The UN Summit on Food Systems to be held on Thursday 23 September 2021 continues to draw criticism from many civil society actors and organisations around the world.
Two days before the Summit in New York (21-22 September), they are launching an online counter-mobilisation called the ‘People's Global Summit’ to call for a radical transformation of current food regimes towards fair, equitable, healthy and sustainable food systems. They denounce the “neoliberal influence of the UNFSS” and seek to “amplify the voices of hungry and marginalised people for food systems that work.”
Although the UNFSS is presented as a means to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to prepare the way out of the COVID-19 health crisis, several civil society movements insist that the purposes of the summit have been hijacked by big business, even to the point of jeopardising global food security.
An opaque and exclusive process
The UNFSS has been criticised for its lack of transparency and accountability mechanisms, and for aligning itself with the globalisation of food systems, which prioritises financial gain over the interests of vulnerable communities around the world, particularly in developing countries.
In response, several movements decided not to participate in the Summit events and to launch a counter-mobilisation. From 25 to 28 July 2021, more than 300 organisations representing small-scale food producers, researchers and also representatives of artisanal fisheries gathered online. In a statement they underlined that “a predatory development model, centred on control of resources, control of policy debates and corporate influence of regulations has created a global food system that still leaves more than two billion people hungry, malnourished and economically deprived.”
In addition, other actors who had initially agreed to be part of the summit withdrew from the proceedings, such as the members of IPES FOOD on 26 July. They said that "inconsistencies weaken the good faith work of many actors" and “set a dangerous precedent for the entire UN system and threaten to usher in a new era of corporate-led 'multi-stakeholderism'.”
The concerns of African artisanal fisheries
In a joint statement, CAPE and its partners also expressed their concerns about the approach of the summit organisers, particularly in relation to artisanal fisheries, choosing not to participate in the summit and to support the pre-summit parallel events. They recall the importance of fisheries for food security and the fight against poverty in Africa.
They also criticise the prominence given to large-scale industrial aquaculture in the work of the UNFSS, presenting it as an alternative to fishing and as the solution to hunger and food insecurity. According to CAPE and its partners, this emphasis on aquaculture is incompatible with the interests of artisanal fishers and women fish processors whose food resources are overexploited to be processed into fishmeal and fed to aquaculture fish.
Header photo: Landing of fish in Senegal. Photo: Aliou Diallo/REJOPRA.
In this article, the author underscores the ecological and social impacts of Norwegian intensive salmon farming, including the impact on food security in West Africa. The author remarks that while on the one hand, the European Union promotes fish for human consumption in Africa, on the other, the EU also opens wide its market gates for Norwegian farmed salmon, which is fed West African fish.