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	Commit to transparency in company ownership for the common good by ICIJ, Transparency International, agencies   Oct. 2021   The Pandora Papers investigation lays bare the global entanglement of political power and secretive offshore finance. (ICIJ)   The Pandora Papers is a leak of almost 12 million documents that reveals hidden wealth, tax avoidance and, in some cases, money laundering by some of the world's rich and powerful.   More than 600 journalists in 117 countries have been investigating the files for months. The data was obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which has been working with more than 140 media organisations on its biggest ever global investigation.   Based upon the most expansive leak of tax haven files in history, the investigation reveals the secret deals and hidden assets of more than 330 politicians and high-level public officials in more than 90 countries and territories, including 35 country leaders. Ambassadors, mayors and ministers, presidential advisers, generals and a central bank governor appear in the files.   The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) obtained confidential information from 14 offshore service providers, enterprises that set up and manage shell companies and trusts in tax havens around the globe.   The files reveal secret offshore holdings of more than 130 billionaires from 45 countries. Other clients include bankers, big political donors, arms dealers, international criminals, pop stars, spy chiefs and sporting giants.   While owning an offshore company is legal, the secrecy it provides can give cover to illicit money flows, enabling bribery, money laundering, tax evasion, terrorism financing and human trafficking and other human rights abuses, experts say.   Poor nations are disproportionately harmed by the stashing of wealth in tax havens, which starves treasuries of funds to pay for roads, schools and hospitals.   The Pandora Papers probe reveals that international leaders who could tackle offshore tax avoidance have themselves secretly moved money and assets beyond the reach of tax and law enforcement authorities as their citizens struggle.   Reporting by ICIJ and its partners challenges the offshore industry’s claims that service providers judiciously vet clients and strive to act within the law, and it highlights the cost to the public interest of letting the rich and powerful shield their wealth from the law.   ICIJ’s publication of Pandora Papers stories comes at a critical moment in a global debate over the fairness of the international tax system, the role of industry professionals in the shadow economy and the failure of governments to stanch the flow of dirty money into hidden companies and trusts.   Why tax havens are problematic:   Here's how offshore companies work: For prices starting at just a few hundred dollars, providers can help clients set up an offshore company whose real owners remain confidential.   Alternatively, for a fee of $2,000 to $25,000, they can set up a trust that, in some instances, allows its beneficiaries to control their money while being not legally responsible for their actions. A bit of paper-shuffling and "creativity" help shield assets from creditors, law enforcement and tax collectors.   Owning offshore companies and conducting financial transactions through these tax havens are perfectly legal in many countries— but the practice has come under scrutiny.   People who use these companies say they are needed to operate their businesses. Many experts however say tax havens and offshore operations must be monitored more closely to fight corruption, money laundering and global inequality.   According to Gabriel Zucman, an expert on tax havens and associate professor of economics at the University of Berkeley in California, the equivalent of 10% of the world's total GDP is held in tax havens globally.   Lakshmi Kumar, policy director at Global Financial Integrity, told ICIJ and affiliated news outlets that when the rich hide money through tax evasion, it has a direct impact on the lives of people. "It affects your child's access to education, access to health, and access to a home," she said.   How much money funnels to tax havens   Because of the complex and secretive nature of the offshore system, it's not possible to know the exact amount of wealth that is linked to tax evasion and other crimes and how much has been reported to authorities.   The total amount of money funneled from countries with higher tax rates into tax havens with significantly lower tax rates is still unknown. However, according to a 2020 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), at least $11.3 trillion is held "offshore."   Gerard Ryle, the director of the ICIJ, said leading politicians who organised their finances in tax havens had a stake in the status quo, and were likely to be an obstacle to reform of the offshore economy.   “When you have world leaders, when you have politicians, when you have public officials, all using the secrecy and all using this world, then I don’t think we’re going to see an end to it.”   He expects the Pandora papers to have a greater impact than previous leaks, because they were arriving in the middle of a pandemic that has exacerbated inequalities and led governments to borrow unprecedented amounts to be shouldered by ordinary taxpayers.   At least $11.3tn in wealth is held offshore. “This is money that is being lost to treasuries around the world and money that could be used to recover from Covid,” Ryle said. “We’re losing out because some people are gaining. It’s as simple as that. It’s a very simple transaction that’s going on here.”   The Pandora Papers are expected to yield new revelations for years to come.   http://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/ http://www.icij.org/investigations/ http://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/ http://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/ http://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/   Mar. 2021   Transparency in company ownership is more than a technical solution to a problem. It is a matter of social justice.   On International Anti-Corruption Day 2020, a group of leading economists, trade unions and civil society organisations tackling issues from human rights, to poverty, to business integrity, came together to call for an end to the abuse of anonymous companies.   Since then, more than 700 signatories from 120 countries have joined the call for the UN General Assembly Special Session against Corruption, UNGASS 2021, to commit all countries to set up central, public registers of beneficial ownership.   The UN General Assembly’s decision to hold a Special Session against Corruption in 2021 created a historic opportunity for the international community to address the global crisis of corruption.   The undersigned groups and individuals are united in the conviction that it is of the utmost urgency for the UNGASS 2021 to put an end to the abuse of anonymous companies and other legal vehicles that facilitate cross-border corruption and other crimes.   We are calling on the UNGASS 2021 to commit to making centralised, public beneficial ownership registers a global standard.   Companies that exist only on paper, exploiting our legal systems and concealing their ultimate ownership, are tools for the diversion of critical resources needed to advance sustainable development and collective security.   For decades, as scandal after scandal has demonstrated, anonymous shell companies have been used to divert public funds, channel bribes and conceal ill-gotten gains, as part of corruption and money laundering schemes stretching across borders.   Beneficial ownership information – information on the natural persons who ultimately own, control or benefit from a legal vehicle – enables cross-border enforcement and the tracing of ill-gotten assets for confiscation and return.   In public contracting processes, it helps in the detection of conflicts of interest and corruption. It also makes it easier for businesses to carry out due diligence, helps them know who their partners and customers are and meet reporting obligations.   A central, public register of companies and their ultimate beneficial owners – in addition to information on legal ownership and directors – is the most effective and practical way to record such information and facilitate timely access for all stakeholders.   We have come together to address government leaders currently preparing for UNGASS 2021 with one voice and one clear message:   The “concise and action-oriented political declaration” to be adopted by the General Assembly should commit all countries to establish central, public registers of beneficial ownership as the new global standard. This should be supplemented with efforts to verify the collected information in order to ensure the accuracy and reliability of beneficial ownership data.   Transparency in company ownership is more than a technical solution to a problem. It is a matter of social justice.   Corruption devastates the lives of billions of people around the world, while its deadliness has become all the more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis.   With only ten years left to achieve the 2030 Agenda targets, we need decisive reforms to ensure that the resources needed to pay for critical public services such as schools and hospitals are not simply misappropriated and hidden away in tax havens or property markets abroad.   Centralised, public registers of beneficial ownership as a global standard is precisely that kind of change. The time for action is now.   “All parts of our societies around the world have spoken. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, from indigenous peoples’ groups to tax justice advocates, from distinguished diplomats to multi-national companies, we all agree: anonymous companies are vehicles for corruption and other illicit practices that jeopardise the common good. We are asking country representatives preparing for the UNGASS 2021 to heed this call for urgent action,” said Gillian Dell, Head of Conventions Unit at Transparency International.   Numerous investigative reports and scandals have shown that anonymous companies enable and fuel corruption and other financial crimes.   The recent OpenLux investigations highlighted the power of public registers of beneficial ownership for identifying suspicions of money laundering, corruption, tax evasion and other criminal activity.   Maíra Martini, Research and Policy Expert at Transparency International said: “In recent years, many countries have made progress towards ending the abuse of anonymous companies – most recently the United States. But, as our campaign shows, there is an overwhelming consensus that fundamental fixes are necessary across the board.   Criminals and the corrupt must have nowhere to hide their ill-gotten loot. This means universal adoption of public beneficial ownership registers, based on a robust definition of beneficial ownership and accompanied by strong verification processes.”   http://www.transparency.org/en/ungass-2021-commit-to-transparency-in-company-ownership-for-the-common-good http://www.transparency.org/en/news/panama-corporate-service-providers-beneficial-ownership-panama-papers http://www.transparency.org/en/news/how-public-beneficial-ownership-registers-advance-anti-corruption http://www.taxjustice.net/2021/02/25/a-tide-turning-moment-in-the-global-struggle-for-tax-justice/ http://www.factipanel.org/explore-the-report http://www.taxjustice.net/2020/11/20/427bn-lost-to-tax-havens-every-year-landmark-study-reveals-countries-losses-and-worst-offenders/ http://www.icrict.com/press-release/2021/2/26/an-open-letter-to-joe-biden-on-international-corporate-taxation http://gfintegrity.org/issues/ http://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2021/02/global-response-needed-to-stop-rampant-tax-abuse-costing-governments-trillions-un-panel-says/ Visit the related web page
	Impacts of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition by UN Committee on World Food Security (HLPE)   Impacts of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition. (Committee on World Food Security - High Level Panel of Experts)   The COVID-19 pandemic that has spread rapidly and extensively around the world since late 2019 has had profound implications for food security and nutrition. The unfolding crisis has affected food systems and threatened people’s access to food via multiple dynamics.   We have witnessed not only a major disruption to food supply chains in the wake of lockdowns triggered by the global health crisis, but also a major global economic slowdown.   These crises have resulted in lower incomes and higher prices of some foods, putting food out of reach for many, and undermining the right to food and stalling efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: “Zero hunger.” The situation is fluid and dynamic, characterized by a high degree of uncertainty.   According to the World Health Organization, the worst effects are yet to come. Most health analysts predict that this virus will continue to circulate for a least one or two more years.   The food security and nutrition risks of these dynamics are serious. Already, before the outbreak of the pandemic, according to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition report, some two billion people faced food insecurity at the moderate or severe level. Since 2014, these numbers have been climbing. The COVID-19 pandemic is undermining efforts to achieve SDG2.   The complex dynamics triggered by the lockdowns intended to contain the disease are creating conditions for a major disruption to food systems, giving rise to a dramaticincrease in hunger. The most recent estimates indicate that between 132 million additional people—including 80 million people in low-income countries that rely on food imports will experience food insecurity as a direct result of the pandemic.   At least 25 countries, including Lebanon, Yemen and South Sudan, are at risk of significant food security deterioration because of the secondary socio-economic impacts of the pandemic (FAO and WFP, 2020). In Latin America, the number of people requiring food assistance has almost tripled in 2020.   Food productivity could also be affected in the future, especially if the virus is not contained and the lockdown measures continue.   The purpose of this issues paper, requested by the Chairperson of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), is to provide insights in addressing the food and nutrition security implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.   * Access the Feb. 2021 report (25pp): http://www.fao.org/3/ne665en/ne665en.pdf   * Hunger Hotspots: FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity (March-July 2021): http://www.fightfoodcrises.net/fileadmin/user_upload/fightfoodcrises/doc/resources/Hunger-Hotspots-March-2021.pdf   * Inter Agency Standing Committee (Food Security 20-21): http://bit.ly/3yPuXfX   * HLPE. 2020. Food security and nutrition: building a global narrative towards 2030. Report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security (112pp): http://www.fao.org/3/ca9731en/ca9731en.pdf   * Right to Food: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri: http://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/46/33   http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Food/Pages/Annual.aspx http://www.ipes-food.org/press/ http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/mandate-special-rapporteur-right-food http://bit.ly/3p9aAo6 http://www.ipcc.ch/reports/ http://www.ipbes.net/pandemics-media-release http://www.ipbes.net/global-assessment http://report.hdr.undp.org/ http://www.lancetcountdown.org/2020-report/ http://www.thelancet.com/commissions/EAT   # The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE), science-policy interface of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), was created in October 2009. The HLPE aims to facilitate policy debates and inform policy making by providing independent, comprehensive and evidence-based analysis and advice at the request of CFS.   The HLPE elaborates its studies through a scientific, transparent and inclusive process. HLPE studies are the result of a continuous dialogue between HLPE experts and a wide range of stakeholders (whether public, private or from the civil society) and knowledge holders across the world, combining different forms of knowledge, building bridges across regions and countries, across various scientific disciplines and professional backgrounds: http://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe   22 Sep. 2021   Rights Experts, Civil Society agencies question current Food Systems Model   On the eve of the Food Systems Summit, UN human rights experts are deeply concerned that the event will not be a “people’s summit” as promised. They are worried that the Summit will instead leave behind the most marginalized and vulnerable people.   According to the three human rights experts, who were involved in the Summit preparation, “The Summit claims to be inclusive, but it left many participants and over 500 organizations representing millions of people feeling ignored and disappointed.”   “Despite the occasional use of human rights language in Summit material, human rights were not properly woven throughout the Summit’s preparations. Tomorrow, the Summit may unfortunately present human rights to governments as an optional policy instead of a set of legal obligations.”   “How is it that in the two years it took to prepare for the Summit, the organizers did not substantively address the COVID-19 pandemic and its socio-economic impacts?”, they asked. “The Summit does not provide any specific guidance to governments or people on how to transform their food systems in order to overcome the current pandemic and food crisis.”   “Before anyone commits to what the Food Systems Summit is putting forward, people and governments must first discuss and assess the Summit through an inclusive and multilateral process,” they stated.   The experts fear that there is a risk that the UN Food Systems Summit will serve the corporate sector more than the people who are essential to ensuring our food systems flourish such as workers, small producers, women, and Indigenous peoples.   “It is no mystery. The world’s food systems currently violate human rights, exacerbate inequalities, threaten biodiversity, and contribute to climate change. A root cause of these problems is the fact that transnational corporations have increasingly dominated food systems for the past 60 years.”   States must at least protect people’s rights from corporate power and ensure people have access to effective remedies, and corporations must at least respect people’s human rights.   “By ignoring the root causes and vested interests behind increasing rates of hunger, malnutrition and famine, the Summit only reflects the status quo. It leaves victims of human rights violations no clear direction on how to overcome the inequality, violence, displacement, and environmental degradation caused by mainstream food systems,” they added.   “In contrast, a human rights-based approach to food systems would hold corporations accountable. It would address ingrained power imbalances regarding access to land and water. And it would tackle core issues like land tenure, fair markets, and the privatization and monopolisation of seeds,” they said..   “Let us be perfectly clear. In the urgently needed transformation of the world’s food systems to eliminate hunger and protect the planet, States must respect, protect, and fulfil human rights, including the rights to food, a healthy and sustainable environment, and an adequate standard of living. These are legal obligations, not policy options.” http://bit.ly/3i3F4XF   Sep. 2021   New science panel would be Food Systems Summit’s most damaging legacy   Creating a new science panel in the wake of the UN Food Systems Summit could critically undermine the ability of existing UN bodies to guide food systems reform. This was the message conveyed to the UN Secretary General in an open letter, amid concerns that the Summit’s Scientific Group will be turned into a permanent body.   The letter warned that the people on the frontlines of our food systems need reassurances that the institutions in which they have invested time, energy and hope – the institutions where they feel heard – still matter. Scientific advice for policymakers should not be fast-tracked if this means excluding the diverse perspectives that make it relevant in the first place.   The open letter was sent by Olivier De Schutter (UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights & Co-chair of IPES-Food), Michael Fakhri (UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food), Thanawat Tiensin (Chair of the UN Committee on World Food Security), and Martin Cole (Chair of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition).   http://www.ipes-food.org/_img/upload/files/UNSG_UNFSSOpenLetter.pdf   Aug. 2021   In his report, focused on food systems, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, observes that even though the 2021 Food System Summit has elevated public discussion concerning food systems reform, sufficient attention has not been paid to structural challenges facing the world’s food systems.   The Summit’s multi-stakeholder approach, driven by the private sector, has fallen short of multilateral inclusiveness and has led to the marginalization of some countries. In a break from past practice, the Summit process has not provided an autonomous and meaningful space for participation by communities and civil society, with the risk of leaving behind the very population critical for the Summit’s success.   In the report, the Special Rapporteur warns against building new forms of governance from the Summit’s outcomes and recommends a set of questions for assessing the outcomes through a human rights framework: http://undocs.org/A/76/237   Aug. 2021   Climate change is ravaging the planet. Biodiversity diminishes every day. Hunger is on the rise. Inequality is incessant. Global food systems have been failing most people for a long time, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made a critical situation even worse.   People are already transforming their food systems to adapt and survive. Now is the moment to globally coordinate people’s actions towards building equitable and flourishing food systems.   Even though the convening of the UN Food Systems Summit by Secretary-General was welcome, there are continued concerns that the “people’s summit” will fail the people it claims to be serving.   Key elements such as human rights, equity and accountability are not on the agenda. Human rights are essential in ensuring our food systems serve people and planet and not profits. The right to adequate food and nutrition is central to how communities define who they are.   In this policy brief, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, shares his critical observations on areas for improvements with regard to the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit, to ensure it better aligns with the Secretary-General’s professed objectives of “making food systems work for people, planet, and prosperity”.   The Special Rapporteur outlines key shortcomings, such as conspicuous absence of response to COVID-19 in the Summit’s deliberations, turning a blind eye on structural causes of failed food systems, ignoring the worrisome corporate concentration of power, and diluting the right to participation in decision-making through the so-called multistakeholder approach.   The Special Rapporteur’s objective is to provide guidance to States in their imminent deliberations at the Summit on 23 September 2021, with a view to making it a truly transformative, rights-based and multilateral event.   The Summit turns a blind eye on root causes and governance issues linked to hunger and malnutrition. Hunger, malnutrition, and famine are caused by political failures and shortcomings in governance, rather than by food scarcity.   From the outset, however, it was decided that the Summit would avoid considering the root causes of the failures in our food systems.   The Summit’s overall emphasis has been on how to “boost production” sustainably through new technologies. The challenges, however, facing our food systems are about ensuring better and more equitable access – questions of how food is produced, by whom, and who reaps most of the benefits from its processing and trade.   Even at the peak of the pandemic, the greatest threat to food security and nutrition was not because food was unavailable. People had less access to adequate food because they lost their job, livelihood, or home.   Unhealthy and unsustainable food is becoming cheaper as its true cost is not accounted, while healthy and sustainable food is increasingly inaccessible. The Summit has also not paid adequate attention to formidable advancements made recently in agroecology and territorial markets.   Corporate concentration of power remains the Summit’s elephant in the room. The extreme concentration of power in the hands of a private actors in food systems make those entities co-responsible for malnutrition, biodiversity loss and climate crises, all the issues that the Summit declared to tackle.   Transnational corporations dominate the world market from the seeds to the supermarkets. Yet, the Summit fails to address the role and responsibility of the corporate sector in the food systems. Power imbalance and concentration have greatly benefited transnational corporations and have undermined local communities’ tenure, human rights, and habitats.   Concerns have been raised that technology driven innovation and the emphasis on a certain model of science promoted at the Summit risks to further marginalize small-holder farmers’ needs.   This approach ignores the fact that small-holders produce approximately 70 per cent of the world’s food while preserving agrobiodiversity and promoting resilience to climate change. This approach also ignores the fact that Indigenous peoples successfully manage 80 per cent of the world’s biodiversity on land.   Farmers, farm workers, and Indigenous peoples around the world are entirely at the mercy of corporate powers, and it is not by chance that they suffer from hunger, malnutrition, and rights violations. Moreover, it is women and girls within those communities that often bear the heaviest burdens..   http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Food/Policy_brief_20210819.pdf http://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/food/pages/foodindex.aspx http://undocs.org/A/76/179   June 2021   UN Food Systems Summit: it’s time to listen to civil society’s concerns, writes Molly Anderson, professor of food studies at Middlebury College, and a member of the International Panel of Experts in Sustainable Food Systems for IIED.   The world is falling well short of meeting Sustainable Development Goal 2 (to end hunger) by 2030, and many fear the upcoming United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) will not deliver on its promise to get the world on track to genuinely transform the way food is produced, distributed and consumed.   While the summit brings much needed political attention to food systems, there is also concern that the preparatory process is not sufficiently engaging representatives of poor and hungry people and small-scale food producers, or prioritising their agendas.   And that it is sucking up huge amounts of time and energy that would be better spent on promoting known solutions, such as the right to food, agroecology and food sovereignty.   With climate chaos looming and biodiversity shrinking, we must make radical changes to our food systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and restore degraded landscapes and habitats.   Rising inequality and the added strain of COVID-19 are leaving growing numbers of people food insecure. Farmers, pastoralists and fisher-people are struggling to nourish their own households and sell their produce or catch at fair prices.   Food sovereignty – where local communities have democratic control over their food systems, based on human rights including the right to food and agroecology – is a widely recognised strategy to address these problems, but it is being ignored. The UNFSS is pushing in a different direction.   Problematic processes, skewed substance   In 'Frontiers in sustainable food systems', my co-authors and I explained many of the criticisms of the summit that have been raised by civil society organisations representing small-scale producers, peasants and Indigenous Peoples, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and others (see the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSM) communications on the UN Food Systems Summit).   First, in terms of process, the summit:   Was launched without the involvement of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). Is led by people with deep ties to corporations and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, thus inviting serious conflicts of interest between the public good and private profit-seeking.   Promotes ‘multi-stakeholderism’, which does not put representatives of poor and hungry people centre-stage, and tends to best serve the most powerful without accountability.   Lacks transparency regarding decision-making and how funds are allocated, and is structured in convoluted and ever-proliferating layers of action tracks, action areas and other entities with no clarity about how themes or leaders are selected.   Second, in terms of substance, the summit:   Ignores the devastation COVID-19 has wrought on societies (which affects people’s ability to engage in virtual meetings) and evidence of the resilience of localised food systems.   Fails to set human rights as a fundamental principle of engagement. Ignores civil society’s significant previous work on food system transformation.   Ignored requests from the largest civil society assembly, the CSM, to establish an action track on the transformation of corporate food systems that is led by civil society, and legitimises a narrow technology-biased view of science and policy.   But now the summit is just months away, we must consider how to get the best possible outcomes, and prepare for damage control.   Don’t sideline the CFS   First, there’s real danger the UNFSS will undermine support for the CFS, the UN’s most inclusive platform for considering all issues connected with food systems and nutrition. How? By establishing new governance channels based on multi-stakeholder partnerships, a mechanism imported from corporate governance that will bypass the CFS.   Multi-stakeholder partnerships allow the very businesses that have given us obesogenic foods, greenhouse gas emissions and agrochemicals – and that stubbornly resist regulation of their labour and environmental practices – to ‘help’ devise solutions. By trumpeting the ‘inclusivity’ of the summit, the UNFSS is presenting itself as a legitimate and authoritative voice.   The CFS – while not perfect – offers an established and equitable space for negotiating and transforming food system policies. Since its 2009 reform it operates through multilateralism or negotiation among member states and has given the CSM a seat at the table. Member states are accountable duty-bearers to support human rights, and policymakers are responsible for implementing food system changes at the national level.   Scientific group: don’t let technology take over and don’t subvert the High-Level Panel of Experts.   Second, the scientific group of the UNFSS has expressed interest in setting up a new science-policy interface for food systems – a kind of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but on food.   Who will participate? We fear it would be the members and friends of the scientific group, which comprises natural scientists and economists with a strong predilection for technological innovation, trade liberalisation and global value chains.   They emphasise data and digitalisation, without looking at consequences and control issues. ‘Science-technology-innovation’ seems to have replaced ‘science’ in the scientific group’s outputs, as if the only purpose of science is to push technology.   The group has no members who are well-versed in agroecology, traditional and Indigenous knowledge, human rights or transition science.   Why is an ‘IPCC on food’ needed, given the High-Level Panel of Experts of the CFS is already serving this role competently and transparently, with abundant opportunities for input to its reports and recommendations?   Real transformation to meet SDG2   The UNFSS is barrelling along through virtual ‘dialogues’ involving ‘experts’ at a time when the poorest, most food insecure communities are devastated by COVID-19 and unequal access to vaccines. Many people from social movements in these countries, who grow most of the world’s food yet are the most food-insecure, are being left out of virtual forums.   We cannot continue to operate in a food system that only allows wealthy people and wealthy countries to make the rules determining who gets to eat, what they can eat, and who profits from food system labour.   And we cannot continue to support food systems that are destroying ecosystems and making people sick. It’s essential to grow support for the CFS among all member states and for alternative bottom-up solutions, such as food sovereignty and agroecology, that will deliver healthier, more sustainable and equitable food systems for all, particularly the most marginalised and vulnerable.   http://www.ipes-food.org/pages/FoodSystemsSummit http://www.ipes-food.org/reports/ http://www.iied.org/un-food-systems-summit-its-time-listen-civil-societys-concerns http://www.iied.org/african-social-movements-call-un-food-summit-give-people-back-control http://www.iied.org/tag/food-security http://www.foodsystems4people.org/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000y5fg http://www.csm4cfs.org/division-reigns-among-governments-in-un-committee-on-world-food-security-on-follow-up-to-the-food-systems-summit/ http://www.csm4cfs.org/csm-global-synthesis-report-covid-19/ http://actionaid.org/publications/2015/caught-net-how-net-zero-emissions-will-delay-real-climate-action-and-drive-land http://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/research-publications/living-income-from-right-to-reality/ http://www.escr-net.org/news/2021/networkwide-exchange-securing-land-rights-people-and-planet http://mcld.org/mobilizing-resilient-community-led-food-systems/ http://www.righttofoodandnutrition.org/sofi-2021-tracking-hunger-skipping-problems-roots http://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/46/33   June 2021   Rival visions compete as UN gears up for summit to defeat hunger, by Thin Lei Win for New Humanitarian   International efforts to secure a well-fed world face a widening split between rival visions of the future, even as millions more people face chronic hunger in the wake of the pandemic.   September’s first-ever UN Food Systems Summit aims to tackle hunger, malnutrition, food production, and climate change in a holistic manner. However, many activists and farmers’ groups are boycotting a warm-up “pre-summit” that begins today in Rome and are running their own parallel events.   Debate is heating up on whether the famines of tomorrow will best be prevented by intensive production – driven by technology – or by smaller-scale, eco-friendly practices alongside a broader overhaul of political and economic influences on the food chain.   The summit’s planners recognise that change is needed not only to agriculture, but also to distribution, consumption, economic policies, and waste.   Objectors say commercial interests have undue influence on the discussions. And there has been a growing disagreement around the aims, the key players, and the outcomes of the main high-profile event in New York later in the year.   The “food systems” concept, which also considers impacts on the environment, health, and society, “is the most powerful way to unlock progress that prevents future famines, humanitarian disasters, and environmental degradation”, Agnes Kalibata, the summit’s special envoy, told The New Humanitarian.   The pre-summit will review “the latest evidence-based and scientific approaches from around the world, launch a set of new commitments… and mobilise new financing and partnerships”, she added.   More than 70 countries are confirmed to be attending the three-day Rome event, which also gathers the private sector, civil society and youth representatives, farmers, Indigenous community leaders, and researchers. The eclectic range of participants includes chefs, royalty, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and Sabrina Elba – food campaigner and wife of actor Idris Elba.   The questions are urgent: Acute hunger is likely killing 11 people every minute, according to Oxfam, while recent data from the UN showed nearly one in 10 people around the globe struggled to get enough to eat last year.   But Nout van der Vaart, policy lead on food and land issues for Oxfam Novib, the Dutch affiliate of Oxfam, said the summit has “no clear mandate, an unclear governance mechanism, no accountability or conflict of interest mechanisms in place”. Van der Vaart said its set-up and direction pay too little attention to human rights as “a fundamental and starting point for reforming food systems”.   Differing visions   In Veracruz, Mexico, 42-year-old organic coffee grower Gisela Illescas Palma is far from hopeful the event will help farmers like herself who are juggling wild weather and the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.   The summit “has been captured by big corporations”, and there is no broad recognition of the role of small farmers, according to Palma, who said she went without a single sale for eight months due to COVID-19 restrictions.   Palma is a member of the Agroecological Movement of Latin America and the Caribbean (MAELA) and part of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSM), which is organising a “counter-mobilisation” to the pre-summit.   Critics say the summit’s embrace of “multistakeholderism” means it is prioritising inclusion over rights and accounting for respective advantages – failing to consider the power imbalance between poor and hungry small-time farmers on one side, and corporations with deep pockets and powerful friends on the other.   They also say it has to acknowledge that the failures of today’s food systems are linked in part to the model of intensive farming – favoured by agri-business and linked to land grabs, deforestation, less diversification, and the concentration of power in a few hands.   “We have yet to see how the summit will address the abuses committed by corporations, complicit governments, and backing neoliberal institutions,” said Sylvia Mallari, global co-chair of the People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS), which is organising another parallel event in Rome.   PCFS is also planning a Global People’s Summit on Food Systems in September, around the same time as the Food Systems Summit.   The main summit’s organisers have repeatedly refuted these charges, but Raj Patel, research professor at the University of Texas at Austin, agrees with the concerns.   “The critical difference between what's happening in the Food Systems Summit and in grassroots movements is a frank discussion about power, who has it, and how it should be distributed more equally,” he said.   Patel was also critical of calls for a new “Science-Policy Interface” for food systems – suggested in a strategy draft by the summit’s Scientific Group.   Supporters have called for an “IPCC for food”, similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): the world’s most authoritative body on climate science.   But such a group already exists, Patel said, pointing to the high level panel of experts under the UN Committee on World Food Security. And more than 200 scientists, including Patel, have objected to the setting up of a new group.   Patel is concerned the new scientific group – as yet still on the drawing board – could create a system whereby knowledge from subsistence farmers and Indigenous groups is dismissed as not science-based when these communities are “entirely capable of generating the big systems change that is required”.   He highlighted this in his recently released documentary, The Ants and The Grasshopper, about two Malawian women farmers who travelled to the United States to persuade Americans climate change is real.   ‘We have to act now’   Hilal Elver, former UN special rapporteur on the right to food, was philosophical about the differences in the lead-up to the summit. Food systems issues are vast and complex, and the problems are different depending on geography and perspectives, so controversies are “inevitable”, she told The New Humanitarian.   Still, Elver is concerned about the pre-summit’s jam-packed schedule, where multiple parallel discussions on many different topics and dozens of side events are planned, lasting between 50 minutes to two hours.   “How can you have meaningful discussions in the human rights section in 50 minutes, about important right-to-food violations as well as women’s rights or child protection?” she asked.   Elver’s biggest fear, though, is that the pre-summit could decide that “a paternalistic view of science, technology, and finance” is the way forward because this will keep power in a few hands. Governments, particularly of developing countries, could be persuaded with promises of financial and technological help to agree that transforming food systems requires big farms and big production instead of keeping it small and local, she said.   Ferdinand Wafula, 49, remembers how farmers in western Kenya, himself included, used to have a rhythm for planting and harvesting crops – all based on rainfall patterns.   “Now, the seasons are changing. It’s more unpredictable,” said Wafula, whose non-profit, Bio-Gardening Innovations, works with about 2,000 smallholder farmers, teaching them environmentally-friendly practices.   This year, an unusually dry April caused low yields of maize, the staple food. “Hunger,” he told The New Humanitarian, “is becoming a concern.”   But Wafula said his one-acre farm, which grows a selection of crops – from bananas and cassava to beans and vegetables – is already exploring solutions, including the use of indigenous crop varieties and following stricter agroecological principles.   “It's not a matter of saying, ‘We still have to do some more research’ [on how to adapt to climate change]. There is evidence, and it is here with us,” he said. “We have to act now.”   http://www.unep.org/resources/repurposing-agricultural-support-transform-food-systems http://socialeurope.eu/time-is-running-out-for-a-new-agricultural-model-for-the-global-south http://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/transforming-food-systems-to-tackle-hunger-and-malnutrition-by-hilal-elver-2021-07 http://www.nobelpeaceprize.org/the-food-effect-1/ http://www.prindex.net/news-and-stories/food-systems-summit-must-shore-land-rights-small-farmers-global-food-security/   http://www.landcoalition.org/en/uneven-ground/ http://www.landcoalition.org/en/resources/land-and-inequality/ http://www.landrightsnow.org/ http://www.fian.org/en/press-release/article/rising-up-against-corporate-capture-of-food-and-policy-making-2852 http://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/economy-and-ecology/we-must-resist-corporate-greenwashing-5440/ http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/net-zero-carbon-targets-are-dangerous-distractions-priority-cutting-emissions-says http://news.trust.org/item/20210923105350-u68zs/ http://peoplessummit.foodsov.org/blog/ http://viacampesina.org/en/food-sovereignty-a-manifesto-for-the-future-of-our-planet-la-via-campesina/ http://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/   Mar. 2021   The UN Human Rights Council recognizes that the world was already falling behind on realizing the right to food before the current pandemic, evidencing the need for food systems’ transformation.   In a resolution on the right to food adopted today, the Human Rights Council (HRC) expressed deep concern that the total number of people suffering from acute hunger has doubled since the pandemic began, while at the same time recognizing this is a trend predating COVID-19, beginning in 2015.   The Council also acknowledged the links between human rights, trade policy, food systems and global governance and requested the world’s governments to re-consider policies that hinder the realization of the right to food.   The resolution has come weeks after the UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri, presented the first report of his tenure, where he shed light on the impacts of COVID-19 policies on more vulnerable communities and rural peoples. Fakhri also raised concerns over the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit, which has been contested by hundreds of civil society, farmers and indigenous organizations   COVID-19 policies falling short of expectations.   As echoed in Fakhri’s report, some measures imposed by governments to contain the spread of COVID-19 have been oblivious to the realities of wide segments of the population. Restrictions have disrupted the possibility to work, and without income or means to earn an income, there is no food, or, at best, less food and less nutritious food.   “People do not have access to food because nearly half of the world’s 3.3 billion global workforce are at risk of losing their livelihoods. Informal economy workers, migrant workers and other marginalized people are particularly vulnerable because the majority lack social protection and access to quality health care,” highlights the report.   Already in April 2020, FIAN International warned about the immediate impacts and potential medium-term risks of such measures: from leaving millions of children without schools meals after closing down schools, to strengthening supermarket services while shutting down local markets and cooperatives. This, FIAN International’s has reiterated, is the result of not applying a human rights framework to COVID-19 and public policies.   These findings have been further underlined by the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSM), as they have been calling for a transformation of corporate food systems.   “Evidence collected on the ground around the world confirms that the pandemic brought existing inequalities and vulnerabilities into sharp relief and underscored the need for systemic change towards socially just food systems with agency, sustainability and stability at its heart,” they assert in their latest report ‘Voices from the Ground’.   Real transformation with current Food Systems Summit?   The resolution alludes to the Food Systems Summit and its potential role in ensuring the realization of the right to food. Hopes that the Summit, scheduled for this year, will ignite the necessary systemic change have evaporated among civil society as the Summit plans have been unveiled. Months before the announcement of the Summit, the UN Deputy Secretary-General signed a strategic partnership agreement with the World Economic Forum that was heavily criticized by civil society but ignored by António Guterres. This partnership has mounted fears that big business will strengthen its influence on global food politics.   Fakhri wrote to UN Special Envoy to the Summit Agnes Kalibata last January pointing that the summit appeared to focus on science and technology, money and markets, and did not address “fundamental questions of inequality, accountability and governance”. Indeed, in his report presented at the UNHRC, he described the Summit as “distorted towards market based solutions to food systems”.   Tensions persist and last February more than 200 civil society and Indigenous peoples’ organizations have announced in a letter to Chair of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) they will not participate in the Summit unless their demands are met. Among them, the signatories of this letter are urging the summit organizers to include an action track on ‘corporate capture’, a move that would make more evident and help reverse the undue influence of big business on food and nutrition policies.   The current state of hunger and malnutrition illustrates the urgent need to transform corporate food systems. But food systems transformation requires real people`s participation, where the wellbeing of people and planet take center stage. This transformation therefore requires strong safeguards against conflicts of interest and the regulation of corporate activities.   Food is a fundamental human right and not a tradeable good, which can be left to market-based solutions.   http://www.fian.org/en/news/article/unhrc-says-food-injustice-widely-present-before-pandemic-2711 http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/mandate-special-rapporteur-right-food http://bit.ly/3p9aAo6 http://actionaid.org/opinions/2021/why-civil-society-organisations-will-boycott-uns-food-systems-summit-unless-there http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Poverty/Pages/AnnualReports.aspx http://undocs.org/A/73/396 http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Food/Pages/Annual.aspx   Dec. 2020   Water Futures market invites speculators, challenges basic human rights. (OHCHR)   A UN expert on water and human rights today expressed concerns about the creation of the world’s first futures market in water, saying it could invite speculation from financiers who would trade it like other commodities such as gold and oil.   On 7 December, the CME Group launched the world’s first water futures contract for trading with the aim to help water users manage risk and better balance the competing demands for water supply and demand amidst the uncertainty that severe droughts and flooding bring to the availability of water. The new water futures contract allows buyers and sellers to barter a fixed price for the delivery of fixed quantity of water at a future date.   “You can’t put a value on water as you do with other traded commodities,” said Pedro Arrojo-Agudo. “Water belongs to everyone and is a public good. It is closely tied to all of our lives and livelihoods, and is an essential component to public health,” he said, pointing importance of having access to water in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.   “Water is already under extreme threat from a growing population, increasing demands and grave pollution from agriculture and mining industry in the context of worsening impact of climate change,” said the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation. “I am very concerned that water is now being treated as gold, oil and other commodities that are traded on Wall Street futures market.”   As well as farmers, factories and utility companies looking to lock-in prices, such a futures market could also lure speculators such as hedge funds and banks to bet on prices, repeating the speculative bubble of the food market in 2008.   “In this context, the risk is that the large agricultural and industrial players and large-scale utilities are the ones who can buy, marginalizing and impacting the vulnerable sector of the economy such as small-scale farmers,” said Arrojo-Agudo.   “Water is indeed a vital resource for the economy – both large and small-scale players - but the value of water is more than that. Water has a set of vital values for our society that the market logic does not recognize and therefore, cannot manage adequately, let alone in a financial space so prone to speculation,” said Arrojo-Agudo.   “While there are on-going global discussions concerning water’s environmental, social and cultural values, the news that water is to be traded on Wall Street futures market shows that the value of water, as basic human right, is now under threat.”   The human right to safe drinking water was first recognized by the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council in 2010. http://bit.ly/2NucYc0   Nov. 2020   Civil society and indigenous peoples organizations call on FAO to renounce planned alliance with CropLife International   More than 350 organizations in 63 countries representing hundreds of thousands of farmers, fisherfolk, agricultural workers and other communities, as well as human rights, faith-based, environmental and economic justice institutions, delivered a letter to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Qu Dongyu urging him to stop recently-announced plans to deepen collaboration with CropLife International by entering into a formal partnership.   CropLife is a global trade association representing the interests of companies that produce and promote pesticides, including highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs).   According to the letter, HHPs “are responsible for a wide range of devastating health harms to farmers, agricultural workers and rural families around the world,” and these chemicals have “decimated pollinator populations and are wreaking havoc on biodiversity and fragile ecosystems” as well.   “This proposed alliance is deeply inappropriate and directly undermines FAO’s goals of supporting food systems that are healthy, resilient and productive while safeguarding the sustainability of the environment,” says Sarojeni Rengam, Director of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Asia Pacific.   “CropLife’s purpose, on the other hand, is to advocate for continued use of the pesticides that its members sell. These hazardous and antiquated chemical solutions pose deadly obstacles to the urgently needed transition to innovative, knowledge-intensive ecological approaches to farming.”Ms. Rengam delivered the letter today on behalf of PAN International, ten other co-sponsoring organizations and networks, and hundreds of signatories.   The letter highlights a recent analysis of industry records that documents that CropLife member companies BASF, Bayer Crop Science, Corteva Agriscience, FMC and Syngenta make more than one-third of their sales income from highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) — the pesticides that are most harmful to human health and the environment. The proportion of HHP sales is even higher in developing countries, the letter says, where safety regulations are often less robust and harms to human health and the environment are greater.   “So many of our Yaqui children have died and suffered lifelong disabilities from exposure to toxic pesticides that were banned by the countries that exported them to be used in our territories,” said Mariano Ochoa Millan, former Board member for the International Indian Treaty Council from Rio Yaqui Sonora, Mexico.   Millan, who passed away from COVID-19 on August 31, made this statement in response to the July 9, 2020 statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxics calling on wealthy nations to halt the practice of exporting banned pesticides. Many of CropLife’s member companies are strong proponents of this practice.   Today’s letter was co-sponsored by a broad-based group of global networks and international organizations: Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), FIAN International, Friends of the Earth International, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF), Pesticide Action Network (PAN) International, Public Eye and Third World Network.   Marcia Ishii, senior scientist at PAN North America, explained the serious implications of the proposed collaboration:   “FAO’s decision to initiate a formal partnership with CropLife is bad news for the millions of farmers whose health and livelihoods have been devastated by the highly hazardous pesticides manufactured by CropLife member companies. Unfortunately, since Mr. Qu’s arrival at FAO, the institution appears to be opening up to deeper collaboration with pesticide companies, which are likely to exploit such a relationship for bluewashing, influencing policy development, and enhancing access to global markets. It is no surprise that FAO’s recently appointed Deputy Director General, Beth Bechdol, comes to FAO with a history of close financial ties to Corteva (formerly Dow/DuPont), a Croplife member headquartered in Bechdol’s home state of Indiana, USA.”   An international group of 286 scientists and researchers have also expressed concern about the proposed alliance, delivering a letter to Director-General Qu Dongyu today, urging him not to pursue a formalization of FAO’s collaboration with CropLife.   http://www.fian.org/en/press-release/article/global-outrage-at-fao-plans-to-partner-with-pesticide-industry-2675 http://bit.ly/39IvnJs http://viacampesina.org/en/fao-must-withdraw-from-its-agreement-with-croplife-international-ipc/ http://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/laos-villagers-voice-alarm-over-chinese-vietnamese-farms-heavy-use-of-chemicals-that-allegedly-caused-illnesses-deaths/ http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Environment/SRToxicsandhumanrights/Pages/DutyToPrevent.aspx http://www.undocs.org/A/74/480   * Private Actors (PPP):   http://www.gi-escr.org/private-actors-public-services http://www.unite4education.org/ http://publicservices.international/resources/page/privatisation?id=9575&lang=en http://www.eurodad.org/why_public_private_partnerships_are_still_not_delivering http://archive.globalpolicy.org/corporate-influence.html http://www.2030spotlight.org/en http://www.etcgroup.org/issues/international-governance http://www.etcgroup.org/content/too-big-feed-short-report http://www.business-humanrights.org/en/big-issues/binding-treaty/ http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/imf-paves-way-new-era-austerity-post-covid-19 Visit the related web page
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