FAO wants strong global food security governance

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is calling for the strengthening of food governance worldwide.

In a ministerial meeting on food price volatility held in Rome October 16, 2012, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said continuing food price volatility requires improved global governance of food security.

“Food prices and volatility have increased in recent years. This is expected to continue in the medium-term,” Graziano da Silva said.

“In this context, it is important to improve governance of food security. In the globalized world we live in, it’s not possible to have food security in one country alone,” the FAO Boss stated.

Important advances have already been made in governance, the Director-General said, citing  the reform of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) the most inclusive intergovernmental platform on food security and nutrition; the establishment by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of the High Level Task Force on Global Food Security; and the creation last year by the G20 of the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) to ensure improved international coordination, information and market transparency.

Graziano da Silva said “The new global governance system of food security that we are building together, that has the CFS as its cornerstone and AMIS as one of its components,  is part of a new world order that needs to emerge.”

According to him, the AMIS is fully functioning and has contributed to better international coordination, information sharing and transparency.

“This allowed us to react quickly to the price rise we saw in July 2012, preventing panic, avoiding unilateral actions and further spikes in those initial tense days,” he declared.

“We are still in a complex situation but we are handling it successfully,” Graziano da Silva added.

By Ekow Quandzie