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Policy Recommendations (2021)

The success of the recently concluded United Nations Food Systems Summit should be judged on how well it generates concrete and transformative long-term action to get to Zero Hunger, to respect, protect, and fulfill the human right to food, and to leave no one behind in light of conflict, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Although addressing conflict ultimately requires political solutions and societal change, integrating a peace-building lens into the creation of resilient food systems and a food security lens into peace building can help advance both sustainable food and nutrition security and durable peace.

  1. Enhance the resilience of food systems to simultaneously address the impacts of conflict and climate change and to ensure food and nutrition security

    • Governments and donors must promote interventions in conflict settings that link immediate and long-term livelihood needs, as well as reconciliation and peace building.

    • In conflict-affected areas that lack access to wider markets, governments and donors must promote climate-resilient and diversified farming practices and strengthen local markets to generate employment along the food value chain, allowing community members to diversify their production, increase their income, and boost their nutritional intake and food security.

    • Social protection measures such as cash and voucher assistance are essential to enhance the resilience of rural food economies and of households affected by shocks and stressors.

  2. Base actions on a thorough understanding of the context, and strengthen inclusive, locally led initiatives

    • Humanitarian, development, and peace-building actors must engage in systemic and ongoing analysis of the context. All programs and interventions must identify the causes of and actors in any conflict and must design programming with an understanding of existing power relations, placing affected people at the center.

    • Partnerships should bring together local, national, and international actors. All actors should work with and build on local structures, which have the potential to provide the most effective and timely support, are likely to incorporate local understandings of peace, and can increase the legitimacy, ownership, and sustainability of interventions.

    • All actors must address the need for transparency, accountability, and inclusive participation of those who are most vulnerable. This includes ensuring women’s meaningful participation in all activities, including peace-building efforts.

  3. Commit to flexible, need-based, cross-sectoral, and multiyear planning and financing

    • Donors, UN agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and local actors should strive to build and maintain cross-sectoral and long-term relationships. This requires multiyear donor investments in long-term development and peace building that are adaptable to the highly fluid and dynamic contexts of conflict and crisis. Funding priorities must follow a flexible and agile approach that reflects local perceptions, aspirations, and concerns.

    • All actors’ roles across the humanitarian–development–peace-building nexus must be clearly defined and sufficiently supported. Funding must be based on needs and not fall prey to security or political agendas.

  4. Address conflict on a political level, strengthen international law, and ensure accountability for rights violations

    • States must live up to their responsibility to end protracted crises, but donor countries, key UN agencies, and regional bodies must also address conflict and its consequences, including through a food and nutrition security lens.

    • Given widespread violations of the right to food during conflict, the recurring use of starvation as a method of warfare, and denial of humanitarian access, it is vital that the UN and its member states strengthen international humanitarian law and vigorously prosecute and sanction those who use starvation as a weapon of war.

  5. Lead the way to fundamentally change food systems

    • Governments must actively follow up on the UN Food Systems Summit by addressing the structural challenges—including inequities, market failures, health risks, and environmental and climate threats—embedded in our food systems. Actions must put vulnerable people at the center of food policies and build on existing responsibilities such as the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and human rights treaties.

    • Multilateral food governance must be anchored in human rights and meaningful participation of civil society and communities.

    • Governments must use upcoming opportunities, including the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) and the 2021 Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit, to reinforce their commitments to achieving Zero Hunger by investing in nutrition and resilience in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.