Written by Dr Rob Arcidiacono
“CSIPM is calling for the voices of small-scale producers, women, gender diverse people and young farmers, and Indigenous Peoples, who feed the world, to remain at the centre of global food governance”
From 20 – 24 October, the Committee for World Food Security (CFS) met in Rome, Italy, to ‘develop and endorse policy recommendations and guidance on a wide range of food security and nutrition topics’. AFSA contributed through the CSIPM, the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism, which provides a space for marginalised voices to be heard in global food and agriculture governance. Since the CFS reforms in 2009, the CSIPM has been considered one of the more democratic UN Spaces where constituents are able to inform decisions that affect their lived experience.
I was honoured to bring the Australasian perspective into this platform on behalf of AFSA. This was my second CFS in Rome, with CFS 52 last year being my first, and after a year of working groups, Coordination Committee meetings, and broader global food governance dialogues, I was better equipped to share Australia’s food sovereignty struggle and wins with allies from around the world.
CSIPM speaks of Home-to-Rome and Rome-to-Home, referring to the two-way flow of knowledge and advocacy between grassroots struggles and global policy spaces. Over ten days, I was able to share some of our challenges, opportunities, and successes and will now bring home the policy outcomes, negotiated guidelines, and core discussions. This reflection covers the CSIPM Coordinating Committee (14-16 October), CSIPM Public Forum (18-19 October), and the CFS 53 (20-24 October). More detailed updates will come through AFSA channels, including a Solidarity Session on the topic soon.
What is CFS?
The Committee for World Food Security (CFS) has been around since the 70’s, when the world saw severe food shortages and price spikes that exposed the vulnerabilities in the world’s food system. Today, it is the foremost inclusive international platform in the UN system for policy coordination and decision-making, that negotiates and informs policy outcomes that impact on people on the ground. The CFS plays an important normative (i.e. CFS doesn’t pass binding laws, but it develops norms, principles, and guidelines, like the Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food or the FFA on Protracted Crises) and deliberative (i.e. it’s a space for dialogue and negotiation, where stakeholders deliberate together on policy directions) role, though it is in need of stronger political backing and implementation capacity to remain effective amid growing corporate and geopolitical pressures. While the CFS is not a perfect space, since its reforms in 2009, it has expanded participation to ensure that: all relevant stakeholders are heard, evidence-based decision making is informed by the High Level Panel of Experts, and to strengthen linkages with the regions, taking ‘Rome to Home’.
In contrast with the CFS, to the World Food Forum, part of the UN Food Systems Summit, (which is held the week before the CFS) has been widely critiqued for its dominance of private sector voices, and tokenistic youth and Indigenous Peoples engagement and the lack of actual outcomes that come from the expensive and flash exhibition and high-level representation. CSIPM has been consistently critical of these corporate-oriented spaces as they pose a direct threat to real and democratic decision-making, legitimising the agro-industrial model of production, and taking away attention and funding from other, more inclusive UN spaces.
Policy Pathways: CC>> CSIPM >> Public Forum >> CFS
So, how does the CSIPM relate to the CFS? The CFS provides the platform for ‘from the ground’ voices, while the CSIPM, as a ‘mechanism,’ facilitates these voices from around the world, representing more than 300 million small farmers, Indigenous Peoples and marginalised constituents, those who both feed the world and are most affected by food system challenges. The Coordinating Committee of the CSIPM is the decision-making, governance entity that facilitates the voice for the approximately 250 Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples organisations. The Coordination Committee meets online multiple times a year (at terrible AEST hours!), and when possible, also aims to do a three-day meeting prior to the CFS to collectivise and draft policy positions from our regions and constituencies. These are shared and refined with the wider CSIPM network at the Public Forum (details here), before being taken onto the floor of the CFS, hosted in FAO headquarters.
What stood out from the CSIPM Coordination Committee meeting? Once again, it was striking how closely Australia’s food sovereignty challenges mirror those of comrades across the globe. While our export orientated, productivist agriculture system in Australia has its own flavour, but the patterns are familiar: private sector capture of decision-making, corporate financing shaping food systems, extractive and and chemical-dependent farming, market consolidation, land struggles rooted in ongoing colonialism, barriers for young people, exploitation of workers. Different contexts, same fight.
In spite of and because of our shared challenges, the CC meeting and Public Forum also provide a space of solidarity with brothers and sisters from the global movement. These are spaces to mobilise, for political formation, and where we can share approaches that are affecting positive change within our own context. I had the privilege of sharing some of the great work from our AFSA First Nations comrades on native grains, increasing understanding about growing on country, and how, as an organisation, we’re working to support First Peoples First. One session of the CC included a briefing with the Colombian Government representation leading the second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) conference scheduled for 2026, with direct relevance to the Agrarian Trust work of AFSA. Finally, the political mobilisation of AFSA through the abattoir campaign was also celebrated within the CC as an example of engaging government and decision makers to push back against large corporate interests and control of the meat processing industry in Australia. This and other lessons were shared that can be taken to other jurisdictions around the world.
CSIPM Priorities
At CFS 53, our core priorities were clear: defend the CFS as the most inclusive global food governance space amid shrinking civil society participation (including pressures from the World Food Forum), and push for food systems transformation rooted in the right to food, food sovereignty, agroecology, and social, gender, and climate justice.
CSIPM drove this agenda through side events, and on the plenary floor on finance and debt, urban and peri-urban food systems, resilient food systems, and the Framework for Action (FFA) for Food Security and Nutrition in Protracted Crises.
The CFS was held days after the declared ‘cease-fire’ in Gaza, sharply focusing the FFA on the use of food as a weapon of war, a tactic that has been employed with genocidal precision by Israel. Michael Fakhri, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, delivered a searing intervention, stating that ’the UN has not just failed, the UN died in Gaza,’ citing the deaths of children, of just two and four months of age, killed by malnutrition, dehydration and hunger in Israeli’s starvation campaign, while the UN failed to prevent or respond. Inaction is complicity.
Gaza was not the only crisis on the table. Conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Congo and some 70 other conflict locations worldwide, show a broader collapse of multilateral protection, where access to food is blocked by politics and power.
What Next?
Despite the curtains closing on CFS 53, the work continues. Several dominant global themes have strong relevance for us at home. Firstly, the broader food governance landscape remains under threat, as the rise of multi-stakeholder platforms like the UNFSS and WFF challenges democratic decision-making. Combined with UN and FAO reforms, these shifts risk sidelining the CFS, with growing influence from powerful member states and private sector actors. This underscores the need for AFSA to maintain a strong voice both at home and in Rome.
Second, the week illustrated the fractured geopolitical moment in which we are living. At the close of negotiations, the United States formally disassociated itself from the final report, objecting to references on gender, diversity, and climate change, concerns not supported by the US administration. When powerful actors openly seek to roll back hard-won rights and dismantle shared commitments, our strategies for mobilisation and resistance must evolve.
Third, climate change remains a recurring and urgent theme that pervades plenary conversations and side events. CSIPM expressed deep concerns about false solutions such as carbon markets and extractive “green transition” projects that dispossess Indigenous Peoples and rural communities of land and water under the guise of climate action. These debates will only sharpen on the road to COP30 and beyond, and reinforce the importance for AFSA to hold governments and corporations to account at home as part of the global struggle for climate justice.
Amid the tension, there is solidarity and cautious optimism. Member states like Brazil, Switzerland, and Colombia continue to defend inclusive, democratic processes within the CFS. I was especially heartened at the response to Ambassador Nosipho Jezile Boyer of South Africa, as she closed her term as CFS Chair. Despite the politics open fractures present in negotiations, her compassionate and grounded leadership were widely lauded by member states and mechanisms. CSIPM’s Precious Phiri from Zimbabwe captured the moment beautifully, bringing some ‘flavour and spice’ from Southern Africa in relaying CSIPM’s gratitude for the leadership and support of Ambassador Nosipho Jezile. See the end of this video that captures the diversity of energy, optimism and authenticity that civil society brings into this space.
While the year ahead will bring more challenges in global food governance, there are many opportunities where AFSA and aligned comrades can participate. CSIPM has a series of working groups that are open to member organisations, covering topics like Resilient Food Systems, Gender and Equity, Global Food Governance, Monitoring and Uptake, and the Youth working group. I also encourage you to sign up for the CSIPM socials and stay up to date on global topics of interest relevant to the region. Finally, keep an eye on the AFSA newsletter for dates for a Solidarity Session on the CSIPM/ CFS before the end of 2025 to inform allies on how you can leverage the policy products and outcomes from these global spaces to further food sovereignty, agroecology and the Right to Food here in Australia.
