THIRD WORLD NETWORK INFORMATION SERVICE ON SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

Dear Friends and Colleagues

Exposing corporate capture of the UN Food Systems Summit through multistakeholderism

A new briefing paper critically examines the notion of ‘multistakeholderism’ in the context of the governance of food systems and the UN Food Systems Summit, tracing how such multistakeholder initiatives are disproportionately led or influenced by corporations, risking maintaining the status quo rather than effecting real transformation.

The briefing can be downloaded at: https://www.foodsystems4people.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/UNFSSreport2021.pdf

With best wishes,

Third World Network

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https://www.foodsystems4people.org/multistakeholderism-report/

This brief exposes the rising threat of Multistakeholder Initiatives (MSIs) and increasing corporate influence over the governance of food systems via the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS). At its core the UNFSS is geared toward moving from multilateralism – involving processes and decision making led by States – to multistakeholderism – a practice of governance that brings multiple stakeholders including corporations, corporate platforms and business associations, donors, academics and civil society actors together to participate in dialogue, decision making, and implementation of responses to jointly perceived problems.

The United Nations and its system organizations and programs are meant to be multilateral in nature; however, multilateralism is increasingly being transformed into multistakeholderism. This  system allows powerful transnational corporations, their platforms and associations to direct international and national policy making, financing, narratives and governance while promoting  corporate friendly, false solutions to food systems in crisis.

Given the multiple systemic crises (climate change, COVID-19, biodiversity loss, hunger, inequality) that the global, industrial food system is contributing to, and local/national food systems are being affected by, holistic food systems analyses and transformation are needed, firmly aimed at structural and systems change, and rooted in human rights and food sovereignty.  Yet, the UNFSS has been captured by MSI and corporate interests and is very far from this vision. Rather it is going in the opposite direction – with a piecemeal approach to solutions, lack of transparency, lack of rigor of analysis and complete disregard for crucial aspects of food systems transformations such as agency, power, market concentration and systemic inequalities.

MSIs are disproportionately led by for-profit businesses and corporations and are rooted in neoliberalism and capitalism, prioritizing market interests over human rights. This leads to the separation of the right to adequate, nutritional food from structural factors, such as persisting class, racial, and gender inequalities, and subsidies and government policies that support agribusinesses over small-scale food producers and workers. Instead, policies are prioritized that maintain the status quo: the corporate sector’s dominance in the global food economy, particularly in terms of production inputs (pesticides, fertilizers, seeds and breeds), trade in agricultural commodities and food processing, and food retailing. A reshaping of global  governance that is rooted in corporate growth, Big Data, and technofixes will only serve to further widen global economic inequality and further threaten food and land sovereignty for rural, peasant, and indigenous peoples.