Technical Support Meeting Monitoring Tuesday March 12, 2013 / 09.30 12.30h CSOs in attendance: Natalia Landivar (FIAN), Martin WolpoldBosien (FIAN), Rehema Bavuma (WFF), Luca Chinotti (Oxfam), Alberta Guerra (Action Aid), Mauro Conti (IPC), Nora McKeon (Terra Nuova) The technical group consists of UNRome based agencies, Civil Society, and Private Sector. CSO members of the technical group have yet to be confirmed by the CSM working group and communicated to the CFS Secretariat. Mark McGuire, CFS: There are 2 streams of work for this group: 1. Monitoring decisions and recommendations coming out of the CFS 2. Monitoring the outcomes/impacts at national and regional level It is envisioned that the results of the Technical support work will be shared with the wider membership of the OEWG during the June workshop. The Chair of the meeting (CFS Secretariat) asked each participant to provide a brief explanation on what are good examples of existing monitoring systems and what we could learn from those systems in relation to the two streams (more important to understand the work at the country and regional level): David Palmer, Voluntary Guidelines and Natural Resources Division, FAO: One of the results of FAO s efforts is increased awareness of the VGs (100,000 newspaper reports on the VGs, to date). Efforts to increase the capacity of people to work on improving governance of tenure, in particular, the development of tools to even further build capacity FAO is currently responding to requests from countries for technical assistance in improving governance of tenure. Currently working with the Philippines, Myanmar, Namibia. The ultimate goal of their efforts is to: raise awareness, improve capacity development, and aid countries with technical assistance to implement the guidelines Martin, CSM: Civil Society would like more clarity on the workplan of the technical support team, and the input needed from civil society
Important to build upon what has already been agreed in the GSF s First Version (para.93 specifically) which highlights the five principles that should apply to monitoring and accountability systems: i. They should be humanrights based, with particular reference to the progressive realization of the right to adequate food; ii. They should make it possible for decisionmakers to be accountable; iii. They should be participatory and include assessments that involve all stakeholders and beneficiaries, including the most vulnerable; iv. They should be simple, yet comprehensive, accurate, timely and understandable to all ; v. They should not duplicate existing systems, but rather build upon and strengthen national statistical and analytical capacities Emphasis on ensuring people are involved in the monitoring systems to help increase accountability. We need indicators to hold actors accountable. There is a wealth of applied methodologies from civil society Important initiatives at the regional level will be discussed in a meeting in June in Guatemala, CONSEA is a good example at the national level Rehema, CSM: For the majority, our work is qualitative in nature working with local communities we can identify situations where CFS decisions may be relevant, where they have been applied, or where they are needed. Marco, FAO (Bangladesh experience): Monitoring CFS decisions is a complicated and challenging task We should not be too restrictive with only monitoring specific CFS decisions For Bangladesh, not all initiatives are direct outcomes of what is happening in the CFS, but are still very important and relevant Important to monitor investments, decisions and progress made towards national objectives WFP: The problem is that people are interested in writing indicators, but less so in tracking the indicators Provided the example of WFP s assessment and monitoring work done at the community and household level. Rely heavily on the food consumption score a household survey a recall of what people have consumed. Robin, Private Sector Mechanism: Strongly encourages the use of existing mechanisms. Important to look at the merits of quantitative data to keep us focused on the profound food issues we face. We can look at different levels of quantitative data for example the number of countries that have requested support from FAO on VG implementation, etc.
Currently there is no core resource to do the monitoring work. Important to keep the eyes of plenary on the actual ground issues and make them conscious of how their work is having a broader impact. IFAD: Wanted clarification of what type of monitoring we are discussion uptake by the governments, implementation or broad communication of the decisions? Worried that the word Innovative could mean something new. Believes that we should build on what already exists. Alberta, CSM: Has there already been discussion on the expected results of the workshop in June? We need to draw some principles based on the GSF on what the mechanism will look like, define the objectives of the workshop and then plan the work from now until June. Mary Mubi, Chair of the Monitoring OEWG: The Chair of the OEWG clarified questions raised by participants. According to her understanding: The purpose of the technical team is to have better comprehension of, and map out current frameworks/initiatives at the national, regional and global levels. What exists, what are the gaps, and what do we need to build on? The roadmap is as follows: The technical team will collect this information to feed into the workshop of the OEWG in June, which will then look at the information and plan a way forward on what to present to the CFS. We should not shy away from innovation, but should also not reinvent the wheel. This should be a mapping exercise to build on existing frameworks. First and foremost, it should be useful at the country level. Technicians should be able to discuss with and convince governments that they need evidenced based policies. Communication efforts for awareness raising purposes are extremely important, but very behind. You can t monitor decisions if people do not yet know the decisions/products. CFS Secretariat: Link communications strategy to each of the major outputs of the CFS as these products come out, communication/outreach needs to be built within them. Evaluating the impact of the CFS through the programme of work and priorities through a resultsbased framework. Every 45 years have an evaluation of the CFS to see if outputs/products have been used and if there is any impact of these efforts through an indicator system.
Need to better define the scope of this technical support team what can we do in the next few months? In order to prepare something for CFS in October we need to submit some recommendations by the end of July. Need to map out our work plan from nowjune and then for the workshop. Robin, PSM: Suggested that the technical team develop a short list (1015) of reporting that exists at the country/regional level. The June workshop can then select the top 5 to be submitted to the CFS Plenary. Awareness and government uptake are two quantitative means that can be measured. CSM: Reiterated that the technical support team has 3 tasks which should guide the work: a) Elements of an innovative mechanism; b) What are the characteristics and composition of existing frameworks (mapping) and c) Using the existing methodologies find the appropriate indicators/data/reporting frameworks. 5 principles established by the GSF should be the basis for defining the criteria by which we select the top 5 examples. WFP: We need something effective not necessarily innovative For each of the CFS decisions, we should break it down to the benchmarks to achieve at the country level, then to track them. Then a scoring system (green, yellow, red)? This would allow tracking on where each state is in relation to these decisions. Martin, CSM Reiterated the importance of innovation in working in a multistakeholder system The mapping exercise must be in line with the 5 principles. For the June workshop the 5 principles could be used as a preamble As of right now, monitoring the impact of CFS decisions will be difficult. Especially in relation to the VGs since it is so new. What we can look at is have they been used/disseminated. Mary Mubi, Zimbabwe Cannot just isolate monitoring to the CFS decisions What we must concentrate on now is the level of understanding and knowledge of the VGs. The essence of the matter is accountability at country level. Therefore, country accountability mechanisms are key
CFS Next steps: From this meeting, we will summarize the findings, send to members of technical group for comments, finalise to then send to the entire OEWG. Secretariat to send the matrix out to the technical team for further inputs Secretariat to start collating information on existing mechanisms from technical group members The minutes from this meeting will provide guidance on what information we should be collecting and based on what criteria. Need to clarify what the outcome of the June OEWG workshop will be. CSM Civil society is looking to organise an internal workshop just prior to OEWG workshop in June and so it would be important to have a concrete timeline