FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
09/22/2017
Contact: Josh Wise, 952-818-5474, jwise@iatp.org
MINNEAPOLIS - Shiney Varghese, Senior Policy Analyst at the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy, has been appointed as a member of the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) on Food Security and Nutrition by the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), effectively from October 2017.
Reformed in the aftermath of the 2007-9 food crisis, today the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) is the foremost inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for food security and nutrition, for policy design and coordination, for sharing options and preparing interventions. Since the reforms, IATP has been very active in CFS. Unlike any other UN-decision making body, in addition to member countries and UN agencies the CFS also includes the private sector and civil society organizations. What is especially noteworthy is that many of the civil society organizations at CFS represent smallholder family-farms, fisherfolk, herders, landless, urban poor, agricultural and food workers, women, youth, consumers and indigenous groups. CFS offers a venue for likeminded, but disparate small-holder producers and their support groups to come together and advocate for evidence-based, mutually supportive, agricultural and food policies that are rooted in a human rights framework and environmental stewardship.
The High Level Panel of Experts for Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE), established in 2010, is the science-policy interface of the UN Committee on World Food Security, and aims to improve the robustness of policy making by providing independent, evidence-based analysis and advice. At the request of UN-CFS, the HLPE produces independent assessments on urgent and emerging issues related to food security and development. These HLPE reports serve as a common, comprehensive, and evidence-based starting point for intergovernmental and international multi-stakeholder policy debates at CFS. So far CFS-HLPE has published eleven reports, and the 12th, on Nutrition and Food Systems will be brought to the consideration of CFS 44 this October (9-13). Shiney was a member of the project team tasked with bringing out the 9th report on Water for Food Security and Nutrition in 2015.
Shiney will join 14 other international experts on food security and nutrition, who together will form the 4th Steering Committee of the HLPE which will serve for the next two years. See the short bios of the members of the 4th HLPE Steering Committee at: http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/StC/HLPE_Steering_Committee_2017-2019_vDEF.pdf
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Based in Minneapolis with offices in Washington, D.C. and Berlin, Germany, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy connects the dots of global justice to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems.
