المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

From Susan Bragdon and Nora Meier, Quaker UN Office Geneva

Looking at the questions related to the potential controversies related to MSPs; the respective roles and responsibilities of public, private stakeholders and civil society in such partnerships: 

We strongly support Nora McKeon’s call that the HPLE study PPPs in this area before advocating for their use.  We also agree with Claudio Schuftan who says “By definition, PPPs, the accompanying mechanism of MSPs, create financial and/or other economic dependencies of public institutions on private sector actors and will thus invariably create an economic, and a social and institutional, incentive for public institutions to align their policies with the commercial interests of private sector actors. Such an alignment will always compromise the objectivity and independence of public institutions.”  

The rise of PPP as a tool has taken place in an increasingly globalized food system heavily influenced by a widespread belief in the primacy of the market and market-based systems for ensuring food security. This has been paired with a weakening of the public sector both in reality and in perception. Trade rules donor constraints can limit both the space and capacity for governing food systems.

The issue is not pro-private sector and anti-public sector of vice versa. It is about the appropriate roles and boundaries of each. The market and the private sector (industry) may provide some tools to achieve the objectives of food security, but they cannot by themselves fully satisfy the objectives related to food security and poverty alleviation.  The private sector is interested in markets, and in the market demand correlates with an ability to pay rather than to human need.  The private sector research aims to develop products for the most profitable markets, not the neediest users.  Markets don’t consider access to those most in need, distribution, research direction for the neediest, inequality, justice.   

Therefore, in addition to the need to examine PPP as a mechanism, we would like to add that there is a need for a better understanding of the:

· The role of the public sector, in particular the role it must play as a provider of goods and services in food security;

· The role of the private sector in providing food security; and

· The boundaries and appropriate relationship between the two.

At present, there does not appear to be a coherent understanding of the international architecture for food security, of what needs to be done by governments collectively, and the freedom governments need domestically to ensure the food security of their own populations without harming the needs of others. Given the current state of global food security, governments need to provide more than just an enabling environment for markets and the private sector.

We would like to see a reflection that governments play a critical, unique role in sustainable, national food systems and need to have both the space and capacity to act in the public interest.  This relates nicely with the calls from several commentators that the HPLE using a rights-based and duty-bearer lens for this work.   

Looking at the questions relating to who are the stakeholders:

We agree with concerns expressed by other commentators on the use of the term “stakeholder” and the need to make sure clear and rigorous definitions are understood and applied.  We would like to stress that one problem (often mentioned by Pat Mooney) with the term stakeholder is not every stakeholder has an equal stake.  For a small-scale farmer, decisions can be life and death, while for a corporation or company the “stake” may be in profits accrued or lost. 

Finally, looking at the question on how to ensure to all stakeholders a “fair” representation in multistakeholder decision making process:

We would like to make a comment about the need for farmer participation. We know to appropriately represent a country’s situation, there needs to be strong participation by the full range of farmers from different parts of the country. With information and time, better resourced large or medium-scale farmers are likely to be better equipped to participate. However, the situation will always be more difficult for the smaller and more marginalized farmers.

Achieving the participation of small-scale farmers in an equitable and comprehensive manner is far from straightforward. Social, cultural, and economic circumstances vary widely from household to household; most countries are highly heterogeneous ecologically; and the availability of inputs, distance from markets, access to information and technology, etc. all vary widely from one location to another. These factors combine to make small-scale farmers, indeed farmers in general, a highly diverse group.

The situation is exacerbated in that not only are farmers themselves highly diverse but so are the groups that seek to serve and represent their interests. These include such organizations as farmers’ unions, associations and cooperatives organized on a communal, provincial or national level, or along commodity lines. Developmental or other civil society organizations, many having a strong political agenda, may also seek to represent small-scale farmer interests.  

We would therefore like the HPLE to consider the need to more experimentation, experience and information sharing on the practicalities of how to secure the input of highly diverse farmer groups, and in particular small-scale farmers.