I hereby share the Report on the negotiations of the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition kindly prepared by the Co-Chairs Tanja Grén and Tomás Duncan.

As Chairperson of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), I deeply regret that no agreement was reached on 28 July on CFS’s draft “Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition”. Work on these Guidelines has been ongoing for more than two years, including six regional consultations, an e-Consultation,  and three week-long negotiation sessions, which leveraged the full, inclusive and  multistakeholder nature of CFS.  

With negotiations now at a standstill, we shall reflect on the process we have carried so far with effort and commitment from all parts, and analyse the reasons why we have not reached an agreement on certain issues. At the same time, we must acknowledge -and value in all its extent- that we achieved consensus on many critical and transformative policy guidelines needed to foster women and girl´s empowerment and gender equality in the context of food security, agriculture and food systems and nutrition.

It is now time to look ahead and deliver on our mission.

Women's and girls' empowerment is simply too important to our collective efforts to end hunger and malnutrition through inclusive and sustainable agriculture and food systems.  With agreement reached on so many important topics and issues during the lengthy negotiation process, it stands to reason that we can find the consensus points to move us forward toward a successful outcome.

Together with CFS members and our key stakeholders including civil society, private sector, UN agencies and others, I aim to find a way to re-start and conclude these negotiations; to enable CFS to fulfil its present mandate to develop these agreed Voluntary Guidelines. 

As I already announced, immediately after the summer break I will carry on extensive bilateral consultations with Permanent Representatives and Ambassadors, CFS mechanisms and other Advisory Group ad-hoc members and observers, in order to delimit the common ground that would allow a meaningful agreement. I will then propose a way forward in view of the forthcoming CFS 50 plenary session. It is my hope that, after this period of consultations, we will find the path towards an agreement that is acceptable to all parts and, most importantly, serve to the empowerment of thousands of millions of women and girls´ for their –and the world´s- food security and nutrition.