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Highlights from the 32nd Session Brasilia 14-18 March 2005
| The 32nd SCN Session recently held in Brasilia was acclaimed by many
to have been one of the best ever. It was certainly the largest, with
upward of 1100 participants. All plenary and international sessions had
simultaneous translation into English, Spanish and Portuguese and were
also webcast globally via internet.
The challenge now for the SCN is to be able to mobilize the support
needed to be able to meet all the important demands and challenges
developed during the Session. At the recent UN Chief Executives Board
meeting, SCN Chair Catherine Bertini called upon the heads of agencies to
continue to be fully supportive of these efforts and to work
collaboratively through the SCN in pursuit of this common goal. |
- Building on the results of the recent 32nd Session, the SCN is now
organizing a three hour high level (Minister/UN agency head level) panel at
ECOSOC on 7 June in preparation for the September Millennium Summit +5 meeting
at the UN General Assembly. The panel will focus on the importance of food and
nutrition interventions for achieving the MDGs, and will draw on the results
of the Symposium in Brasilia.
- The focus of the 32nd Session Symposium on "Realizing the Right to
Adequate Food to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals" was
particularly important. It featured the results of case studies carried out in
Brazil, Angola, Bolivia and Mozambique, which looked at how to strengthen the
food and nutrition aspects of national development plans, in order to achieve
the MDGs.
- The case studies revealed the importance of promoting both food and
nutrition security in order to improve programme effectiveness as well as to
reduce the risks of increasing the double burden of disease. Both overweight
and underweight are now affecting even the poorest of nations such as
Mozambique. All four countries face a lack of common understanding around
concepts and definitions of hunger and malnutrition. Although the
institutional and legal frameworks for realizing the right to adequate food
are best developed in Brazil, there is still a lack of clear definition and
understanding of the content of the right at the national level, and clear
justiciable provisions on the right to adequate food at the district and
community level are still a long way from reality. One important outcome of
this work is that a food and nutrition policy framework was proposed to help
organize and define the food and nutrition substantive area, considered as an
essential first step for any future attempts to realize the right to adequate
food and accelerate the achievement of the MDGs.
- At the closing session of the 32nd Session, representatives of Angola,
Bolivia, Brazil and Mozambique signed a
joint declaration in which they affirmed the importance of the Country
Case Studies for analysing the food and nutrition security dimensions of their
national development plans, and their agreement to work together to try to
implement the Case Study recommendations. In order to accomplish the
objectives of the joint declaration the signatories requested that the SCN
and the agencies involved in food and nutrition at the county level, to
provide all necessary support.
- The SCN 32nd Session further endorsed the three broad areas of activity
proposed in the SCN Action Plan: Advocacy, Communications, and Partnership
Building; Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation; Development of Integrated
Approaches. There was special endorsement for the need for a system wide
effort to develop a common understanding on what hunger and malnutrition mean,
and for the SCN to mobilize all agencies to support the realization of the
right to adequate food and the newly adopted Voluntary Guidelines.
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United Nations System