The UN System Network on Rural Development and Food Security reviews some of its experiences in a publication

Five years after its establishment to monitor the Plan of Action approved in Rome in 1996 during the World Food Summit, the UN System Network on Rural Development and Food Security presents a booklet entitled "Building Partnerships for Food Security", an analysis of its progress and opportunities together with ten case studies that illustrate some of the most noteworthy experiences in the trajectory of the network.

With the acceptance of the idea, reiterated in many recent UN conferences, that the elimination of hunger and rural poverty requires the commitment and effort of all sectors of the national community (government, civil society and the private sector) together with the aid of the international community, the Administrative Committee on Coordination, presided over by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, created the Network in 1997 to monitor, at the national level, the implementation of the commitments made at the 1996 summit. Since then, seventy national Thematic Groups operating in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America have succeeded in bringing together the national partners most relevant for rural development and food security. Government, donors, NGOs, organizations of civil society and the private sector meet periodically to discuss the priorities to achieve national food security, promote development policies, sensitize public opinion, and mobilize resources, in short, to make concerted efforts towards all that concerns the fight against hunger and rural poverty in their respective countries. The Network has a secretariat at the FAO headquarters in Rome which encourages the exchange of information to facilitate a network structure for all these groups.

The booklet entitled "Building Partnerships for Food Security", which will be presented and distributed at the upcoming World Food Summit: five years later, reviews the progress made to date by the Network, enumerates the potentials of this form of participation to face the challenges of development, and describes in detail the activities of some of these groups, which are pursuing different work agendas in response to the various national realities. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, the Thematic Group mobilized the funds necessary for research on four resistant species of cassava, a key product for the food security in the country, where its production has sharply declined in the last few years. In Samoa, one of the most recent achievements of the group has been the preparation of informative material to be distributed among the local population on how to handle cyclone related emergency situations. The group from Turkey, among those with the broadest intersectorial participation, is performing an important task in applying pressure to mobilize political will in favour of food and nutrition. The Peruvian group, which functions as an important forum of rural development in the country, had an important role in evaluating Andean crops as a food source.

The functioning of these groups, which must find mechanisms to finance their own activities, is not always easy. To coordinate different partners for development, with different work plans, situated in different headquarters and with pluralistic interests and visions is not a simple task. Nevertheless, where there is real will to build synergies and share the visions for development, the broad composition of these forums is providing their countries true strategies based on participation for rural development and food security. No small achievement when confronting problems of these dimensions.

For more information concerning the publication and about the Network, please contact: rdfs-net@fao.org.