The CFS is the United Nations' forum for reviewing policies concerning world food. It is the most inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for all relevant stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and nutrition.
About the Committee on World Food Security
Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests
Outline UCFA
Summary UCFA
Updated CFA (UCFA)
The UCFA is offered as a tool to inspire and inform Member States as they engage in discussions around matters related to food and nutrition security in different intergovernmental bodies.
56th Commission on the Status of Women (New York, 27 February-9 March 2012)
19th Human Rights Council (Geneva, 27 February - 23 March 2012)
2012 Spring Meetings, World Bank and International Monetary Fund (Washington, 20-22 April 2012)
UNCTAD XIII (Doha, 21-26 April 2012)
65th World Health Assembly (Geneva, 21-26 May 2012)
UNICEF Executive Board (New York, 5-8 June 2012)
101st Session of the International Labour Conference (Geneva, May 30 - June 15 2012)
WTO Geneva Week for Non-Resident Members and Observers (Geneva, July 9-13 2012)
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4 May 2013, Havana - FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva has acknowledged Cuba's efforts to ensure the food security of its population at a meeting on Friday with President Raul Castro. He invited the President to a ceremony marking the achievement during FAO's governing Conference in Rome next month.
"Cuba is one of the 16 countries of the world which have already reached the 1996 World Food Summit's goal of halving the total number of their undernourished. This was made possible by the priority the government has set on ensuring the right to food and the policies it has implemented," said Graziano da Silva, on his first visit to the island since he took office in January 2012.
23 April 2013, Rome - FAO recognizes Nicaragua's great efforts in the fight against hunger, FAO Director-General, José Graziano da Silva told Nicaragua's Foreign Minister Samuel Santos López today. They held a bilateral meeting at FAO headquarters during FAO's governing Council session taking place this week.
Between 1990 and 2010, Nicaragua reduced the prevalence of undernourishment in the country from 55.1% to 20.1%, thus successfully meeting Millennium Development Goal 1, which is to halve the proportion of people suffering from hunger.
29 May 2012, Rome - The cooperative model offers unique solutions to "free people from hunger and poverty in a globalized world in which crises, including climate change, touch everyone", President of Costa Rica Laura Chinchilla said today in a speech at FAO.
Using the example of her country, the President stressed that cooperatives can make a major contribution to sustainable development and the competitiveness of small agricultural producers.
FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva held up Costa Rica as a model of the economic, social and environmental role cooperatives can play. He cited the production by Costa Rican cooperatives of carbon neutral coffee as an example.
30 November 2011 – Poverty rates in Latin America have dropped to their lowest levels in 20 years, according to a new United Nations report which highlights public spending levels as one of the key factors that has allowed the continent to continue to grow despite the global economic crisis.
Between 1990 and 2010, the poverty rate decreased from 48.4 per cent to 31.4 per cent, while the rate of indigence – or extreme poverty – fell from 22.6 per cent to 12.3 per cent.
Latin America continues to grow at a healthy pace led by strong expansion in domestic demand. But the region is experiencing an excessively stimulative environment that brings along the risk of overheating. High commodity prices and easy external financial conditions are the main “tailwinds” propelling growth, in some instances at a pace faster than some economies are prepared for, says the International Monetary Fund’s new report Regional Economic Outlook Western Hemisphere: Watching Out for Overheating, presented today in Mexico City.
17 March 2011 – At least 800 ethnic Afro-Colombians have had to flee their homes in western Colombia since the start of the month because of a struggle between armed groups in the mineral-rich area to control illegal mining activities, the United Nations refugee agency reported today.
10 December 2010 – The United Nations today announced a new regional project that will enable food producers in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to boost food security by increasing production and getting produce to markets more rapidly.
WASHINGTON, November 23, 2010 – The World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved a US$150 million loan today for the Dominican Republic to support the introduction of a results-based accountability system to measure progress in social protection,mainly education and health, in order to expand human capital and improve the transparency and quality of public spending.
“The World Bank’s support complements the Social Cabinet’s actions to guarantee, through the Solidaridad program, access to education, health and nutrition in more than 600 thousand poor households,”said Rafael Alburquerque, Vice-president of the Dominican Republic.
Rome, 12 November 2010 – The First Meeting on Youth Entrepreneurship and Rural Micro-enterprising will be held in Cartagena, Colombia on November 15 to 19. Co-sponsored by the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Regional Program to Support Rural Afro-Latino Populations (ACUA) the workshop will look towards young rural entrepreneurs to help shape its approach on youth.
The meeting will be opened by the Colombian Vice-Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ricardo Sánchez López.
29 October 2010 – New data released today by the United Nations shows that foreign direct investment (FDI) in Latin America and the Caribbean recovered significantly this year following the decline in 2009 due to the global financial crisis.
Foreign investment to 11 of the region’s economies grew 16.4 per cent from January to August, compared to the same period last year, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said in a news release.
This is an increase of over $7 billion, rising from $43.2 billion in 2009 to $50.3 billion this year.
UN Conference on Sustainable Development - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 20-22, 2012
Rio+20 Outcome document The Future We Want
Position Paper from the UN System High Level Task Force on Global Food Security
Many different groups are moving forward on an effort to scale up nutrition (SUN). We are witnessing the emergence of a movement.
For more information visit www.scalingupnutrition.org
To read more about the structure and functions of the High Level Task Force, please visit our page on Structure
We have compiled a list of useful links from a variety of sources, including governments, international agencies, NGOs and scientific organizations. Please feel free to inform us of additional web sites for consideration.
The spike in food prices of last year (2008) underscored what experts have been telling us for many years: the world's food systems are in crisis