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1. The Twenty-fourth Session of the Committee on World Food Security will be preceded by a one-day meeting of an open-ended working group, that will examine issues relating to arrangements for future reporting on implementation of the World Food Summit Plan of Action. The open-ended working group will convene at 10.00 hours on Monday 1 June 1998 at FAO Headquarters. The Session itself will open at 9.30 hours on Tuesday 2 June 1998, also at FAO Headquarters. Registration for the Session will start on Monday 1 June at 9.00 hours. Provision has been made for the Session to continue up to 5 June 1998.
2. In accordance with its Rules of Procedure, the Committee at this Session will elect a Chairman and four Vice- Chairmen from among the representatives of its members. The officers will remain in office for a biennium. The outgoing Chairman is H.E. Pedro Medrano Rojas (Chile) and the outgoing Vice-Chairmen are Mr David Sands Smith (UK), Mr Andrew Pearson (Australia), H.E. Mame Balla Sy (Senegal) and Mr S. Rashid (Pakistan).
3. The provisional Agenda for the Twenty-fourth Session has been prepared in consultation with the Chairman, taking into account the Committee’s Terms of Reference and its recommendations at the previous Session.
4. The Session will be addressed by the Director-General or his Representative.
5. The Committee is open to all Member Nations of the Organization and all States which are Members of the United Nations. It is composed of those States which notify the Director -General in writing of their desire to become members of the Committee and of their intention to participate in its work. Membership is for a biennium 1998-99 at the opening of the Session.
6. The committee at its Twenty-third Session agreed on a provisional reporting procedure to be used in 1997. It agreed that the provisional reporting procedure should be based on the following three elements. First, the three reporting streams (i.e. from national governments, on UN agency Follow-up and inter-agency co-ordination, and from other relevant international institutions) will report on actions taken towards achieving the specific objectives under each of the Seven Commitments. Second, the reporting should follow the structure of the Commitments and Objectives of the Plan of Action, covering actions, the actors and, where available, results, including quantitative assessments, under each of the objectives. Third, the streams of reports should reach the Secretariat by the end of January 1998. On the basis of the information to be received from the reporting streams, the Secretariat will prepare a report, analysing progress in the implementation of the World Food Summit Plan of Action, for the Committee’s consideration.
7. The Committee recommended at its last Session that assessment of the world food security situation be considered as part of the Progress Report on Implementation of the Summit Plan of Action. It was noted that the document on assessment of the world food security situation focused on global food supply rather than the overall food security situation. The Committee agreed that in future the document should contain an assessment of all factors affecting food security, including food supply, access to and demand for food, international, national and household food security; and the implications for food security of the market situation and outlook as assessed by other FAO bodies. The need to widen the commodity coverage including oils and fats, meat and dairy products was also stressed. The document should also have new indicators on the follow-up to the World Food Summit, including information on under-and malnutrition, food insecurity and vulnerability.
8. The Secretariat will prepare a document, for the Committee’s consideration, covering as much as possible the issues raised with regard to the subject matter coverage of the document, bearing in mind that further development of Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems (FIVIMS) will be required before all of the Committee’s wishes can be fully met.
9. At its Twenty-third session the Committee supported the process of establishing FIVIMS as a tool for the monitoring of chronic and transitory food insecurity in the follow-up to the Summit. It welcomed the readiness of major UN agencies to contribute actively to the development of FIVIMS and the proposed constitution of an inter-agency mechanism to provide oversight of the process, and generally approved the proposed gradual step-by-step process to develop FIVIMS. The workplan for developing FIVIMS called for the following tasks to be completed prior to CFS/24:
" (a) Establishment of an inter-agency mechanism, at the technical level
(b) Designation of country focal points for all matters related to FIVIMS
(c) Preparation of guidelines for the establishment of FIVIMS at the national level
(d) Preparation of case studies on the experience of a small (3-4) number of selected countries in food insecurity and vulnerability information and mapping. "
10. At this Session, the Committee will consider a report on steps taken to carry out these tasks, together with plans for future work, and will review a draft framework document for establishing national FIVIMS.
11. At its Twenty third Session the Committee recalled that, in line with commitment 7, arrangements for monitoring and reporting on implementation of the Summit’s Plan of Action should be based on three reporting streams of reports - reports from national governments, reports on UN agency follow-up and inter-agency co-ordination, and reports from other relevant international institutions. It agreed on a provisional reporting procedure to be used by these reporting streams in 1997. At this forthcoming Session, the Committee will consider a reporting format for successive years. An open-ended working group of the CFS will be held immediately before the Session to examine proposals for this purpose, taking into account the experiences of the first reporting cycle as well as progress with FIVIMS. The Secretariat will also provide information on experiences with reporting mechanisms and formats in follow-up to other conferences and conventions.
12. The Committee at its last session had considered briefly issues relating to the organization of its future work beyond the 1998 Session. It was proposed that, at the Twenty-fourth Session planning be done on themes linked to Summit implementation which might be considered by the Committee in future sessions. The Committee will consider a list of themes in the context of the Summit follow-up, to be proposed by the Secretariat, as well as the organisation of future agendas, so as to provide adequate time for substantive debate.
13. At its Twenty-third Session the Committee noted that the amendment of the Rules of Procedure lay within the authority of the Committee itself, and undertook a first reading of the proposed amendments. The Committee had decided to postpone the adoption of the Rules of Procedure until its session this year, in order to take into account the amendments to Rule XXXIII (GRO) once adopted by the Conference. The Conference at its Twenty-ninth Session through Resolution 8/97 has amended Rule XXXIII (GRO). The Committee, in line with its decision at the last session, is expected to adopt the amendments of its Rules of Procedure this year.
14. Under this item, the committee will consider the date of its next session. According to its Terms of Reference, the Committee shall normally hold two sessions during each biennium, and if required, may hold additional sessions on the call of the Director-General in consultation with its chairman, or on request submitted in writing to the Director-General by the majority of Members of the Committee. The Committee, under this item, may also wish to consider arrangements for the participation of NGOs at future sessions.
15. The Committee, in line with its Terms of Reference, will submit its report to the Council, and through the Council, relevant extracts on Summit follow-up to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC).