Multistakeholder Dialogue: an open forum for governments and development partners to debate problems of food security

In an effort to ensure a participatory World Food Summit: five years later, space has been made in the tight schedules of the heads of states and ministers of agriculture from 10 to 13 June in Rome, for an appointment of fundamental importance for civil society: a Multistakeholder Dialogue (MSD), an open forum in which governments and interested partners will debate the strategies to achieve food security in the world.

In this sense, during the session on 12 June, various representatives from civil society and partners concerned with development will seek to lay the foundations for a growing commitment to joint action and dialogue directed at reaching the goals set in the WFS Plan of Action approved in 1996. In this meeting, which will treat the same questions as in the official round-table sessions of the summit, the participants will attempt to determine the results achieved in this plan, the obstacles remaining and the mechanisms to overcome those obstacles. The debate will also serve to define and express the positions as well as the interests of each of the partners for development with regard to the different issues related to food security.

The United Nations began to use the Multistakeholder Dialogue in 1992 to track the results of the Conference on the Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The FAO successfully organized an MSD on Agriculture and Sustainable Development in the context of the 16th Session of the Committee on Agriculture (COAG) in March 2001.