CFS Policy Convergence Products Database

Implementing an appropriate policy and regulatory framework to encourage the private sector and the consumers to take steps towards reducing FLW, for instance by designing and implementing appropriate instruments and by promoting diversity of food chains.

Promoting investment and innovations based on traditional and scientific knowledge to reduce FLW, considering various sustainable agriculture approaches recalling the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems and in particular principle 6.

Support these national processes in collaboration with partners by promoting methodological approaches adapted to country specificities and based on systematic and intersectoral approaches to take into account potential complementarity between food chains.

Supporting and promoting initiatives to minimize fish discard and post-harvest losses and waste at all steps of the fish value chain.

Take effective steps to reduce FLW

Promote and support the implementation of the 'Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication' (VGSSF), with respect to food security and nutrition.

Take into account the requirements of small-scale fisheries in the design and implementation of national and international policies and programmes related to fisheries, including investment plans, as appropriate.

Strive to develop, promote and facilitate fish trade in support of food security and nutrition, while avoiding creation of tariff and non-tariff barriers.

Promote the development and implementation of south-south as well as north-south cooperation, to encourage sharing and learning experiences in aquaculture.

Promote the inclusion of food security and nutrition in the objectives of policies and mechanisms related to fish trade.

Support local organizations to foster the integration of small-scale fisheries into the decision-making processes.

Recognize the specific contribution of small-scale fisheries to food security and nutrition.

Enhance fish market's and trade's contribution to food security and nutrition

Recognize the contribution of small-scale fisheries

Financial services. Improve regulatory conditions and financial infrastructure to strengthen smallholder access to a full range of financial services adapted to their needs, with attention to the particular challenges faced by women and youth in this regard. Relevant financial services include safe deposits, monetary transactions and remittances, mobile financial services, sustainable micro, short and long-term credit, public insurance schemes (including indexed insurance), commodity exchange and warehouse receipt systems. Reduce financial risks, lower transaction costs and facilitate long-term investments, ' such as for field operations equipment, food processing and other value-adding activities on smallholder farms. As appropriate, relax liquidity constraints on working capital expenditures (e.g. fertilizers, seeds) as well as on medium and long-term investments while avoid worsening smallholder farmers' debt burden. Support such measures by appropriately designed, well targeted fiscal measures. All the above mentioned measures of this paragraph should be implemented in accordance with international commitments.

Promote investment of and for smallholders. Improve policies, markets and institutions to foster economic opportunities for smallholders. Mitigate excessive price volatility and non-transferable smallholder risks using public policy instruments in accordance with international commitments. Develop and/or improve value chains and enable smallholders to be full participants in the value chains of their choice. Ensure legal and fair business practices amongst all parties and increase the negotiating capacity of smallholders. This calls for continued development of policy measures and technical guidelines and tools, including for contract farming and public'private partnerships, in consultation with smallholder organizations, the expertise of relevant UN organizations and other centres of expertise.

Access to markets. Support, in accordance with international commitments, the development of, and access to, markets, distribution and marketing systems and mechanisms that are remunerative for smallholders and rural economies. Recognize the importance of non-monetary exchanges of products and services, the importance of local food systems for smallholders including their potential for supplying school and institutional feeding programmes. Create appropriate linkages and engage smallholder farmers, men and women, along value-chains, especially in local, national and regional markets. Enable and stimulate cooperation between smallholders, for instance, via cooperatives or other approaches for market organization that benefit smallholders in accordance with international commitments.

Investing beyond the farm. Promote public investment and encourage private investment to develop a decentralised, rural, non-farm economy to support smallholders' access to alternative sources of income, thereby further consolidating the farming economy and contributing to improved food security and nutrition. This encompasses investment in capacity building and entrepreneurship development, where appropriate and particularly targeting young women and men, for employment in a modernized agriculture as well as in other related activities and labour markets. It also requires promoting investment for new business development.

Promote access to available technologies that help improve the quality of smallholders' production. Take into consideration the specific constraints of smallholders in relation to sanitary and phytosanitary regulations and enable their access to the programs and supplies needed for compliance.

Governments and other stakeholders are encouraged to implement policies and investments for the production of biofuels and food in accordance with national development strategies and multilateral agreements applicable to food security. Special attention should also be given to the situation of vulnerable groups and small scale food producers.

Enable investment, access to markets, productive services and resources

Governments, FAO, and all other relevant stakeholders are encouraged to promote and facilitate exchange of information and cooperation on biofuels and food security links. This includes analysis, assessments and projections as well as providing transparent information on assumptions, methods, tools and gender-disaggregated data.

Governments, FAO, Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS), GBEP, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and other international organizations are encouraged to regularly share with CFS the results of their work on biofuels food security linkages.

design and put in place appropriate national assessments, including food security and nutrition and gender assessments, to ensure the inclusion of food and nutrition in security-sensitive targeting, effective registration methods, gender-sensitive programming, institutional arrangements, delivery mechanisms, robust monitoring, accountability and evaluation

design and put in place progressive development of comprehensive country-led social protection portfolios and action plans that ensure active, inclusive, meaningful stakeholder participation, and are sensitive to country differences in terms of policy, institutions and financial capacity;

support CSOs, notably those representing the most hunger-affected populations, small-scale producers' organizations, and women farmers' organizations, to participate in decision-making and the implementation of food security policies and programmes to address climate change.

Urge Member States to design and put in place, or strengthen, comprehensive, nationally owned, context sensitive social protection systems for food security and nutrition

encourage multistakeholder fora at local, national and regional levels to promote broad participation of local communities and the most vulnerable groups, as well as the private sector, in decision-making processes;

invite the CFS Secretariat to transmit for information the HLPE report on Food Security and Climate Change and the present document of the CFS to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and to the UNFCCC Secretariat.

invite FAO to continue collaboration with the UNFCCC Secretariat including through the provision of sound technical information on food security issues;

support the consideration of food security within the UNFCCC activities, in accordance with its mandate and in the context of the objectives, principles and provisions of that convention, by:

ensure that social protection is integrated with broader food security and nutrition programming

HLPE to include in its plans for future work, taking into account available resources, a comparative study of constraints to smallholder investment in agriculture in different contexts with policy options for addressing these constraints, taking into consideration the work done on this topic by IFAD, and by FAO in the context of COAG, and the work of other key partners. This should include a comparative assessment of strategies for linking smallholders to food value chains in national and regional markets and what can be learned from different experiences, as well as an assessment of the impacts on smallholders of public-private as well as farmer cooperative private and private-private partnerships;

governments and other stakeholders to report to the Committee as determined in the framework of 'Mapping food security actions at country level', on actions being taken to align international and domestic private and public investment in agriculture with food security concerns, including progress made in the implementation of the recommendations above, and to share lessons learned from national experiences. This reporting should be prepared in the context of a multi-actor forum that replicates at country level the inclusive vision of the new CFS;

Give due attention to new market and environmental risks facing smallholder agriculture, and design investment, services and policies so as to mitigate these risks and strengthen the ability of both women and men smallholders to manage them. Align investment in agriculture with environmental sustainability considerations;

Actively involve organizations representing smallholders and agricultural workers in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of policies for investment in agriculture, and in the design of investment programmes in agriculture and food value chains;

Promote a significant expansion of agricultural research and development, and its funding, including by strengthening the work of the reformed CGIAR, supporting national research systems, public universities and research institutions, and promoting technology transfer, sharing of knowledge and practices, including for family farming, and capacity building through North-South and South-South cooperation;

Support the development, or review, by Member Countries, of comprehensive national food security strategies which are country-owned and led, evidence-based and inclusive of all key partners at national level, in particular civil society, women's and farmers' organizations, and which establish policy coherence in respective sectors, including national economic policies, to address food price volatility;

Support the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) to enhance food market information and transparency, and urge the participating international organizations, private sector actors and governments to ensure the public dissemination of timely and quality food market information products;

Increase stable and sustainable public and private investment to strengthen smallholder production systems, boost agricultural productivity, foster rural development and increase resilience with particular attention to smallholder agriculture;