Peter Matlon
As we look back on 2000, I believe I can speak for all FIVIMS Inter-Agency Working Group members that we share a common sense of achievement and satisfaction. 2000 was a watershed year in many respects, marked by solid progress on several fronts and emerging recognition of IAWG FIVIMS as a serious player in the international development and food security community.
Certainly one of the year's highlights was the highly successful fourth annual FIVIMS meeting hosted by Helen Keller International (HKI) in Bali in February. With strong participation from national experts from throughout Asia, international FIVIMS members were able to "ground truth" the relevance of our strategy, and to refine our initiatives to ensure greater and more immediate impact on meeting the real needs of national food security information systems.
Equally important was the emergence of what can only be called the "spirit of Bali". Effective collaboration between institutions as diverse as those represented within the FIVIMS IAWG is never an easy task. Misunderstandings and the playing out of distinct but often unspoken organisational agendas are real risks that need to be confronted frankly but in a positive spirit if partnerships are to be mutually productive and sustainable. Our honest discussions in the warm and hospitable Bali environment were major first steps to that end. Follow-up actions, including the drafting of "Guiding Principles for FIVIMS Collaboration", have laid the foundation for continued progress.
Fortunately the Bali spirit was contagious and equally evident in the productive working group meetings held by the Sub-group on Indicators, Assessments and Mapping. I would especially highlight the meeting in July hosted by the World Health Organisation in Geneva. Solid progress was achieved in consensus building on important topics such as methods for vulnerability assessment and the selection of core indicators. For having hosted these two seminal meetings, I would like to express the collective thanks of all IAWG members to both HKI and to WHO.
Most importantly, excellent progress was achieved on the ground. By the end of 2000, over 25 countries have undertaken significant steps to strengthen co-ordinated, inter-sectoral FIVIMS-type food security information systems at national level, and in at least 50 additional countries, preparatory activities to strengthen FIVIMS-type institutional capacities have been undertaken. These efforts are not always called "FIVIMS", but they are advancing FIVIMS objectives. With the growing experience in a range of country settings, valuable lessons are being learned and fed back into improving the quality and relevance of the services we provide.
Major new opportunities to expand our work into additional countries and to ensure greater institutional sustainability for our efforts were created by linking FIVIMS to the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) processes, two key initiatives in the on-going UN Reform. In highly productive meetings with the UN Development Group Office (UNDGO) in New York in April and July, the FIVIMS Executive Secretary, the IAWG Chair, and the 2000-2001 Vice Chair (Krishna Belbase of UNICEF) negotiated an agreement through which FIVIMS will help strengthen the depth and quality of food security related information and analyses in national CCAs. By achieving this, our goal is to bring greater multi-agency attention and resources to bear on food and nutrition problems through better focused CCAs and UNDAFs.
Of course none of this can be done without resources, and the FIVIMS Secretariat has been quite successful in mobilising both interest and funds from several major donors. Adding to funds previously committed to FIVIMS by FAO, UNDP, Japan, and WFP in previous years, during the second half of 2000 the following donor resource commitments were received by the Secretariat:
|
Date |
Amount (in US $) |
Donor |
Subject |
|
08/00 |
$2.25 M |
European Union |
FIVIMS Start-up in eight countries |
|
08/00 |
$2.00 M |
Norway |
Poverty Mapping |
|
12/00 |
$1.15 M |
Netherlands |
FIVIMS-CCA |
Finally, we should all recognise that the remarkable progress in 2000 would not have been possible without the enormous effort and quiet effectiveness of our Secretariat. On behalf of all IAWG members, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to FAO, and to David Wilcock, the Executive Secretary, and to each of his team members, for their many contributions. A job very well done indeed. You have set very high expectations for 2001!
