Annexes to COM(2020)285 - Implementing EU food and nutrition security policy commitments: Fourth biennial report - Main contents
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This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.
| dossier | COM(2020)285 - Implementing EU food and nutrition security policy commitments: Fourth biennial report. |
|---|---|
| document | COM(2020)285  |
| date | August 26, 2020 |
6. CONCLUSION
The EU and its Member States have taken a comprehensive approach to supporting partner countries’ policies and programmes. Joint efforts have focused on strengthening the resilience of the most vulnerable people to food crises, increasing responsible investments in sustainable food systems, improving nutritional outcomes, stimulating innovation, and addressing gender equality and the empowerment of women. The experiences presented in this report and in the accompanying SWD demonstrate the importance of:
1.Taking a comprehensive approach to sustainable and inclusive food systems that enable safe and nutritious food and healthy diets for all. This means focusing on food systems as a whole, from sustainable production to consumption, processing, trade and marketing, and balancing climate, health, environmental, economic and social factors. It takes account of gender equality, in line with the second EU gender action plan (GAPII). It also recognises the important role of fisheries and aquaculture for FNS, which requires better marine governance that upholds laws on access to fish stocks, land and water resources, and a particular focus on the resulting benefits for small-scale fishers and smallholder fish farmers.
2.Supporting the Global Network against Food Crises as a critical contributor to developing sustainable food systems along the humanitarian, development and peace nexus. This support by the EU and its Member States entails joint analysis, strategic investments, and coordinated responses at national, regional, and global level. The EU and its Member States should continue to address both immediate needs and underlying socio-economic, environmental, and peace factors to prevent recurrent food crises.
3.Prioritising a multi-stakeholder approach to food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture in order to speed up progress on Agenda 2030. This approach notably includes global, regional, national and local governance mechanisms. The strategy should involve strengthening partnerships with the UN system (including with the Rome-based UN agencies and the Committee on World Food Security), research organisations, global multi-stakeholder platforms, private sector and civil society organisations to develop and apply global norms.
4.Reinforcing agricultural research and innovation systems at national, regional, and global level to promote climate resilience. The EU and its Member States should continue to support institutional governance architecture and the capacities of regional and national agricultural research organisations, and should stimulate sustainable innovation through multi-stakeholder partnerships such as the DeSIRA initiative.
5.Increasing responsible public and private investments in sustainable agriculture, fisheries and agri-businesses, including through blending assistance to support smallholder agriculture, fisheries and MSMEs. The EU and its Member States should keep economic, environmental, and social development impact as the core priority in supporting private investments in agri-businesses, including by further investing in gender-responsive, sustainable and inclusive value chains.
6.Supporting local and regional marketing and accelerating inter- and intraregional agricultural trade. The EU and its Member States should continue to support agreements, such as on the African Continental Free Trade Area, that promote regional integration and that can help to create new markets and new decent jobs, increase competitiveness, and reduce dependency on food imports.
7.Promoting climate-sensitive agriculture, including agro-ecology, acknowledging the importance of sustainable agriculture in adapting to and mitigating climate change as set out in the Koronivia joint work on agriculture 28 and highlighted in other relevant commitments. In this context, the EU and its Member States should help developing countries deliver on their nationally determined contributions.
8.Addressing malnutrition in all its forms, while continuing to focus on the most vulnerable population groups. The EU should continue to assess and report on its impact on reducing stunted growth, while addressing all forms of malnutrition that affect vulnerable people. Nutrition programmes should also contribute to the sustainable transformation of food systems.
These observations are also relevant when preparing for the Nutrition for Growth Summit and the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021.
COVID-19 and food security
The COVID-19 pandemic was still unfolding when this report was being finalised. The full effects of COVID-19, and of the socio-economic crisis it triggered, on food and nutrition security are still largely unknown in terms of severity of lockdowns and spillover effects on rural livelihoods. Early indications suggest that impacts could be substantial with many millions of people losing their income, while simultaneously facing an increase in local and imported food prices due to logistics and in some cases export restrictions (for example rice).
Moreover, the risk that measures to tackle the health crisis could strongly aggravate current food crises was clear, as agricultural production in some regions could be affected by farmers’ difficulties in accessing inputs while also facing other challenges (such as weather extremes, pests and diseases, e.g. desert locusts). Countries affected by multiple crises are at particul risk of food insecurity.
The EU and its Member States are adjusting their cooperation portfolios to respond to these challenges. More fundamentally, the COVID-19 pandemic underlined the need to strenghen the ‘one health’ approach and to address the underlying reasons for the rise in diseases stemming from animal-human interactions, including the loss of biodiversity, unsustainable farming practices and unsafe food marketing and trade.
(1)
An EU policy framework to assist developing countries in addressing food security challenges, COM(2010)127.
(2)
The financial part of this report and accompanying SWD cover up to and including 2018 (for methodological/comparability reasons); experiences captured also include 2019.
(3)
State of Food and Agriculture in the World (2019).
(4)
Sources: Global Report on Food Crises (2020) released on 21/04/2020.
(5)
Council conclusions (14283/18) of 26 November 2018.
(6)
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/24004/european-consensus-on-development-2-june-2017-clean_final.pdf
(7)
11850/19.
(8)
Study on EU Achievements in Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture 2014-2018, p.27.
(9)
Development Smart Innovation through Research in Agriculture.
(10)
France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands have provided some cash co-funding to DeSIRA through their foreign affairs departments or development agencies; Spain and Belgium have provided in-kind but quantified co-funding via their development agencies
(11)
https://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/leap4fnssa-projects?q=*
(12)
COM(2018) 643 final of 12.09.2018.
(13)
Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands.
(14)
Annex 1 of 2018 annual action programme, Commission Decision C(2018) 8063 final.
(15)
Different reporting methodologies exist across the EU and its Member States. The figures reported here solely reflect the specific methodology for this exercise and exclude humanitarian aid flows. Data include EU institutions and only ten Member States, which represent 91.2% of the total ODA flows of the EU institutions and 28 Member States in 2018. The detailed methodology is provided in the SWD annexed to this report. As with previous reports, this 4th report (issued in 2020) presents the latest official figures available, in this case for 2018. This report also includes smaller projects (below EUR 100,000), leading to an increase in the number of projects captured. But even without this methodological change, 2018 shows a marked increase in the number of projects and the amounts disbursed compared to 2016, from 3,462 to 3,928. However, these smaller projects accounted only 2.4% of the total FNS disbursements in 2018.
(16)
Sectors defined in terms of OECD DAC sector classification.
(17)
Regions refer to the OECD DAC regional classification. Neighbourhood refers to European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) partner countries and a few other candidate and potential candidate countries. The numbers of tables 1 and 2 are rounded.
(18)
Data include the EU and only ten Member States. For the detailed methodology, see the SWD annexed to this report.
(19)
https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/sp-nexus/documents
(20)
During the period under review of this report, the UK was a member of the European Union.
(21)
https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/joint-programming/highlights?page=1
(22)
Formed by the United Nations Global Compact and Global Reporting Initiative.
(23)
This number only refers to technical cooperation projects (implemented by GIZ). Due to overlaps of the target groups, impact data of other projects (financial cooperation, multilateral projects) have not been considered here.
(24)
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/soteu2018-africa-europe-jobs-alliance-communication-643_en.pdf
(25)
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/23551/2017-g20-rural-youth-employment-en.pdf
(26)
https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/68138/eu-jobs-and-growth-compact-uganda-supporting-job-creation-and-economic-growth_tk
(27)
VCAs studies, 2016-2020: https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/value-chain-analysis-for-development-vca4d-
(28)
Decision 4/CP.23