Call for experiences and effective policy approaches in addressing food security and nutrition in the context of changing rural-urban dynamics

The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) is inviting short summaries of experiences and policy approaches in addressing food security and nutrition in the context of urbanization and rural transformation. 

The call will be made through the Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum) www.fao.org/fsnforum/ starting on 8 February 2017. The deadline for submissions is 15 March 2017.

Experiences and policy approaches must have rural-urban linkages as a primary focus and be related to one or more of the following thematic areas:

• Governance: Territorial/integrated planning, services and infrastructure provision for enhanced connectivity, urban and rural policies and regulatory frameworks, land tenure, institutional arrangements and regulatory frameworks.
• Sustainability: Agriculture, climate change, natural resource use, economic efficiency, social inclusion.
• Food systems: Agriculture, sustainability, food production, food losses and waste, food transformation (transport, storage, processing, finance, wholesaling and retailing), food consumption patterns, supply chain management, nutrition, value chains, resources flow , rural responses to urbanization.
• Social and economic equity: labor and employment, youth employment, social protection, consumption patterns, health, nutrition, migration, multi-level livelihood systems, labor mobility, gender equality, education, social participation, poverty reduction, development of rural economy, resilience.

All submissions will be shared through the FSN Forum and made available on the CFS website. A Technical Task Team will review and select the submissions received on the basis of the following criteria:

• Focus on rural-urban linkages: extent to which the experience/policy addresses inter-linkages and complementarities between rural and urban areas.
• Impact/relevance to food security and nutrition: extent to which the experience/policy addresses food security and nutrition issues (availability, access, utilization and stability) and poverty reduction.
• Adversity: extent to which the experience/policy presents lessons (positive and negative) on how gaps, obstacles and other adverse conditions (administrative, economic, political etc.) were addressed.
• Equity: extent to which the experience/policy addresses the role of smallholders including family farmers, vulnerable individuals and groups (women, youth, disabled, indigenous people, migrants/refugees).
• Innovation and change: extent to which the experience/policy presents a self-perceived element of change in the approach taken.

Following the review and selection process, the Technical Task Team will synthesize and analyze the experiences and develop key messages to be discussed and agreed by the CFS Open Ended Working Group on Urbanization and Rural Transformation in June 2017. The resulting document will be presented for endorsement at the next CFS Plenary session in October 2017.