Monitoring Food Security in Protracted Crises

After more than one year of preparation, the Report on Monitoring the Use and Application of the Framework for Action for Food Security and Nutrition in Protracted Crises (FFA) has been published by the Civil Society and Indigenous People’s Mechanism (CSM) for relations with the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS). HIC-HLRN has been involved in the development and negotiation of the FFA since its inception, and is a key coordinating organization contributing of report via Program Advisor Heather Elaydi and Coordinator Joseph Schechla, who are both lead authors.

The report provides reflections from civil society on:

• The implementation of and alignment with the FFA (or lack thereof) in policy decisions and actions taken in their home countries experiencing protracted crises;
• Key barriers and challenges to use and implementation of the FFA;
• CSO experiences in advocating for the implementation of the FFA;
• Coherence between the FFA and pre-existing (binding and non-binding) obligations and commitments of states, to help guide advocacy for the FFA and monitor its implementation;
• Recommendations for the creation of a monitoring tool for the FFA;
• Recommendations to CFS and its members and participants, along with other actors, in advancing the use of the FFA;
• Resources that may help advance the implementation of the FFA.

To complement this report, HIC-HLRN Coordinator Joseph Schechla has compiled an inventory of norms supporting the FFA, presenting an opportunity for report readers and the FFA users to consider how both standing commitments and obligations of states relate to food security and nutrition, while preventing and/or resolving protracted crises.

Monitoring of the FFA was the focus of the Global Thematic Event of the 47^th session of the CFS held 8–11 February 2021. CSM was represented by Ahmed Sourani of Gaza Urban and Peri-urban Agricultural Platform (GUPAP) in Palestine, who spoke about the impacts of the ongoing occupation and blockade on food security in Gaza, as well as the sometimes-detrimental role of international organizations in contexts of crisis that can often undermine and overshadow the efforts of local organizations. Other panellists in the session included representatives from the FAO, WFP, the Colombian Institute of Family Wellbeing, CFS, and the governments of Canada and Colombia.

HIC-HLRN continues its work on advocating the human rights, including the right to food, of peoples living in contexts of protracted crises outside of the CFS. In March 2021, HIC-HLRN, via its Program Advisor Heather Elaydi, made a related intervention on food systems in protracted crises during the Interactive Dialogue with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food at the 46^th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council. While Special Rapporteur Michael Fakhri’s report to the Council also dealt with food security in protracted crises, Heather’s supporting intervention emphasized the need for states to take their combined development commitments and human rights obligations more seriously in matters of both remedy and prevention of such crises as those spotlighted in the CSM report.

Photo: Israeli army soldiers arresting and intimidating a Palestinian farmer for having planted an olive tree near the West Bank town of Tubas in the Jordan Valley, during a protest against the closure of land to Palestinians by the army and Jewish settlers, 8 April 2014. Source: AP.