The Reformed Committee on World Food Security: A Privileged Laboratory for Assessing Transformations in Food Security Governance

Food governance constitutes a significant terrain for the recasting of relationships among different actors. The world’s food system is controlled by concentrated agrifood corporations and retailers, visiting negative impacts on smallholders’ livelihoods, food quality and the environment. Movements around the world are contesting these developments. Their networked engagement has helped to transform the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) into an inclusive policy forum in which they are seeking to generate negotiated normative guidance that can help protect their rights and their localized food systems. This paper analyses the CFS as a laboratory of relations between the constituencies of the food sovereignty movement and the governmental and private sector actors who co-habit the CFS space. The analysis generates critical reflections on addressing power imbalances among actors and on the roles, responsibilities and accountability of the State and the private sector in mechanisms such as Public-Private Partnerships and multistakeholder platforms.