Public Interest CSOs, Indigenous Peoples and Social Movements reiterate their demand for full civil society participation in ICN 2 process, as well as express their growing concern over corporate sector participation.
Public interest Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), social movements and Indigenous Peoples repeated their demands and concerns related to the ICN 2 process in a new statement read to the Informal Meeting on ICN 2 with Non-State Actors, organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) on July 11, 2014 in Geneva, Switzerland.
This new statement follows the statement delivered to the Informal Meeting between FAO Member Countries and Non-State Actors on the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), June 20 (Rome), and the statement issued to the ICN 2 Intergovernmental Joint Working Group.
In this proclamation, public interest civil society reminds the WHO and governments of its continued attempts to formally engage in a meaningful way in the ICN 2 preparatory process, and re-emphasize concerns over the so far applied format of participation in the formulation of the ICN 2 policy declaration. It also states public interest CSOs find it unacceptable that under the banner of ‘non State actors’, they and the corporate sector – and organizations representing it – are dealt with on equal footing.
Public interest CSOS, social movements and Indigenous Peoples are profoundly concerned that if governments choose to continue along this path and do not protect this policy-making process and forum from conflicts of interest, the participation of the Corporate Sector might compromise the ICN 2 political declaration and framework of action, as well the direction of the proposed ‘Decade on Nutrition’, which will then not lead towards the profound changes needed to ensure fulfillment of the right to adequate food and nutrition for everyone but further protect corporate profit.