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Info Service on Sustainable Agriculture Keeping the FAO Free from Corporate Capture Due to the role of corporations in the market economy of our food systems, such as their political influence on national-level subsidies for agricultural inputs or crop protection programs, effective mechanisms for accountability and public transparency of the FAO’s private sector engagements are fundamental to ensuring that non-State actors are not unduly influencing the FAO’s priorities. A recent report by FIAN International and Corporate Accountability outlines the extent of corporate engagement in the FAO and its negative impacts on global decision-making at a time of worsening food crisis. It presents case studies of FAO partnerships, illustrating how the corporate sector engagements are incompatible with the FAO´s mandate and work priorities (Item 1). The report presents a list of recommendations, which is reproduced below (Item 2). These include immediately revising existing partnerships, ending those with conflicts of interests, increasing transparency around funding and private sector engagement, strengthening the FAO’s budget with public funding, expanding due diligence mechanisms to address duty of care, liability and remedy, establishing effective mechanisms to prevent conflicts of interest, and strengthening collaboration with small scale food producers to promote food sovereignty and agroecology. The full report is available at: www.fian.org/files/files/CorporateCaptureoftheFAO-EN.pdf With
best wishes, Item 1 PRESS
RELEASE A silent revolution is underway at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Corporations are being given increasing influence at the expense of states, small scale food producers, Indigenous Peoples and civil society. This process threatens the democratic governance of our food systems. In a new report, Corporate Capture of FAO: Industry’s Deepening Influence on Global Food Governance, FIAN International and Corporate Accountability outline the extent of corporate engagement in the FAO and its negative impacts on global decision-making at a time of worsening food crisis. “The FAO’s process of opening up to corporate sector engagement would not have been possible without the support of member states. Those states are responsible for moving the FAO away from defending the public interest and instead consolidating corporate food systems even further,” says Sofía Monsalve, Secretary General of FIAN International. Corporate groups enjoying favorable partnership status with the FAO include the International Fertilizer Association and Croplife International, a global trade association which counts the world’s largest pesticide and seed companies such as Bayer, BASF and Syngenta among its members. This represents a clear conflict of interest and compounds the current global food crisis. For example, the FAO is promoting a rationalization of fertilizer use through digital tools when it should be promoting agroecology and a transition out of fossil-fuel based fertilizers. This report comes ahead of a June FAO Council meeting and includes contributions from PAN International. The FAO Strategy for Private Sector Engagement explicitly states that its new approach to “revitalized partnership with the private sector” will go beyond a “defensive” approach safeguarding the organization’s integrity, impartiality and independence with a “proactive” approach to due diligence for facilitating partnerships. However, Corporate Accountability, FIAN International can point to a distinct lack of transparency surrounding the FAO’s funding and corporate partnerships, as well as shortcomings in the UN agency’s due diligence and corporate accountability processes. “Although about 70 % of the FAO’s budget is from voluntary contributions that include private sector funding, the FAO provides very little publicly available information detailing financial relationships with the private sector and corporate donors,” says Ashka Naik, Research Director at Corporate Accountability. The report presents case studies of FAO partnerships illustrating how these corporate sector engagements are incompatible with the FAO´s mandate and work priorities. These cases are indicative of a growing trend towards corporate capture of UN agencies through multistakeholderism, which prioritizes corporate-friendly solutions to food systems transformation. “Multistakeholderism implies that all actors with a ‘stake’ in an issue should have an equal say, regardless of their different roles, responsibilities and power imbalances,” says Monsalve. “This leads to a situation where the most powerful actors can impose their will. Accountability disappears. It allows the corporate sector to dominate policy processes while member states and civil society have no meaningful participation.” The FAO and its member states must stop the corporate capture of the agency. It can do this by immediately revising existing partnerships, ending those with conflicts of interests, increasing transparency around funding and private sector engagement, strengthening the FAO’s budget with public funding and expanding due diligence mechanisms to address duty of care, liability and remedy. They should also establish effective mechanisms to prevent conflicts of interest, and strengthen collaboration with small scale food producers to promote food sovereignty and agroecology. “Cooperation with the corporate sector must follow clear rules, allow for transparency and impartiality, and establish clear accountability mechanisms, instead of serving the interest of the private sector,” says Naik. For more information please contact Sofia Monsalve at monsalve@fian.org and T.J. Faircloth at tfaircloth@corporateaccountability.org —————————————————————————————————————————- CORPORATE CAPTURE OF FAO: Industry’s Deepening Influence on Global Food Governance Corporate
Accountability & FIAN International, with contributions from PAN
International WHAT MUST CHANGE GOING FORWARD – RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FAO AND MEMBER STATES The FAO, Member States, and civil society will have to prioritize safeguarding the work and mandate of the FAO from the private sector if the agency is to truly “achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives (FAO, 2022).” The following recommendations must be adopted to ensure progress is achieved on preventing corporate capture of the agency, which has a risk to jeopardize the wellbeing of myriads of communities that the FAO is mandated to serve. 1. Recommendations for the FAO a) FAO should end its partnership agreements with corporate actors, especially of transnational nature, which have conflicts of interest with the FAO’s mandate. These include, but are not limited to, high-risk sectors such as agrochemical, fast food, beverage, tobacco, and fossil fuel industries. Specifically, FAO must immediately end its partnership with CropLife International. b) The FAO should undertake a full review in accordance with the due diligence screening process and risk assessment against all exclusionary criteria and other principles outlined in the FRAME of all existing partnerships and engagements with private sector entities that were in effect prior to the adoption of the Strategy for Private Sector Engagement and the FRAME and put an end to those in non-compliance with such exclusionary criteria and principles. c) The FAO should commit to full financial transparency by publicly disclosing all financial contributions from private sector actors to the FAO and its Member States. This reporting should at least include how much funds have been contributed by which entity, for what projects, for what length, and the details of diligence and conflict of interest assessments for those relationships as well as corrective measures undertaken to eliminate those conflicts of interests. d) The FAO should not receive funds from private entities that are in conflict with FAO’s mandate and undertake all efforts to strengthening FAO’s budget with public funding. e) The FAO should commit to full transparency of the nature, duration, type and complete areas of collaboration for every private sector engagement to be publicly viewable on the CONNECT portal. Further, the FAO must make publicly transparent its reports on outcomes of the due diligence screening and whether there is a risk management plan (e.g. IBRMP) for all engagements with the private sector. f) The FAO should strategically and in-depth define what ‘private sector’ means and entails, and subsequently clarify differentiated treatment for entities that have an expansive global scope and influence including large firms, industry and trade associations and private sector consortia, and philanthropic foundations; as opposed to treatment for small-scale farmers and producers and their associations as well as MSMEs. Likewise, FAO should consider small-scale producers under the scope of civil society, in line with FAO Strategy for partnerships with civil society organizations, as requested by the International Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty (IPC). g) The FAO should function as a regulatory body ensuring industry’s abusive practices do not run counter to the FAO’s mandate, rather than serving as a “matchmaking hub” for industry interests as it has currently positioned itself. h) Any due diligence mechanism put in place by the FAO, such as the FRAME, should expand its scope to address duty of care, grievance, liability, and remedy mechanisms. Clear, accessible and effective accountability mechanisms should be available, which allow civil society actors to denounce risks, adverse impacts or non-compliance with the new Private Sector Strategy and FRAME principles, by private sector actors with which FAO wants to engage or has engaged (including through less formal manners of engagement as LoIs). If the denounces are proofed, the engagements shall be avoided or brought to an end. In case of doubt, a precautionary principle should be applied and the engagement should be avoided or brought to an end. i) The FAO should urge Member States to exclude nominating delegates who might have conflict of interest with industries such as agrochemical, fast food, beverage, tobacco, digital economy and fossil fuel industries, and commit to publicly sharing conflict of interest disclosures. j) The FAO should not hire staff, consultants, or other human resources with conflicts of interest with the above-mentioned industries, and should have strong and comprehensive revolving doors, disclosure of CoI, and CoI prevention protocols. k) The FAO should embrace, mutatis mutandi, precedents such as Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Article 5.3 on COI and FCTC Article 19 on industry liability to ensure protection from corporate capture and to hold industry to account for abusive behavior. l) The FAO should strengthen its collaboration with civil society and Indigenous Peoples towards food sovereignty and agroecology, consistently implement FAO’s strategy for partnerships with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), and effectively recognize small-scale food producers as rights holders and key actors in food security. In contrast to the private sector that sees food essentially as a commodity and engages with the FAO based on private interests, CSO´s, small scale food producers and Indigenous Peoples recognize food as a common and a human right, are ensuring the majority of food security in the world and are knowledgeable about the problems on the ground and therefore committed to strengthen FAO´s work in the public interest. 2. Recommendations for Member States a) Member States should request FAO to respects its mandate as the UN multilateral agency responsible for promoting the human right to food and nutrition, and to take effective measures to end undue corporate influence on its strategic direction and work. b) Member States Representatives must ensure that the corporate sector is not capturing the role of Member States or ceding the capacities of official government representatives to engage in democratic and accountable processes on the direction of the FAO’s work. c) Member states should take the leadership in ensuring their fiscal support to the FAO is advancing FAO’s mandate pertaining to food security, sovereignty, and justice, and that the FAO remains accountable to Member States. d) Member states should demand FAO to publicly disclose all financial contributions from private sector actors to the FAO and its Member States and adopt all needed measures to ensure that corrective measures are taken when these are needed to preserve FAO mandate and to prevent that the engagement with private actors negatively impacting on human rights and or the environment. e) Member states should reform the procedures for allocating resources provided voluntarily by the private sector by placing them under the direct control of all member states so that they determine their use, allocation and objectives, as well as how they are used. f) Member States should demand transparency and accountability from the FAO about its engagement with the private sector on a regular basis, especially on how funds are being contributed to and consumed by the FAO. g) Member States should demand the FAO to end its relationship with corporate actors, especially of transnational nature, which have conflicts of interest with the FAO’s mission. These include, but are not limited to, agrochemical, fast food, beverage, tobacco, and fossil fuel industries, or any other actors violating or abusing human rights. Specifically, Member States must urge the Director General to immediately end its engagement with CropLife International. h) Member States should not nominate delegates who might have conflict of interest with industries such as agrochemical, fast food, beverage, tobacco, digital economy and fossil fuel industries, and commit to publicly sharing conflict of interest disclosures. i) Member States should demand FAO to revise FRAME in the light of the mentioned concerns through a transparent and participatory process in order to work towards comprehensive legal frameworks for corporate accountability in FAO.
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