of the problem. For instance, the economist may suggest a solution based on economic data, while the environmentalist would follow suit. They follow by necessity, a reductive approach.

As there are more than one possible economic or environmental solution to a problem, and as some of them may be mutually exclusive, it would be extremely difficult to synthesise them into a logically and practically cohesive whole.

And finally, the technical bit. If one wants to find the best possible solution to a problem, one hasto to consider what every possible solution would entail and choose not only what is cheapest, but one having the least undesirable side-effects and what is most appropriate for the community affected by it. So, it is epitemologically impossible to find the optimum solution to a problem using the reductive bottom-up approach.

Thank you facilitators for the responses.

Another devil's advocate issue I would suggest be considered:

How many of us (who want to influence policy) do not only work from the bottom up with claim holders, but go to the pertinent decision makers/duty bearers (hopefully together with claim holders) and ask them what policy alternatives they need to make and how we can help with the evidence/info/data they need to promote certain policies they feel are important and politically feasible?

Policy makers often do not respond, because what we want to recommend does not fall within their 'radar'. A need not to neglect to start from the other end here? Maybe not always, but worth trying.

Indeed the writeshops approach captures this idea. Are there other examples?   

Dear all,

I think 'claim holders' [used by Claudio Schuftan, Ed.] is a definite improvement over 'stake holders'.

Discussants may find some recent notes useful:

http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/blogs/southasiamasala/2014/07/05/life-for-all-nourished-now-forever/

http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/blogs/southasiamasala/2014/01/29/freedom-from-hunger-privilege-granted-or-acknowledged-right/#more-5400

and attached a forthcoming blog article in DevLog (PILER)

I would agree that decision-making is not only based on evidence and that it is also important to engage decision-makers both on an individual basis and within a peer group.

1/ They need to understand what food security and nutrition mean concretely. A few concrete examples:

-    establish a direct contact with people suffering from food insecurity and malnutrition. In my experience visiting nutrition rehabilitation services and asking people what went wrong,  when, why and how their family is affected is very effective. The voice of the poor needs to reach policy-makers

-  participatory nutrition workshops  (see Agreeing on causes of malnutrition for joint action http://foodsecuritycluster.net/sites/default/files/FAO%20Joint%20Planni…) get participants to agree on a common vision of the causes of malnutrition of relevant population groups and to revisit their own strategies and activities in a different perspective

- it is also important to clarify what we mean by "evidence". It is important that we generate practice-based evidence (this should be a priority in knowledge management)  if we want to reach decision makers. If they see food security and nutrition can be improved in a sustainable and affordable way  and how, and that they can do it, they are likely to respond. Too often policy-makers are confronted with abstract concepts and figures and standard and costly solutions, and discard or postpone the issue as too complicated or not feasible.   

Another motivation is clearly peer pressure.

- if others get engaged (...and access resources) why not me?

-  and of course global resolutions.

Actually this is valid not only for policy-makers but for any professional,  politician or institution: 1/ who do no not see that food security or nutrition is any of their business or 2/ who have a very narrow perception of the problem and its solution.  

The issue of inclusiveness is important and may be a key principle for making sure information and analyses is truly useful for, and used by, policy makers. An example of an inclusive process are ‘Writeshops” where policy makers ( or other users of the information ) prepare policy briefs together with the producers of information ( for example, food security analysts). Together they look at the information at and jointly prepare recommendations. The briefs may then be the catalyst for further action…and at the very least the process has sparked further debate and deepened understanding of the issue at hand.

At the Committee on World Food Security, a wide group of stakeholders have the opportunity to work together on policy issues and shape recommendations. While this takes more time, the end result is that when the policy recommendations are adopted, they already have wide buy in. For example, when the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) were endorsed in 2009, immediately civil society took the lead promoting them in many countries. The private sector also use them and refer to them as their “license to do business”. Using this approach, the people who helped develop the policy recommendations feel ownership and become their greatest advocates.