Last week, the United Nations held its long-awaited Food Systems Summit while a coalition of groups — including farmers and Indigenous people’s organizations — who had decried the UNFSS’s lack of inclusion, simultaneously held a virtual counter event, the Global People’s Summit on Food Systems.
Though the UNFSS was criticized as insufficiently inclusive by GPS delegates and others, marginalized groups that took part said the summit opened dialogue between different players within global food systems and resulted in inclusive policies on paper, which need to be implemented in the same spirit at the national level.
Elizabeth Nsimadala, president of the Pan-African Farmers Organization said she had noticed “a shift by almost all the actors on centralizing the role of Producers in Food systems” — but that it remains to be seen whether this will be carried forward in the implementation.