Background of FSNSA
World Summit on Food Security (WSFS) was held in November
2009 at Rome. The CSO participants who had the opportunity
to participate in NGO parallel and to enter in FAO to follow
the official discussion had mixed reactions. On the one hand
they felt that the official declaration covered important
aspects like good governance, transparency, cooperation at
all levels, focus on reforms in agriculture and other
primary sectors, stress on equity and justice and a divided
approach of dealing with vulnerable groups immediately at
the same time having long term strategies for eradication of
poverty in general. But on the other hand disappointments
were also there as it was observed with huge concern that
the world leaders failed to propose any sustainable
alternative to the mainstream development regime, which
resulted in unprecedented world food price rise and hunger
in the globe in recent years. For example in WSFS the head
of states continued focusing on WTO and trade as a solution
to food crisis and emphasized on the importance of bio-fuel
as alternative sources of energy overlooking the threat of
land grabbing and further loss in food production. Moreover,
there were very limited opportunities for the CSO
representatives to share their views and experiences as well
as recommendations in the official forum to meet the world
hunger and poverty scenario. The climate change issue
received a lot of attention in both official and NGO
parallel forums, as this would further intensify hunger all
over the world but no concrete steps were agreed upon to
face the crisis united. The official forum stressed on rural
development and regional cooperation and vowed to implement
existing commitments like Voluntary Guideline on Right to
Food (VGRF), International Conference on Agrarian Reform and
Rural Development (ICARRD) etc. to end hunger world-wide.
NGO/CSOs should take a more pro-active position and role in
advocacy and lobby work with various actors for realizing
existing national/regional/international human rights
instruments/commitments and to ensure good governance from
grassroots to the top. During WSFS NGOs/CSOs/CBOs discussed
in length about different elements of a viable alternative
development paradigm or in other words they discussed about
realization of food sovereignty.
The need of the hour is to develop more clarity at South
Asia level on the concept of food sovereignty and how this
could be realized. A vibrant network is required which would
adopt concept of food sovereignty as larger vision and would
try to realize the core elements of it through advocacy
lobby work at different levels on region specific
context/issues with multi stakeholders; would enrich the
endeavor of ending hunger and poverty in the globe. Hence
further development and strengthening of the Food
Sovereignty Network of NGOs/CSOs/CBOs at South Asia Level or
FSNSA is proposed.
