Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

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    • Dear FSN colleagues,

      Please allow me to write to you in reference to the online e-consultation “Guidance on strengthening national science-policy interfaces for agrifood systems – Draft report”.

      Kindly find the contribution of the Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems to the e-consultation.  

      The Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems is a space of co-creation of knowledge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts from Universities, research centres, UN Agencies, Indigenous Peoples. The Global-Hub aims to generate evidence on the sustainability and resilience of Indigenous Peoples’ food systems whilst putting Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems and academic science at same level of respect and consideration. Today, the Global-Hub brings together 31 members and 2 collaborators. FAO Indigenous Peoples Unit acts as Secretariat.  

      I remain attentive to any feedback that you might have.

      Thank you very much and best regards,

      Anne Brunel

      Technical Officer

      Coordinator, Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems

      Indigenous Peoples Unit

      Partnerships and UN Collaboration Division (PSU)

      CONTRIBUTION

      Contribution from the Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems to the FSN Forum e-consultation: Guidance on strengthening national science-policy interfaces for agrifood systems – Draft report.

      1. When you think about advancing an SPI for agri-food systems in your country, what is the greatest challenge that the FAO guidance, such as presented here, can help address? What suggestions do you have to make the guidance more practical and useable at the country level?

      In its current form, the draft guidance does well to acknowledge Indigenous Peoples as key knowledge holders. This is a welcome advancement in comparison to narratives commonly used that refer to Indigenous knowledge without putting Indigenous Peoples at the centre and recognizing them as knowledge holders. 

      However, when thinking about translating the guidance to national level, the draft could do more to further stress that Indigenous Peoples are also distinctive rights holders. Many countries still do not recognise Indigenous Peoples’ distinct identity and their associated bundle of rights (UN, 2007), nor their distinctive status as knowledge holders. Even where Indigenous Peoples are recognised as thus, their rights are often violated. This includes rights to self-determined development; free, prior and informed consent (FPIC); and rights to protect, maintain and control their knowledge, as enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). This also implies the right to respect their self-governance systems in decision-making and implementation.

      The importance to respect those rights has been reiterated by Indigenous Peoples and leaders in recent several instances. In March 2024, the three UN Mechanisms on Indigenous Peoples, namely the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), the Special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples (SRIP), and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), issued a joint statement recalling the importance to recognize Indigenous Peoples as right and knowledge holders. Consequently, they requested to stop the use of the term Indigenous Peoples in conjunction with local communities, as well as the use of the acronym “IPLC”. They also requested to refer to “Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge”, rather than to “Indigenous knowledge” in order to emphasize the ownership of Indigenous Peoples over their knowledge. In the same context, consideration should be given to the use of the terms “traditional” food and “Indigenous” food. Indigenous Peoples’ food should refer only to the use of the food by Indigenous Peoples, which would also be their traditional food.  Traditional food of other cultures should have the name of that culture or territory attached, and not be assumed to be the food of Indigenous Peoples.  The terms “indigenous food” or “Indigenous food”, meaning food species that evolved in a particular ecosystem, should be discontinued. 

      In October 2023, the II Session of the UN Global Indigenous Youth Forum resulted in the 2023 Rome Declaration on Safeguarding Seven Generations in times of Food, Social, and Ecological Crisis, in which the Indigenous Youth urge to stop the exploitation of Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems by external actors. Whilst recognizing the power of their knowledge to support the sustainable transformation of food systems worldwide, they also demanded support for the preservation and strengthening of their knowledge systems based on Indigenous Peoples’ values and orality. Guidance such as this can help to address this challenge, urging countries to address violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights as they seek to include and work them within SPIs.

      The FAO guidance must emphasise that the development of SPIs must be accompanied by strong foundational, within-country support for Indigenous Peoples rights – or else, the SPI risks exacerbating Indigenous Peoples marginalisation, the exploitative use of their knowledge, and policy implementation excluding them. This emphasis could be brought out particularly within Section 5.1 (Operationalisation of an SPI), which currently does not mention engagement with rightsholders, nor associated processes such as FPIC.

      A few suggestions to make FAO guidance more practical at country-level, could be to include:

      • Frameworks for good and ethical participatory engagement of Indigenous Peoples in decision and policy making processes. 

      • Provide guidance on mechanism for equitable benefit sharing to address power imbalance in benefit of Indigenous Peoples.

      • Provide guidance on clear and transparent mechanisms for conflicts resolution when Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems confront dominant scientific knowledge, leading to scientific recommendations and policies.

      • Case studies that highlight examples of successful work with Indigenous Peoples and integration of their knowledge in policies.

      • Tools allowing knowledge translation to ensure that Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems and associated terminologies, values, practices, know-how and cosmovisions, are accurately understood and valued within other knowledge systems, in particular the dominant scientific knowledge system.

      • Engagement with Indigenous Peoples to be completed in the local language, or with the assistance of local, Indigenous translators, to enable the participation and inclusion of diverse community members (particularly elders and women, who may be less likely to speak the dominant, national language).

      Bodies of research highlight some cases where Indigenous Peoples recognize a need to gain technical knowledge and thus contribute to resource management led by techno-centric authorities. However, they express the wish to see two-way knowledge-sharing, where resource management authorities also learn about Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems (Stevenson 2006). This runs counter to common science communication practice which posit knowledge-sharing as one-way knowledge-transfer from techno-scientific authorities to local ‘lay’ actors (Ghorbani, et al., 2021). 

      2. Are the sections/elements identified in the draft guidance the key ones to strengthen SPIs at the national level? If not, which other elements should be considered? Are there any other issues that have not been sufficiently covered in the draft guidance? Are any sections/topics under- or over-represented in relation to their importance?

      In its current form, the guidance gives good recognition to Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems as critical to advancing sustainable food systems transformation. However, there is a tendency within the report to focus only on the inclusivity of diverse knowledge holders (such as Indigenous Peoples) on the “science” side of the interface. In contrast, on the “policy” side of the interface, the guidance currently underemphasises the importance of inclusion and participation of Indigenous Peoples in decision making and implementation, in virtue of UNDRIP and their right to self-governance. Especially given historical top-down processes of policy implementation, it is important to ensure that Indigenous Peoples are enabled to remain principal agents in the sharing and use of their knowledge and decide what and how policies are made that may directly or indirectly affect them, their territories, or natural resources. Currently, bottom-up approaches and community-level decision making are given only superficial mention within the guidance (page 44); instead, decisionmakers/implementers are assumed to be those already in power. The draft guidance should address this power imbalance within its reporting.

      On the science side, scientists and science usually produce knowledge on priorities that are relevant to their discipline or their funders; similarly, Indigenous Peoples' knowledge is based on their own livelihood priorities and identified needs (e.g. can be decided at household and community levels relative to key risks experienced), therefore it is important to balance the participation of multiple knowledge holders. This will help to ensure the of knowledge shared with policymakers responds not only to the dominant science, but also to the knowledge holders.

      The guidance could also do more to showcase Indigenous Peoples not as a homogenous group of knowledge holders but recognising the diverse array of Indigenous Peoples, cultures, spiritualities, cosmovisions, and thus knowledge holders often found across and within Indigenous Peoples’ communities. For example, within Indigenous Peoples’ communities, Indigenous women are often overlooked both as important knowledge holders (e.g. on matters relating to food gathering, seed selection and saving, biodiversity, and food preparation), as well as overlooked within policy and national statistics. Similarly, Indigenous elders often hold important knowledge on customary governance and territorial management practices, as well as medicinal plant use. 

      The importance of knowledge transmission within Indigenous Peoples’ communities (e.g. between elders and youth, or between age and gender categories) is also important to the longevity and evolution of the science-policy interface.  In this regard, we also draw attention to the importance of Indigenous education systems, which promote learning and knowledge transmission on Indigenous Peoples’ knowledges and cultures. ‘Education’ is usually understood to mean ‘schooling’, and priority is often given to the voices of those that have higher levels of schooling and can thus converse more easily with western scientists – rather than those that have high levels of Indigenous education. The promotion of dominant educational models and participation of Indigenous children in formal schooling often undermines the transmission of Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems. The link between Indigenous education and the transmission and perpetuation of Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems should be fully recognized, and priority given to supporting those that have high levels of Indigenous education, even if they do not have high levels of schooling.

      Diverse “formats/media” of knowledge must also be noted. For Indigenous Peoples, knowledge is often not written – but orally transmitted and/or performative, tied to specific places, things, experiences. Their knowledge systems are based on observations, know-how, local appropriate technologies, techniques, creation stories and ceremonial practices that they teach through storytelling, skits, popular folklore, songs, poems, art, dance, objects and artefacts, and during ceremonies (FAO, 2021). The strength of Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge in relation to the transformation towards more sustainable food systems lies in its local situatedness. 

      Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems are bodies of science. Indigenous Peoples refine their knowledge systems through experimentation and accumulated observation of the environment, adjusting their responses over time. This has enabled Indigenous Peoples not only to understand natural cycles, weather patterns and wildlife behaviour but also to develop a day-to-day practical de facto experimentation based on this observation. Given their direct living and long-term exclusive interactions with their local ecosystems, Indigenous Peoples have developed abilities to know and understand their territories and resources as well as their functions and capacities. This final point of difference is perhaps most important in terms of identifying effective and sensitive food policy solutions. Acknowledging difference between different knowledge systems, as well as the local, cultural, spiritual, linguistic and cosmogonic aspects inherent to Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems, can still be of value to SPIs (FAO, 2021).

      3. In order to make the guidance as concrete as possible, we are including numerous boxes/cases studies on real-life use cases. In this context, please contribute 300-450 words on examples, success stories or lessons learnt from countries that have/are strengthening SPIs for agrifood systems, including addressing asymmetries in power, collaboration across knowledge systems, connecting across scales, capacity development activities and fostering learning among SPIs.

      Higher education institutions can play a key role in capacity development and collaboration across knowledge systems (Naepi, 2019). The Knowledge Makers Programme of Thompson Rivers University, Canada, is an example initiative that has successfully promoted Indigenous-led education, and imbued power and value to Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge. The Knowledge Makers programme began in 2016 and is a collaborative teaching initiative where Indigenous students learn how to research, and how to publish research, as Indigenous researchers. Based at Thompson Rivers University, The Knowledge Makers Programme bring together up to 20 Indigenous undergraduate students each year from across the university to learn how to ‘make knowledge’ through a multi-modal approach. The programme also boasts its own journal: the Knowledge Makers Journal is a peer-reviewed Indigenous interdisciplinary journal that showcases research from current and alumni Knowledge Makers, Indigenous staff, and Indigenous academics, along with ally scholars from Canada and internationally. For instance, the Knowledge Makers Programme has launched a special volume that included Indigenous students from the United States, Mexico, New Zealand and Australia. Since its establishment in 2016, over 100 articles have been published by Indigenous (mostly involving women) researchers. Most recently Knowledge Makers also completed a training program and launched a journal in collaboration with FAO that saw 16 Indigenous women from 16 different countries receive training and write up their research in their own volume of Knowledge Makers https://bit.ly/3P4l4EV. 

      4. Is there additional information that should be included? Are there any key references, publications, or traditional or different kind of knowledges, that are missing in the draft, and which should be considered?

      The White/Wiphala paper on Indigenous Peoples’ food systems (FAO, 2021) may be usefully included within the guidance. The publication of The White/Wiphala Paper ahead of the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021 marked a pivotal moment for the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge within science-policy processes relating to food systems. The paper comprised more than 60 contributions from Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts from six out of the seven socio-cultural regions and sought to characterise Indigenous Peoples’ food systems, the ways that they support diverse and nutritious diets, support biodiversity conservation and climate change, and the drivers they face. The drafting of the paper was motivated by the apparent lack of recognition and inclusion of Indigenous Peoples within the Summit agenda – indeed, in the build-up to the summit, many Indigenous groups considered boycotting the Summit due to their perceived exclusion. The White/Wiphala Paper was eventually accepted by the UNFSS Scientific Group as a key reference text for the Summit. Indigenous Peoples were included on the agenda of the Summit and the Coalition on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems was formed as a direct outcome of the Summit. The paper is a concrete example of successful collaboration between diverse knowledge systems, and the ways in which such collaboration can enhance equitable dialogue within SPIs.

      We are pleased to see the emphasis on finding common vocabulary and conceptual frameworks on pages 39-40. In this vein, we draw attention to the ongoing work of the Indigenous Peoples’ Unit in FAO to amend the AGROVOC to include Indigenous Peoples’ terminology. Together with Open Institute, FAO works with Indigenous Peoples in the Pacific, Latin America and Africa region in order to connect terms usually used in policy discussions together with Indigenous Peoples’ terms and cosmogonies. The overall objective is to acknowledge commonalities and differences in languages, concepts and their semantic spread amongst the 5000 Indigenous Peoples’ groups worldwide in order to bridge the gap of worldviews, and foster better informed policy-making. Furthermore, Indigenous Peoples speak 4 000 out of the 6 700 languages remaining worldwide (UNDPI, 2018). As identified in the FAO and Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT publication “Indigenous Peoples’ food systems: insights of sustainability and resilience from the front line of climate change” (2021), there are numerous examples of Indigenous foods that are not identified by neither the dominant language in the country, nor the Linnaean scientific classification. The publication gathers the profiling of 8 Indigenous Peoples’ food systems conducted by and with Indigenous Peoples and organizations, universities. This further emphasize the need to include Indigenous Peoples as knowledge and right holders to any policy discussions, making and implementation that would impact their territories or food systems.

      Emphasis could also be placed on the importance of generating data differentiated for Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous women and Indigenous youth globally. This will improve the generation of knowledge based on the diversity of populations in the world, specially to understand the impacts of agrifood systems in the nutrition and health of Indigenous Peoples. The report by Anderson et al (2016) found that for indicators of malnutrition and obesity, Indigenous children in 8 to 10 countries had worse status compared with non-Indigenous Peoples – however it also noted the severe paucity of data on Indigenous Peoples from which to draw such conclusions. Science-policy interfaces can only be enhanced based on the availability of comprehensive and representative data from all populations across the world.

      In Box 10, the guidance may also refer to existing guidelines on good research practice engaging Indigenous Peoples, many of which have been developed by Indigenous Peoples themselves. Examples include that of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, Secwepemc Nation and University of Saskatchewan. 

      As example, the Andean Potato Park in Cusco, Peru, provides example of an evolutionary plant breeding site managed by Indigenous Peoples. This park is a centre of origin and domestication for crops such as potatoes, quinoa, and amaranth. The Quechua people of the park have developed a collective and customary governance structure that includes learning and exchange systems, seed banks, and more. They manage a rich diversity of underutilized species and varieties, including ancestral populations of crops, based on Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge, values, and worldviews (Swiderska and al., 2022). 

      References:

       

      See the attachments:

    • Contribution from the Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems.

      Analysis of the complexities and practical problems associated with science-policy interfaces

      • Do you have an understanding of how agrifood systems policy is enacted in your country or at the regional or international levels?
      • Are you aware of opportunities to contribute science, evidence and knowledge to policy at national, regional or global levels?

      In 2021 during the UN Food Systems Summit, the Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems together with many Indigenous Peoples from across the world contributed to the global debate on sustainable food systems, highlighting how their knowledge systems could inform the global debate on sustainable food systems. This was achieved through the coordination of the writing of the White/Wiphala paper on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems that compiles 60 contributions from Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts from 6 of the 7 socio-cultural regions. The paper played a fundamental role in the recognition by the international scientific community of Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems, and their role in the sustainability and climate resilience.

      The Global-Hub has contributed to the several consultations:

      • “Reducing inequalities for food security and nutrition”, HLPE report to be presented at the 51st plenary session of the CFS in October 2023; The Global-Hub commented on the scope of the report, and on the V0 of the report.
      • “Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition”, HLPE report presented on the 50th plenary session of the CFS.
      • A/HRC/51/28: Indigenous Women and the development, application, preservation and transmission of scientific and technical knowledge, report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples.
      • What kind of knowledge and evidence is privileged in such processes?
      • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the processes you are aware of?

      Despite those great achievements, Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems, still remain often relegated to the lowest level of hierarchies of evidence (Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems, 2021).  There are still several barriers for Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems to be fully considered as a valid source of evidence for policy making. Three of them are identified and described below:  

      1. Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems can be unknown to the dominant academic system 

      Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems are based on observations, know-how, local appropriate technologies, techniques, creation stories and ceremonial practices. Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge is likely not found in written publications. It is rather mainly oral and transmitted within Indigenous communities for millennia through storytelling, skits, popular folklore, songs, poems, art, dance, objects and artefacts, and during ceremonies. In this context, it constitutes a body of knowledge that is pluralistic, linked to the local ecosystems, the culture, the values, the languages, the spirituality and the cosmogony of Indigenous Peoples. It is therefore not possible to consider Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems in dissociation with the people who generated and maintained the knowledge through time, and associated with this, their culture, language, and ecosystem in which they live.

      Unless shared by Indigenous Peoples themselves, Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge and innovations often remain de facto unknown and hardly accessible by the scientific community.

      1. Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems are often misunderstood and relegated to the lowest level of hierarchies of evidence

      Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems are often regarded as un- or less scientific, anecdotal, and inapplicable to and/or incapable of addressing emerging global challenges because of their common characteristics of being based on accumulated observations of local phenomena, often held in oral rather than written forms, and holistic rather than specialist. On the contrary,  dominant scientific knowledge is written (mostly in English), can be stored and analysed, and has historically been conceived as universal knowledge that can be transported and usefully applied in multiple and diverse contexts (Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems, 2021).

      As a result, there are countless historical examples whereby dominant science and technologies have been privileged over traditional knowledge systems, resulting in the top-down implementation of irrelevant, contextually inappropriate and ineffective policy solutions that have exacerbated social disparities and social exclusion (Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems, 2021). Despite well-intended, several development policies have failed to reach Indigenous Peoples through not having taken account of Indigenous Peoples' perceptions of well-being and what they themselves deem as necessary to improve their status.

      Indigenous Peoples holds the traditional knowledge that they have developed for millennia to ensure their survival and the sustainability of their food systems and livelihoods. It is an element of proof showing the sustainability and resilience of their food systems. Indigenous Peoples have demonstrated their capacity to innovate through time, while adapting the ever-changing environmental conditions in their territory, and sometimes shocks. Undervaluing Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems disregards this strong adaptation capacity of Indigenous Peoples, while ability to maintain a rich biodiversity on their territories.

      1. Indigenous Peoples lack recognition as knowledge holders.

      In this context, traditional knowledge of Indigenous Peoples constitutes a body of knowledge that is pluralistic, linked to the ecosystems, the culture, the values, the languages, the spirituality and the cosmogony of Indigenous Peoples. It is not possible to consider Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems in dissociation with the people who generated and maintained the knowledge through time.

      Recognizing that Indigenous Peoples are knowledge holders is the pre-requisite in policy-making that could affect them. In addition, Indigenous Peoples have rights that pertain to them. Their knowledge systems are associated to a bundle of rights for which Indigenous Peoples have fought for several decades. In particular the right to self-determined economic, social and cultural development as per the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the right to free, prior and informed consent as per the ILO Convention 169. As a recommendation, the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in policy-making should be go beyond participation. It should rather ensure full ownership on their knowledge and data for innovation by them and for them or others (with their consent). This is a concern and a request that Indigenous Peoples have made in many occurrences[1], not only when it comes to policy-making, but also when it comes to knowledge preservation or co-creation with other actors.

      However despite those challenges, the recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge systems is not new. There has long been acknowledgement that Indigenous Peoples are well placed to provide expert contributions to global debates on sustainable food systems. The increasing recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge and perspective in global assessments produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), confirm this trend (Global-Hub on Indigenous People’ Food Systems, 2021).

      • What opportunities and challenges have you faced for drawing from sustainability science, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity to inform policy?
      • How can power asymmetries among stakeholders be taken effectively into account in science-policy processes?

      There is an urgent need to acknowledge Indigenous Peoples as both knowledge and right holders.

      Indigenous Peoples’ rights are framed in international frameworks. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms the rights to self-determined economic, social and cultural development, the right to food and the right to free, prior and informed consent as per the ILO convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples.

      Indigenous peoples have experienced violation of their rights for centuries, in particular through the extraction of their knowledge. Use of plants and animals traditionally held by Indigenous Peoples by the pharmaceutic industry is a well-known example. Practically, the principle of co-creation of knowledge needs to be implemented, from the design of research methodologies, to the use and ownership of results and data in accordance with their own traditional governance systems.

      Co-creation of knowledge needs to be at the center, ensuring that knowledge systems are considered with same level of respect and consideration. On the one hand, too often Indigenous Peoples have seen their knowledge extracted for commercial purpose without their consent. On the other hand, too often Indigenous Peoples have been imposed innovations from other dominant actors denying their traditional knowledge systems and practices.

      Knowledge production for policy

      • What actions do you take to align your research to problems and challenges faced by agrifood systems?
      • In what ways are the research questions in your sphere of work framed by academic interests and/or funders’ focus?
      • To what extent do you feel research and policy-making communities in your sphere of work are united in their understanding of the challenges facing agrifood systems? 
      • To what extent do you work across disciplines and/or draw on expertise from academic and non-academic actors including Indigenous Peoples and small-scale producers?
      • To what extent, and in what ways, is your research co-produced with other knowledge holders and non-academic-stakeholders important for informing policy in agrifood systems?

      Knowledge translation for policy making

      • To what extent does your organization/university support you to produce and disseminate knowledge products to a range of audiences?
      • How does it create/maintain institutional linkages between producers and users of research? Describe any dedicated resources for knowledge translation that are in place.
      • Please describe any incentives or rewards in place for effective, sustained policy engagement, for example successfully conducting policy-relevant research and for its dissemination.
      • Please tell us about any activities that you or your organization / university engage in to collate evidence for policy, such as evidence synthesis activities, or guideline development.
      • Do you or your organization / university engage in processes to build evidence into agrifood policy processes such as government consultations, government knowledge management systems, digital decision-support systems, web portals, etc.? Please tell us more.
      • Do you or your organization / university contribute to efforts to ensure that evidence is provided for policy making which is grounded in an understanding of a national (or sub-national) contexts (including time constraints), demand-driven, and focused on contextualizing the evidence for a given decision in an equitable way? If so, please tell us more.

      Assessing evidence

      • What makes evidence credible, relevant and legitimate to different audiences, and how might we balance their different requirements?
      • How can evidence be assessed in a rigorous, transparent and neutral manner?
      • How can assessments of evidence best be communicated to all stakeholders?

      Examples

      • Please share any examples of how the science, evidence and knowledge generated through your work or the work of your organization / university has subsequently fed into decision-making.

      The White/Wiphala paper on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems played a fundamental role in the recognition by the international scientific community of Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems, and their role in the sustainability and climate resilience. It has been pivotal towards in the creation of the Coalition on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems as one of the outcomes of the UN Food Systems Summit. The paper compiles 60 contributions from Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts from 6 of the 7 socio-cultural regions. On the occasion of the publication of the White/Wiphala paper, the Global-Hub organized an exchange of knowledge with the Scientific Group of the UN Food Systems Summit, and in presence of the FAO Chief Scientist, and FAO Chief Economist.

      The Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems is currently coordinating the drafting of a new collective paper on Indigenous Peoples’ mobile livelihoods and collective rights to their territories, lands, waters, and natural resources. Similarly to the white/wiphala paper, the collective paper will compiles contributions from Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts from across the world.

      The Global-Hub is planning to organize two other exchanges of knowledge:

      - In March 2023, in the frame of the working session organized by the FAO division on Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division (ESP) on Shaping priorities for investment in Resilient, Inclusive Rural Transformation (RITI). The exchange of knowledge will focus on Indigenous Peoples and indicators of poverty;

      - during the first trimester of 2023, with the High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) to share perspective on the contributions Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems could bring to the global debate on sustainable food systems.

      References

      The Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems. Rethinking hierarchies of evidence for sustainable food systems. Nat Food 2, 843–845 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00388-5

      [1] Recommendations expressed by Indigenous leaders during the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, and based on the White/Wiphala paper on Indigenous Peoples’ food systems. See also the Indigenous Peoples Rome Declaration on the Arctic Region Fisheries and Environment, the final report of the 2018 High-Level Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples’ food systems, and many other examples.