Comments for Written Submission
• Who are the stakeholders in food security and nutrition? What are the interests and motivations of each stakeholder? How to attract and retain partners? What are their various levels of responsibility?
This question about stakeholders seems too broad: everyone is a stakeholder in food security and nutrition. Motivations are difficult to assess, and inaccurate attributions of motivations can create both analytical and practical complications. Instead, focus on identifying the key stakeholders with incentives and capacities for entering or supporting MSPs. This report should identify nutrition problems and opportunities that MSPs tackle and should indicate where there is evidence that such partnerships are advantageous or disadvantageous (e.g., transaction costs).
• How to define “multistakeholder partnership” for food security and nutrition? What are the existing types of partnerships for financing and improving food security and nutrition? What are the tensions between the nature of these stakeholders and the functions of the partnerships?
No comments.
• What are the goals, effectiveness, impact and performance of various forms of MSPs in reaching FSN objectives, in the context of the 2030 Agenda? What criteria, indicators, qualitative or quantitative approaches and methodologies could be used to assess the effectiveness, efficiency, inclusiveness, transparency, accountability, and value added for different types of MSPs?
As drafted, this element in the scope seems too dense and may need to be separated into at least two clusters: 1) MSP performance and 2) monitoring, evaluation, and learning approaches for MSPs.
• To what extent do existing MSPs influence national, regional and international policies and programmes for FSN?
The United States does not see value in this guide question for the report. Instead, it seems like the substance of this question would be adequately addressed by the preceding question about the performance and impact of MSPs.
• What are the potential controversies related to MSPs?
The intent of this question is unclear. As long as MSPs have clear goals, commitments, and modalities for cooperative work, it does not seem worthwhile to speculate about potential controversies. Perhaps it would be more fruitful to instead focus on strategic/operational challenges or key issues that MSPs encounter in this space.
• What are/should be the respective roles and responsibilities of public, private stakeholders and civil society in such partnerships? What should be the respective contributions of each in the financing and improvement of FSN?
As drafted, this question seems to imply that there are generic roles, responsibilities, and contributions for broad categories of stakeholders. Rather than looking at “what should be?” it may be more valuable to examine points where individual stakeholders can most efficiently realize mutual advantages and synergies through their contributions to MSPs for FSN.
• How to ensure to all stakeholders a “fair” representation in multistakeholder decision making process? How to ensure meaningful and effective participation of the people affected by the MSP, in the decision-making process, including in the setting and implementation of priorities?
From this point on, the suggested scope has a strong normative tone. Since one of its stated purposes is to provide recommendations on ways to improve MSP contributions to FSN in the framework of 2030, there is clearly a role for “how to” sections. However, these should follow from the assessment (as indicated in the introduction). An examination of the current decision-making process should come before this discussion. Stakeholder representation depends on the MSP members. In some cases, parties to an MSP may have in their rules of governance decision-making processes that include members only. We recommend removing the “fairness” assessment and considering participation under the preceding question.
• How to improve MSPs in order to better implement the SDGs and improve FSN? What incentives mechanisms and legal and financial tools could be the most effective, efficient in this perspective? How the choice of the tools impact on the governance and on the effectiveness of MSPs?
No comments.
Do these questions correctly reflect the main issues to be covered?
The United States is concerned that discussions of what roles should be for members of MSPs and of what constitutes “fair” representation for all stakeholders could have implications that move outside the scope of the HLPE and overreach into national policy areas of government.
The topic of this report is an important one, the basic structure proposed is sound, and in general the issues are correctly identified. The report has two main objectives: to do an assessment and to suggest changes or improvements. The report’s success will depend on a good balance between these objectives. This implies doing a solid analysis based on well identified criteria, which questions 2 and 3 provide, and having recommendations flow from this analysis. The report is weaker in this second aspect. It introduces concepts like “fairness” with respect to decision-making without having clearly defined the existing system and identifying issues that currently exist. Similarly, the focus on identifying “potential” issues before discussing actual ones is important.
This framing seems to imply that MSPs are pre-determined to be the best approach towards FSN outcomes, which in itself is an interesting “upstream” assumption. The scope could address this concern with an overarching question: “What are the current assumptions/evidence about the value of MSPs to FSN outcomes?” For example, what factors could help parties determine the optimal environment or scale where MSPs would be advantageous? As noted above, the report should identify nutrition problems and opportunities that MSPs tackle and should indicate where there is evidence that such partnerships are advantageous or disadvantageous (e.g., transaction costs).
Since nutrition-sensitive programming is at the heart of MSP collaboration on FSN, the report should explicitly address challenges with measuring nutrition-sensitive financial contributions. This was a topic at the G7 Food Security and Nutrition Technical Working Group meeting in Tokyo last October and the international community is still working on these challenges, so this report is an opportunity to add insight, evidence, and recommendations.
Are you aware of references, examples, success stories, innovative practices and case studies that could be of interest for the preparation of this report? What are the existing MSPs related to FSN that you consider more relevant and why?
Partnership is a key component of U.S. domestic nutrition assistance programs and our ending hunger efforts. Our partners include nonprofit, faith based, corporate, and governmental organizations that share our mission. USDA's Food and Nutrition Service helps our partners find ways to leverage federal support for local impact and gives them access to extensive information resources. Some partners are focused around advocacy, conducting research, or educating decision makers and the general public. Corporations often have branches and foundations that focus on social responsibility and philanthropic activities. This website https://www.fns.usda.gov/get-involved/partnerships describes FNS partnerships and how to get involved.
We note several existing types of MSPs such as: Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture, New Alliance for Food Security, and Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN).
Caitlin Blair