This is the personal reflection of Youth4Nature’s West Asia Regional Director, Rayan Kassem after attending the UN Food Systems Pre-Summit 2021, in-person, at the FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy. Rayan is affiliated with the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth as the Regional Youth Focal Point for the Middle East and North Africa in support of the Summit.
As the world prepares to join together for the first ever global summit on food systems, multiple stakeholder groups, including youth, farmers, Indigenous Peoples and others, attended the Pre-Summit prepared to make a splash ahead of the full Summit this September in New York.
The youth delegation, consisting of 10 young people from across the world, had the chance to present an opening statement, conduct youth sessions (collaboratively with several virtual participants), present a closing statement, and be involved in a number of panel discussions. Overall, the delegates expressed a new hope for stronger youth inclusion building from the Pre-Summit, from what they themselves called “the most youth inclusive UN event”.
Continue reading to learn more about how the Pre-Summit unfolded, and to hear some of the successes and opportunities for improvement from Y4N’s Rayan Kassem.
Same speeches, same statistics
One of the downsides of having a one way speech format, is having to listen to high level panelists mention the same promises and statistics that have been mentioned on several occasions previously. Although it is important to remind a global audience of the alarming numbers and figures related to world hunger, food waste and biodiversity loss, it was expected that both the Pre-Summit and Summit would focus on solutions, and therefore the numbers and statistics would reflect our way forward rather than our current problems.
The reason this was expected is because the Pre-Summit is based on hundreds of virtual dialogues conducted by all stakeholders in all sectors of the food system, surely resulting in patters, statistics and data to be used here and beyond. The Summit, being termed as the “solutions summit”, should have been filled with collaborative ideas, discussions on potential solutions presented, and commitments by member states.
A call for bold actions
“We have 9 harvest seasons left until 2030 and if any change is to occur, especially on a system wide scale, all stakeholders must come together and create policies that will span across all components of food systems, along all chains, and individuals. ”
Bold actions or bold promises are commitments to improve the state of food systems locally and globally. While some member states did present their plans for 2030 and 2050, other stakeholders and member states did not present expected actions on the scale needed. It is clear after the Pre-Summit that food systems play a major role in achieving the SDG goals for 2030. We have 9 harvest seasons left until 2030 and if any change is to occur, especially on a system wide scale, all stakeholders must come together and create policies that will span across all components of food systems, along all chains, and individuals. What is needed is a paradigm shift in how we produce and consume food. Such a change is not an easy task to accomplish in 9 years and that is why our youth delegation is demanding urgent and bold actions - from all stakeholders and member states - to build and prepare a food system for all people and the planet.
To us as youth, bold actions need to target:
Member states’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs);
The private sector; especially franchises that plant monocultural trees, use pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals, use industrial agriculture and animal farming, and exploit natural resources;
Marketing and advertising of unhealthy and processed foods;
Climate and biodiversity targets;
People’s livelihoods;
The intellectual potential wasted
Despite the Pre-Summit being a success in gathering all voices of society and forming coalitions among stakeholders, the format and setup of the in-person discussions could have been more fruitful. Had the Pre-Summit included live discussions and debates with youth, Indigenous Peoples, farmers, journalists, the online audience, consumers, producers, and other stakeholders, we would have been able to hear diverse perspectives and realities on this global stage. In such a global discussion, the absence of debates and controversy is a safe haven for decision makers - a space free from the challenges or on-the-ground consequences of their decisions. This is a barrier that our youth delegation would have liked to eliminate. Although, yes, all present groups had the chance to speak freely in panels, an interactive and moderated dialogue would have sparked concerns that would have localized challenges and solutions.
Commitments and demands of youth
The statements made by youth were loud and clear. The delegation drew on the consultative process leading up to the Pre-Summit of over 10,000 young people and are co-leading as action tracks vice chairs, engaged in Champions networks, regional focal points, and various self-organised groups.
The commitments listed in the closing statement are the following:
The top priority is that everyone everywhere should be able to access healthy and sustainable food. As youth, we can make choices everyday to eat more sustainable and nutritious diets and strongly advocate for it within our communities and also via various social media platforms.
Our 2nd priority is that we are ready to support, advocate and act on the climate and biodiversity actions needed to drive the urgent transformation towards a livable future.
Livelihoods matter. People working in different components of food systems, many of whom are young people, are amongst the hardest working and in many parts of the world, are sadly the ones paid less than the minimum wages! And so our third priority is that we will continue to advocate for fair and decent wages for people working in food systems.
Our demands from governments, businesses, civil society, philanthropy, and other stakeholders are to:
Develop policy incentives, increase investment in nutrition and restrict unhealthy food marketing .
We ask to eliminate barriers such as finance, land, and information that prevent young people from meaningfully engaging in different components of food systems. We ask decision-makers to determine how we can increase the minimum wage of people working within food systems especially women and youth.
We call for inter-generational co-leadership of the development of member states’ revised Nationally Determined Contributions that must include food systems.
The commitments and demands made shall be further discussed in the discussions up to the Summit in New York in September. Young people will mobilise to act upon the commitments they made and follow up on the demands in the Summit.
Arab representation
The United Arab Emirates has shown the boldest actions and strongest presence among Arab states with an ambition to become a leading global hub for food security by 2051. Informal and in-person discussions took place between delegates from Oman, Yemen, Qatar, Jordan for the support of Arab youth.
The presence of Arab member states was generally weak with a number of countries having only representatives and others being fully absent. Many of the on-state stakeholders do not have representation in Arab countries which explains the weak connection between them and Arab member states. Indigenous Peoples did not represent Bedouin communities found among the Arab states, neither did farmers nor many of the private sector representatives. As for youth, I was the only one representing the region.
Despite the weak representation, challenges and solutions present in the Arab world were also weak, with each member state presenting environmental and natural resources challenges and the solutions for them. For example, social challenges, which are the primary cause of food insecurity in the region, were not mentioned. We would have hoped to see formal sub-regional and regional coalitions developed among the member states in terms of food trade so that the reliance on food imports decreases (over 50% of food is imported in the Middle East and North Africa).
As a representative of the voice of Arab youth, here are some challenges faced in the region that were not discussed nor given space in the Pre-Summit:
Armed -conflict
Refugees crisis
High food prices
Import dependence
Economic and political sanctions
Water -intensive food production
Hunger-induced violence
Water scarcity
Poor infrastructure and technological advancement
Food waste
Production of high water-intensive crops
The way forward
There is hope after the Pre-Summit. This is the first time everyone around the world has joined forces to discuss food systems. The role of youth has been empowering and more inclusive than any other high level global event. Coalitions have been made, actions and solutions have been presented, and commitments have been stated.
Our delegation, representing tens of thousands of youth around the world, ask that regional and local discussions are initiated at the Summit this September to ensure the inclusivity of not only people, but challenges and solutions as well. The inclusivity of groups of people should expand to the representation of cultures and regional similarities so to ensure social change among non-stakeholder groups.
We also ask that food systems become incorporated among other global agendas, including the UNFCCC COP and CBD COP, so that the challenges are approached in a holistic way and actions can be taken among larger groups of people.
For more info, please visit the Summit’s website here.
Find the press release on youth participation in the Pre-Summit here.
All session recordings can be found here.
Youth in-person sessions:
Yugratna Srivastava - Official ceremony statement, July 26th - 1:48:15 “Rising up to the future we want”
Youth delegates - Transforming Food Systems Together - Youth Actions for our Present and Future, July 26th
Pramisha Thapaliya - Beter Finance, Better Food: How to Build a Food Finance Architecture that Supports Sustainable Food Systems, July 27th
Lana Weidgenant - Unleashing the Power of the Plate - for the Health of People and Planet, July 27th
Marie-Claire Graf - Synthesis plenary, July 28th
Rayan Kassem - Closing plenary, July 28th - 33:08
This blog was written and submitted by Y4N Regional Director for West Asia, Rayan Kassem.