Committee on World Food Security

Fourth Collaborative Governance Dialogue
on food security and nutrition in protracted crises

Venue: WFP Headquarters, Rome, Italy

Date: 24 July 2025
Time: 14.00-17.00

According to the CFS Multi-Year Programme of Work 2024-2027 and in line with the CFS’ platform function, the CFS workstream on “Collaborative governance for coordinated policy responses to emerging global food crises towards sustainable agriculture and food system transformation” foresees regular biannual meetings to discuss the evolving food and nutrition security situation, share experiences, data and information on existing initiatives, as well as to exchange on key issues towards enhanced policy coordination and collaborative governance, giving particular attention to the voices of the most affected countries and constituencies.

The Technical Task Team (TTT) in support of this workstream suggested two topics under “Collaborative Governance Dialogues” for 2025, which were considered by the CFS Bureau: Financing for food security and nutrition, and Food security and nutrition in protracted crises.

The third Dialogue (the first two were held in 2024), on financing for food security and nutrition, took place in Rome on 15 April.

The fourth Dialogue will focus on food security and nutrition in protracted crises. Conflicts and crises, especially protracted crises, are among the most significant drivers of acute food insecurity and malnutrition. In turn, many of the countries most affected by food insecurity and malnutrition are also affected by crises and conflicts. Furthermore, vulnerable groups such as women, children, minority groups or refugees are often most severely affected by the impacts of crises and conflicts. Considering that in 2024 295.3 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity, mainly in conflict-driven crises contexts, the topic is regularly on the agenda of the UN General Assembly, the UN Security Council, the UN Human Rights Committee and various other international fora.

This meeting is an opportunity to create linkages with several on-going processes, ensuring complementarity and coherence. The Dialogue will convene a number of speakers from different CFS stakeholder groups to outline the current situation regarding food security and nutrition in protracted crises, giving particular space to country experiences and stakeholders that are most affected by crisis situations. Selected expert presentations will provide background information for the meeting participants and inform discussions. Participants will then have the opportunity to discuss the potential role of the CFS in fostering collaboration between various actors within the thematic space and in coordinating policy responses in line with longer-term objectives of food systems transformation and the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security.

The Dialogue provides a space for open discussions among relevant stakeholders and is expected to feed into other CFS activities such as the Global Thematic Event on the CFS Framework for Action on food security and nutrition in protracted crises at CFS 53 in October. Since the focus of the GTE is on monitoring a specific CFS policy product, the Framework for Action, the Collaborative Governance Dialogue can contribute to a clarification of the role that this policy product and others can play, in combination with other CFS functions, such as its platform function, to improve food security and nutrition in crises settings.

The meeting will take place on 24 July 2025 at WFP Headquarters in Rome in a hybrid modality.