localization, local food systems, community mobilization, civil society strengthening
1: Leaving no one behind: MCLD comprises more than 2,000 local civil society groups, nearly all of whom are in Africa. The biggest obstacle to their participation with FAO is their lack of flexible funding allowing them to attend meetings. This is particularly true of grassroots rural women farmers' organizations. As pointed out in many studies, less than 2% of DAC tagged gender ODA reaches grassroots women's organizations. Building up federations of these organizations in each country could make an enormous difference.
A huge shift in civil society today is "decolonizing" - shifting away from dependence on INGOs or even capital-city based national CSOs to community-based organizations. Similarly, COVID and Climate Change have illustrated the vital importance of shifting to locally-led food system, as well as the adoption of the Principles of Locally-led Adaptation. Again, women are in the lead in both these areas yet are often the minority of participants in consultations.
We've discovered that even within a district, travel is expensive. Internet access is expanding. Establishing simple sub-district video conferencing facilities for hybrid consultations – possibly in partnership with local governments, schools or other existing physical infrastructure – could ensure people's voices are heard. These need cost no more than $1000 for a hotspot, mini-pc, 40" monitor, webcam and jabra speaker and could be used across all sectors - health, education, nutrition as well as agriculture.
During COVID, MCLD applied these techniques to link community leaders to WHO and ACDC experts, including simultaneous interpretation. We could do the same with FAO.
2. I wrote a short piece on this for the Food Systems Summit: https://mcld.org/2021/03/31/systems-thinking-for-community-led-food-systems/
3. FAO should join more than 100 civil society organizations, UNDP and others in endorsing the Principles for Locally Led Adaptation. See https://www.wri.org/initiatives/locally-led-adaptation/principles-locally-led-adaptation
4. The toughest challenges are humanitarian emergencies. Unicef, WFP and others have mobilized local actors through the use of streamlined pooled funds able to release small grants for collective action. Traditional funding and compliance imposed impractical demands on CBOs.
5. Most significant challenge is the lack of flexible funding. FAO could establish flexible funding for grassroots women's organizations similar to the Equality Fund or the work of the African Women's Development Foundation.
Dr. John Coonrod
The most important shift we recommend to FAO is to base policies on a "woman small-holder"-centric systems approach. As past FAO studies have shown, if the food system worked for her, there would be 150 million fewer hungry people. I wrote a paper on this subject at this link. One aspect is to focus more attention on that market power of rural women from village up to district market level, focusing on the goal of a local food system that be far less dependent on global value chains and therefore more resilient.