The fifty-first plenary session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS 51) will take place from 23 to 27 October 2023 in a hybrid format in Rome, Italy.
The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) was established in 1974, and reformed in 2009, with
the vision to be the foremost inclusive international and intergovernmental platform of the United
Nations system for promoting food security and nutrition for all. Using a multi-stakeholder and
inclusive approach, CFS Members and stakeholders develop and endorse policy recommendations and
guidance on a wide range of topics relevant to food security and nutrition and aiming towards the
universal realization of the right to food.
The Plenary will begin with a high-level opening ceremony and a discussion on strengthening
coordinated policy responses to the food crises, which will consider the latest edition of the State of
Food Security and Nutrition in the World report. Following this, the Plenary will explore global
interlinkages with other key moments that relate to global food security and nutrition, including the
2023 United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit, UN Food Systems
Summit Stocktaking Moment 2023, and the 2024 Summit of the Future as well as the twenty-seventh
(COP27) and twenty-eighth (COP28) Conferences of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity
Framework.
In addition, the CFS Plenary is set to endorse the following three documents: the Voluntary Guidelines
on Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in the Context of Food Security and
Nutrition; Policy Recommendations on Strengthening Collection and Use of Food Security and
Nutrition (FSN) Data and Related Analysis Tools to Improve Decision-Making in Support of the
Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security; and
the Multi-Year Programme of Work (MYPoW) 2024-2027. The Plenary will further feature two
stocktaking sessions: a presentation of the progress on the follow-up to the Second International
Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) and an event on the monitoring of the Policy Recommendations on
Price Volatility and Food Security and on Social Protection for Food Security and Nutrition.
Finally, the CFS Plenary will elect a new CFS Chairperson who will commence his/her two-year term
following the end of CFS 51, and it will appoint a new Bureau.