Rome, Italy / Santiago, Chile, 21 September 2021 – The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) – a multi-stakeholder UN platform in Rome - is this week holding regional consultations with stakeholders for the Latin America and the Caribbean region to inform preparation of Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition in the context of Food Security and Nutrition.

The development of the guidelines is timely. Most recent evidence from the 2021 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report shows that women comprised the majority of the (up to) 811 million people under-nourished in 2020. The gender gap in food insecurity has widened during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: The prevalence of food insecurity was 10 percent higher among women than men in 2020, compared to 6 percent in 2019.

Advancing gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment is critical to ending hunger and ensuring food security and nutrition for all. Gender equality is also crucial for the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security. It further helps achieve all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including poverty reduction, economic growth, sustainable natural resource management, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, protection of ecosystems and conservation of biodiversity.

The CFS Voluntary Guidelines will address these key areas. Like past CFS policy products, the Guidelines will be a reference document for governments, as well as to other stakeholders, on appropriate policies, investments and institutional arrangements needed to eradicate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms, and towards the progressive realization of the right to adequate food.

Ms Tanja Grén, Permanent Representative of Finland to FAO, WFP and IFAD, and Mr Tomas Duncan Jurado, Permanent Representative of Panama to FAO, WFP and IFAD, are co-chairing the process of developing the Guidelines. Both noted that the inputs received during these consultations will inform the negotiations for the Guidelines throughout 2022. The final Guidelines are expected to be endorsed by CFS membership at its 50th Session in October 2022. “The consultations we are kicking-off today are aimed at collecting inputs, comments, and suggestions on how to best align the Guidelines with regional and national priorities and needs,” said the two co-Chairs.

The consultations for Latin America and the Caribbean are the start of a series of six regional consultations to be held between September and November 2021. Based on the CFS multi-stakeholder model, participants from governments, civil society organizations, private sector associations, agricultural research organizations, UN bodies, international financial institutions, and private philanthropic foundations are invited to provide inputs, comments and suggestions on how to best align the Guidelines with their priorities and needs. To this end, participants of the regional consultation will discuss a Zero Draft of the Guidelines.

The regional consultations will be organized by the CFS Secretariat in collaboration with the decentralized offices of FAO, IFAD, WFP and other relevant partners with the generous financial support of Finland, France, Spain and Sweden

More information:

• Webpage for the six Regional Consultations, including the links to the Zero Draft of the Guidelines in seven languages: https://bit.ly/CFSGender
• Brief on the upcoming CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment (English): https://bit.ly/2VUswu1

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About CFS:

The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) was established in 1974 and reformed in 2009 as the United Nation’s foremost inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for all stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and nutrition for all.

Using a multi-stakeholder, inclusive approach, CFS develops and endorses policy recommendations and guidance on a wide range of food security and nutrition topics.  These are developed starting from scientific and evidence-based reports produced by the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) and/or through work supported technically by The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), World Food Programme (WFP) and representatives of the CFS Advisory Group.

Contacts:

For more information, please contact Martin Schunk, CFS Communications Specialist at [email protected] or +49 171 3364016