Dialogues With Thousands Of People Set The Agenda For ‘Open And Transparent’ UN Food Systems Summit

Openness, transparency and urgency were among the cross-cutting success factors to emerge from hundreds conversations about how to transform food systems.

September 9, ROME – Nearly 900 Independent Dialogues have helped shape the forthcoming UN Food Systems Summit by sharing their input on how to ensure food systems worldwide tackle hunger, poverty, climate change and inequality.

Two recently released reports look at how nearly 450 Independent Dialogues around the world reported back to the UN in an unprecedented public engagement process ahead of the landmark Summit on Thursday, September 23.

An analysis of the reports identified 22 guiding themes to inform food systems transformation and provide a critical resource for governments as they develop national food systems strategies.

As well as openness and transparency, other issues that emerged from the Dialogues and outlined in the reports, include the need to ensure food systems are both equitable and sustainable, and that any systems approach unlocks innovation that complements existing tools and strategies, particularly nature-based solutions.

“The Summit set out to be a People’s Summit, and we have achieved this by starting a global conversation about the kind of food systems the world needs heading into the Decade of Action,” said Agnes Kalibata, UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Food Systems Summit.

“But the conversation is far from over. As we count down to the Summit and move forward in implementation, the Dialogues are continuing, world leaders must keep listening. Ultimately, the Summit is about raising ambition and commitment to action; and we must individually and together, find ways to articulate what action we are taking to come through on the 2030 agenda.”

In addition to a comprehensive summary of the Independent Dialogues, the Summit also received special reports focusing on four crucial communities to food systems transformation: Indigenous Peoples, women, small-scale food producers and youth.

The review highlighted a call for recognition of the extra burden of climate change and Covid-19 on Indigenous Peoples, which creates increasingly vulnerable situations. It also reinforced the resilience and traditional knowledge of Indigenous Peoples, who are already conserving 80 per cent of global biodiversity.

Dialogues with smallholder farmers raised the issue of access to quality seeds as well as the need for land, water and fishing rights to be protected, while participants discussing gender equality called for better data on the barriers facing women, which include access to farm inputs, credit and financing, market know-how, land ownership, and digital literacy.

Across 17 Independent Dialogues on youth engagement, the shared perspective was to increase youth-specific financing, opportunities for capacity building, and access to technology.

Currently, more than 900 Independent Dialogues are registered on the Summit’s Dialogues Gateway, including around 20 yet to be convened.

Independent Dialogues could be convened by any individual, organisation or public body, and involve an unlimited number of participants. The most common themes of the Dialogues were sustainability, youth engagement and nutrition, followed by women and gender, and climate change.

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