Capacity Building Strategy

It is increasingly recognised that capacity building among government and judiciary professionals, as well as personnel in civil society organizations, universities, primary and secondary schools, the business community and the media, is a crucial prerequisite to realizing the right to adequate food. Capacity building is also required among UN officers and country teams to provide them with the knowledge they need to support the efforts for the implementation of the Right to Food at national level.

    Both the public and the government require awareness raising and education on the right to food to strengthen the capacity of the duty-bearers to carry out their obligations while equally focusing on assisting communities and rights-holders to empower themselves and demand accountability.

    It is therefore necessary to tailor capacity development to the different needs of the various stakeholders for:

• Assessing Public Policies;
• Responding to Right to Food Violations;
• Using the Voluntary Guidelines in Technical Work;
• Integrating Right to Food into Policy Advice;
• Local Right to Food Monitoring;
• Local Right to Food Accountability and Coordination;
• Individual & Group Empowerment, etc.

    A comprehensive plan of action using different methods and media will ensure that all actors are informed and trained. As part of the capacity building activities, it is envisaged to produce material in a variety of formats for the following purposes:

• Information, promotion, awareness raising: Material to inform stakeholders about the Right to Food concept and the use of the Voluntary Guidelines.
• Capacity building: Material for in-depth training, distance learning and education.
• Implementation: Auxiliary documents, technical tools and manual-type documents to facilitate the implementation of the Guidelines.

    A variety of methods and materials will be used to ensure that the materials listed above are targeted to different audiences with different needs. The target users are:

• Policy makers (mainly brief information, highlight on value added, advocacy material)
• Practitioners (detailed explanations, manuals, self-paced instruction, methodological guidelines, technical documents)
• General Public/Civil Society (Education, multimedia and information material, web sites, theatre and popular music)
• NGOs/CSOs (self-paced instruction, tools to approach civil society, comprehensive material for distribution)
• UN Country teams/FAO (training material, self-paced instruction, manual on integration of Right to Food in their respective programme)
• Media (press kit, multimedia presentations, information material, document on role of media)