In the wake of the global food crisis of 2007/2008 the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) underwent a profound transformation. The reform process is promising since it recognises the CFS as the foremost global forum deliberating on food security and opens it up to concerned stakeholders like organisations of small-scale producers and poor urban consumers.

The new CFS now needs to demonstrate that it can take authoritative decisions on key policy issues and provide normative guidance to other actors that impact on food security, including the multilateral financial and trade institutions. Finally, it needs to build meaningful links between global policy and changes at the national and local levels that make a difference in peoples' lives.

Nora McKeon
Lecturer in Human Development and Food Security Masters,University of Roma Tre and Coordinator of EuropAfrica campaign, Terra Nuova
Rome, Italy
nora.mckeon@fastwebnet.it