PHM, with others, is co-organising the roundtable titled "The Private Sector's Great Takeover: How multistakeholderism threatens food systems, people & states". The roundtable is being organised in the backdrop of the Civil Society Organizations (CSO) opposing the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) for putting the interests of the corporates above the people (details).
The official 2021 UN Food Systems Pre-summit is from 26th-28th July. To challenge it, CSO's are organising People's Counter Mobilisation on the same dates (Click here for full program). This round table is organised as part of one of the event during the counter mobilisation and hopes to look at the UN official summit and the corporate capture through the lens of "multi-stakeholderism", frequently being used by "self-interested elite bodies" & that possibly risk & undermine "public acceptance and democracy". A 3 minute movie on the threats of multisteakeholderism and UNFSS can be seen here.
Context:
Multistakeholder governance and “networked multilateralism” are displacing multilateralism in key economic, social, environmental, and sustainable development policy matters. Multistakeholderism is marginalizing not only governments - especially those from the South - in making key policy and program decisions and but also civil society organizations and communities'.
The system of post WWII governance was built around general assemblies of what are now thirty UN system organizations and hundreds of conference of parties to conventions and treaties. These assemblies are places where governments are central in setting global policy, programs, and organizational directions. Multistakeholder
governance and “networked multilateralism” are profoundly different global governance arrangements. The center of a multistakeholder group is not the State but one or more transnational corporations joined by a group of their 'friends' from civil society, the UN system, selected government agencies, and the academy. Under “networked multilateralism”, the United Nations system is not seen as the global policy setting and leadership body but only one of many actors in globalization. For affected communities, social movements, and international civil society this shift in centrality in global governance from governments to transnational corporations is more than worrying.
Date: 27th July 2021
Time: 11:30 AM UTC, 1:30 PM CEST, 5 PM Indian time
Objectives:
- To reach out to the Food Sovereignty & Agrarian Justice engaged militants, specialists and activists on this threat from the systemic character of the corporate capture behind the multistakeholder offensive.
- To expose with examples and cases (agriculture, fisheries, dairy, livestock, poultry, but also health, education, work, etc,) why and how we see the new, corporate designed and dominated multilateralism a serious threat to food sovereignty, and sustainable, local food systems. Make clear what the impacts both on global governance institutions and the privatization of democracy, as well as on peoples´ lives.
- To share our visions and ideas on how to overcome MSi and strengthen peoples’ sovereignty.
- Harris Gleckman, Centre for Governance and Sustainability, U Mass Boston;
- Sofia Monsalve/FIAN; Fian Intl’l;
- Martin Drago, Friends Of the Earth International;
- Claudio Schuftan, PHM;
- Tchenna Maso (MAB/LVC Global Campaign to Dismantle Corporate Power, Stop Impunity and for Peoples´ Sovereignty ).