This blog was originally posted here on the Event Blog of the Committee on World Food Security. It was written by Nadia Lambek and Jessica Duncan.

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CFS42 (photo by X. Jiang)

When the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) reformed in 2009 it identified the promotion of the right to food as one of its goals. This was an important development, as recognizing human rights is fundamental to achieving food security.

Despite this development, however, the issue of human rights is still contentious within the CFS. Participants continue to clash over whether to include human rights in the CFS’s outputs and on whether or not to adopt a rights-based perspective in making policy recommendations.

Observers attending the first plenary session of the CFS might have been surprised to see that very few governments chose to mention human rights and the right to food in their opening addresses.  Indeed, these…

Understanding challenges and opportunities for future food and nutrition security

Bridin Carroll

It is well established that the food system is globally integrated and that this system is subject to a wide range of drivers of change including climate, economic concentration and market structure, financial power, resource competition, marginalization, property rules, geo-political shifts, consumer preferences, consumption patterns and nutritional transition. These drivers of change affect how food flows through this system, at all stages from production to consumption (Yakovleva, 2007; Tansey, 1994). It is important to obtain a comprehensive picture of the effects of these drivers, as well as to systematically assess the vulnerabilities of the food system (pressures, hazards, shocks and stresses), in the context of socio-economic, behavioural, technological, institutional and agro-ecological change.

This week I am teaming up with Nadia Lambek to research, reflect and write about the CFS. 

In our conversations with people over the last few days (well actually, the last 6 years), we have been asked a lot of questions about the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), and often, the questions are the same.

To save you, and us, some time, we have identified the top 5 questionswe get about the CFS and provided our answers below.

The Wageningen University Gender & Diversity working group presents a lunch-time lecture on Gender Dilemmas in Sustainable Development

by Dr Wendy Harcourt

Date: Wednesday, October 12

Time: 12:30-13:30

Place: C68, de Leeuwenborch, Wageningen

Wendy Harcourt argues that feminist theory brings important political lessons to sustainable development. Her talk explores: development as transformative politics; intersectionality; and the inter-section of gender with sustainability issues. She argues that new methodologies are required in development that bridge the divide between practice-based analysis and universalising ‘global’ theory. She presents the case for why it is important to learn from those who are breaking new ground listening and learning from the perspectives of communities living and working on the margins of mainstream development.

Dr Wendy Harcourt is Associate Professor in Critical Development and Feminist Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies of the Erasmus University in The Hague. She is Research Programme Leader for the Civic…