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The first national dialogue was focused on collecting broad public opinions for setting the direction of long term food policy and setting the direction for following national dialogues.

As this is the first meeting to prepare for following national dialogues, Dr. David Nabarro, Senior Advisor on the Food Systems Summit, explained the background of the UN Food System Summit through pre-recorded video. MAFRA (the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs) announced plans how to proceed with the National Dialogues. The Special Commission on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Policies introduced Korea’s national food plan which is recently established. In addition, KREI (the Korea Rural Economic Research Institute) presented public survey results on food system awareness th... Read moreat was conducted on 234 producers, 1,109 consumers, and 152 experts. Following presentations, a discussion was took place among participants selected considering their demographics, working sectors and interests. As the result of the first national dialogue, it has been verified that the issue of “food security, sustainable food production and consumption, and food for all” is essential to improve Korea's food system. And, a need to keep the balance between the UN Action Track and domestic issues was raised. There was an opinion that it is necessary to identifies the nature of the food issues considering what is the role of the government and that of the market for practical discussion. Furthermore, a need was raised to include various food issues other than issues related to food production, and to include food industries more actively in next national dialogues. Also, it was suggested that various ministries need to participate in future national dialogues. Read less

The first national dialogue was focused on collecting broad public opinions for setting the direction of long term food policy and setting the direction for following national dialogues. Problems, importance and challenges related all UN Action Tracks were discussed considering the food system situation of Republic of Korea(ROK) and its role as a member of the international community.

The five tracks were presented and there are divergences, agreements and diversified opinion by the participants in the dialogue as follow;. Action Track 1: 'Ensure access to safe and nutritious food for all' The participants agreed that there must be policies and legislations to adjust and control the safety measures as safety raised as an important issue to safe people from illnesses and malnutrition cases. There are many actors who should play a vital role to make it a reality as in Sudan there are a lot of challenges in this issue, which have to be addresses by different actors including g... Read moreovernment, private sector, UN agencies, community organizations, and others. Prices are the main factor for accessing nutritious food. Action Track 2: 'Shift to sustainable consumption patterns' Disagreement in the way that the problem is in cultural practices rather than in consumption gaps. The big volume of loss and waste deepen the gap. Poor cultural practices lead to poor consumption both in quantity and quality. Action Track 3: 'Boost nature-positive production' everyone agreed that it is better to have nature-positive production' but the road is very long and need support by different actors , with this climate changes and other hazards , the production need to be natural , lack of policies and legislations are one of the reasons behind the poor dealing with the agricultural and industrial production, besides poor metrological standards and follow up through the value chain..Big areas in Sudan have potentialities for organic farming , it need resources and know how. Participants agreed that both climate change and COVID – 19a are the main drivers of food insecurity. Action Track 4: 'Advance equitable livelihoods' In Sudan there is a wide range of livelihood systems , the participants disagree in the most dominant ones but at last the consensus put 6 as the dominant which are; agricultural zone, agropastural, pastoral, gum Arabic, flood retreat, rain fed and irrigated. All participants agreed on the importance of promoting a culture of justice and equality among all communities considering gender issue. Some of the participants thought of a sort of discriminations in the remote areas and this need strong justice to be achieved to reach a fair livelihood system.. Action Track 5:'Build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stress' Different shocks and vulnerabilities exist, agreement between the participants to address these shocks differently. Read less

Impact of climate change in food secuirty Impact of COVID - 19 in food secuirty Mobilization of resources Reseilince building

The main discussion issues were; Need to reactivate the existing policies and laws and conducting new laws in the area of concern e.g. agricultural and industrial laws, Food security law. Poor capacities and poor innovations in the food system lead to low yield. Traditional means of production, manufacturing, transportation and storage need to be addressed by actionable plans. Lack of standardized practices within the value chain increase the loss and waste and there is need to safe our food. Need for laws to protect both producers and consumers. Poor extension services. Participants discussed... Read more also the encouragement of youth and women to intervene by new technologies to enhance the production and manufacturing of agricultural production, direction to export manufactured products to earn hard currencies. Support the social networks to help vulnerable populations. There is an important need to revise food subsidies in line with the current economic, social and health circumstances. The importance of land use laws to have equality according to law. Need to expand the strategic reserves to store all strategic food for sustainable supply. Expand involvement of private sector in production to avail diversity of food products. Strategy to reduce losses and waste all through the value chain. Poor consumption patterns partially due to poor cultural practices. High malnutrition rates due to low diversity in consumption. Impact of climate change and mostly climate variations from season to season. The participants discussed the importance of comparative advantages, mainly in small scale farm. Long discussion on government support to the production discussing high production cost leading to high prices of food product, leading to difficulty in purchasing food for poor HHs. Participants discussed need for income generating activities to improve income and eliminate the inequality. Revisiting irrigation system to be well equipped and need for water harvesting techniques to make use of excessive water in flooding areas. Read less

Sudan has abundant potentialities to secure its food and can build a concrete and sustainable food system but it needs some sort of technical and financial support. One of the successes is the existence of high level food security and nutrition set up. Need to strengthen the public- private partnership. Already a food security policy exists but the implementation of the action plan need mobilization of resources. Engage youth and women in agriculture to be well equipped by technologies. More opportunities in education for children in rural areas, awareness raising by good consumption practices... Read more. One of the main agreed upon points is to transform the country to feed adjacent countries within the period 2022 – 2030 by increasing investments in food system. Investment is highly needed in infrastructures both for agriculture and industries. Governance – Institutional arrangements, Strengthen information system, Peace building Enhance Social responsibility, Planning and mapping and monitoring and evaluation with spatial system (Gis- RS),Data entry and planning, Establishing new laws for natural resources, registration and protections of genetic resource. Sustainable management of Natural Resources. Extension, awareness, genetic bank. Finance of small producer (crops and animal), capacity building. Using modern technologies (save) infrastructure Read less

The dialogue focused on the discussion of the five tracks in addition to some related issues which were discussed thoroully in the dialogue; these are; COVID -19 and its impact in food security, Impact of climate change in food security, resilience building and how to mobilize resources for sustainable development.

These relate mostly to the discrepancy between the desire to promote local production by restricting import and the idea that Cambodian producers should have greater access to export markets. These ideas are in conflict with the economics of trade and regional agreements. The ideas can also conflict with consumer interests if the net result is domestic price increases. The objective is to promote local production and provide markets for local producers. Fears of food safety or lack of safety for imported foods are used as justification and are easily inflamed. Evidence is important for making ... Read moredecisions and we need to examine the national interest in terms of international relations and consumer demand. Read less

WHAT KIND OF TOOLS CAN WE USE? (DATA, CULTURE, INNOVATON, EMPOWERING WOMEN AND YOUTH) DATA (informed decision making, targets and indicators, M&E) • Need baseline data and indicators from country road map • Need a good management system • Data utilization and analysis, as well as dissemination of results, is an opportunity for growth. • Developing production plans to meet market demand. CULTURE (education, tradition, religion, festivals) • Culture needs to be considered more around these interventions, including culture around education, information-sharing etc. • There are big... Read more differences between different ethnic communities and this needs to be recognised, rather than a single approach to all communities. There needs to be more research to understand their food systems and approaches. • Develop technical guidelines for indigenous foods and techniques, creating a record of what is currently preserved through oral traditions and practices. INNOVATION (technology, new knowledge, new ways of working) • Water system needs to be included, not just the food system • New apps create linkages between farmers, suppliers and markets, as well as information on disease, best practices etc. Potential for model farmers to be supplied one smartphone for communities to be able to access this. • An app addressing adaptation to climate change is needed, video based, produced by farmers for farmers and shared on Facebook. • Social media is a hugely useful tool for sharing information and creating market linkages. • Knowledge and information management – a lot of information is available but sometimes specific linkages are hard to make within the food system • Lots of innovation coming out of agricultural schools – but they don’t have access to finance for scaling up. Expand programs that promote funding to nascent ideas. EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN AND YOUTH (equitable access to resources, knowledge and decision making, and ensuring the youth dividend). • Provide equal access to knowledge and training related to food security and nutrition especially for women and young people. • By intentionally addressing and involving women we see an increase in household income, women’s leadership, create best practices and have great progress with cooperatives. • Address gender inequity in access to knowledge and decision making in farming, whilst respecting cultural norms and minimizing conflict. • Youth don’t want to take over the family farm. This is a challenge. • Youth Nutrition Champions have had great results working on food systems and healthy diets. Youth are highly engaged and interested, and have many great ideas. They enjoy the topic and we should continue with this enthusiasm and continue to engage them, particularly at the decision-making level. Very important to have at sub national level too. • Organizing food system forums with the focus on youth. • Need to build training on traditional foods and cooking into nutrition education • Competitions are useful for encouraging youth to join and promote innovation • Keeping communication to change social and individual behaviors. Developing regular campaigns to raise awareness of the public on food systems via social media. Read less

WHAT KIND OF TOOLS CAN WE USE? GOVERNANCE AND FINANCE • Need to build a country road map. • Identify key stakeholders within the government. • CARD should coordinate among different ministries. • Need greater participation across the country and need to get the private sector included into these conversations early and productively. GOVERNANCE (laws and regulations, markets, social protection, community) • Multi-stakeholder commitments are required to achieve the vision. • Enforcing existing laws and making amendments to law to support the vision. • Supporting local products to m... Read moreotivate producers and reduce migration. • Ensuring genuine products with proper labels and food certificates. • Raising awareness of food safety directive to sellers before imposing penalty. • Developing mechanisms and strengthening food monitoring by officials. • Encouraging positive involvement from the private sector and all stakeholders to promote the food systems vision . • Institutionalising nutrition into national and sub-national planning and budgeting is important. Capacity building for commune councilors on food systems leadership. MoI is a key stakeholder. • Forming clusters of producers in the commune/sangkat ensure markets for agricultural products. • Civil society should work closely with the government on evidence-based advocacy. Evidence should be disaggregated by province/area, nutrition issue etc. and should address budget. Necessary to know current budget figures to advocate for increased spending. • Success in the community is mainly based on civil society interventions. As funding is scarce and interventions are becoming more limited, we should advocate to donors for more funds for civil society to continue our roles and responsibilities • Strengthening the effectiveness of Sub-decree 133 implementation for regulation of BMS. Can build on the experience with breastmilk substitutes and apply learnings to other products • Use a participatory guarantee system (PGS) based on trust between producers and consumers as an effective local quality control mechanism. • Examine ways to ensure communities and enterprises are benefiting from the one product/one village (OVOP) scheme. • Supporting social welfare to ensure everybody has access to food. FINANCE (taxes, subsidies, profits, incentives) • Incentives such as subsidies, low interest loans or market linkages to encourage farmers to grow nutritious foods • Make use of tax deductions to encourage processing and value adding • Need to shift the belief that private sector already has incentive through their profit motive. Discuss this more with private sector, particularly related to processing • Multisectoral collaboration to promote local products • Provide clear definitions for incentives. • A more protective policy for the domestic market would help to protect local products. There is also a need for increased food safety governance/verification on imported products. • Preventing food imports and reducing price of imported agricultural inputs. • Setting up export associations to ensure fair price for local products. • Savings groups work well, but there is a need for the commune to be involved to support the sustainability of these services. • There is a need for more research and investment. Stakeholders cooperating and sharing information is especially important. Read less

Topic 2: HOW TO ACHIEVE THE VISION? • Education and consumer awareness for improving eating habits, behaviour change and healthy eating. Awareness raising about healthy diets, eating a variety of vegetables and meat in moderation to strengthen the immune system in order to prevent non-communicable diseases as well as other diseases and maintain a healthy lifestyle. • People need to eat healthy diets but they also need to make sure it is safe • Promoting and supporting exclusive breastfeeding for babies in the first six months and complementary feeding for children aged from 6 months with... Read more continued breastfeeding up to 2 years or beyond. • Promote sustainable and effective food production chain. Include actions toward zero waste through reducing the use of plastic, recycle food waste (Reuse, reduce, recycle). Maintain good waste management through correct storage and disposal. • Expanded irrigation systems are needed for increasing food production. • Food production training and guidelines for farmers. • Building networks among producers, processors and retailers and providing technical guidelines (food processing, recycling foods, food hygiene are current gaps). • Food fortification should be highlighted. Foods should be fortified before being supplied to the community. • Looking at food supplies that go through the social protection system is important to make sure the ID Poor are adequately supplied and that children particularly aren’t slipping in malnutrition. In situations like COVID-19, the poor are among the first people affected • Expanded school feeding program, particularly among remote communities. MoEYS should integrate food safety and nutrition, healthy diets, BMI calculation and school wash program into the school curriculum. There should be hand washing station, gardens and kitchen at school. Enforce the guidelines from school health department, especially directive No 18 of MoEYS. • There should be investment in public awareness through media/advertising campaigns. • Need for strengthened healthcare and increased funding. There is prioritisation among Health Centres to only give RUTFs to SAM children, rather than MAM due to budget restrictions. • Drink clean drinking water, live cleanly and maintain good hygiene. Promote behaviour change to other stakeholders using top-down approach. Start from ourselves and become a good example in order to influence others • Public policy must have one shared goal and stakeholder advocacy is very crucial for financial support. Second NSFSN is the main strategy for doing this. We cannot apply implementation without NADP (mid-term review?) for sustainable implementation in Cambodia. Decentralization of the strategy is critical. • Need to continue coordination and focus on working together for implementation (subnational authority, various ministries, NGOs, INGOs, UN actors, private sector, etc.). Need to coordinate and look for resources (human and financial) to implement policies, strategies and action plans. Also need to look at political, cultural and economic aspects to ensure food availability at all times. Read less