Rome, Italy – The Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSIPM) of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) will not participate in the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake +4 (UNFSS+4), at the end of July, or its preparatory processes. This decision follows years of sustained criticism of the Summit’s structure, outcomes and follow-up. It reflects a collective assessment that no meaningful changes have been made to the Summit’s direction, governance and safeguards against corporate influence since 2021.

“We believe the UNFSS legitimizes an agro-industrial system, and the financial interests of a few, to the detriment of peoples’ rights. This system and its interests are at the heart of the problem.” — Pauline Verrière, Action Against Hunger and CSIPM Coordination Committee member.

The UNFSS+4 marks the second stocktaking event of a process that has been ongoing for the past four years, continuing to entrench corporate-led food systems. Following an invitation to participate in the process, the CSIPM met with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, in a cordial dialogue facilitated by the CFS Chair Ambassador Nosipho Jezile, in April and June 2025. In these exchanges, the CSIPM stressed:

• No structural reforms have been made to the governance of the UNFSS since 2021.
• Safeguards against conflicts of interest remain grossly insufficient.
• Corporate actors or entities continue to hold disproportionate influence over the Summit.

The CSIPM argues the UNFSS+4 reinforces an extractive neoliberal model and ignores critical issues such as the unprecedented instrumentalization of food marked by its increased use as a weapon of war, food apartheid, a drastic reduction in public development aid, rising authoritarianism, attacks on human rights’ defenders, and criminalization of social movements and Indigenous Peoples. This exclusion is noteworthy considering the political impunity with which the fueling of such food-related injustices has escalated in recent months.

The UNFSS+4 program makes no mention of the situation in Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territories and other regions where food is being deliberately used as a weapon of war. The 2021 Summit similarly failed to address the impacts of COVID-19 on food and nutrition security, despite unfolding at the peak of the pandemic. These omissions confirm the CSIPM’s assessment that the Summit has not been the forum to respond to the structural problems driving food insecurity and malnutrition.

“There’s something indecent, deeply obscene, about talking about sustainable development or inclusive food systems, while children starve to death in Gaza, buried under rubble or condemned by the blockade to slow agony. What use are our expertise, our legal frameworks and our international forums, if we are unable to protect the fundamental right to feed, to live? Hunger in Gaza is not a natural disaster, it is a deliberate strategy, a weapon of war. And every silence, every complicit neutrality, every false balance reinforces the impunity of the executioners. We cannot and must not turn a blind eye. Food justice begins with an end to organized famine, occupation and massacre. Gaza is today the mirror of our collective moral failure.” — Souad Mahmoud, coordination féministe pour la souverainete alimentaire – CFSA, Tunisia, and CSIPM Coordination Committee member.

CSIPM participants have strongly criticized the co-optation of language, such as ‘Food Sovereignty’, ‘inclusive participation’, and even adding references to the international food sovereignty movement Nyéléni in their program. For them, while language can be co-opted, the power of the people behind those principles cannot.

Undue corporate influence

Since 2021, the People’s Autonomous Response warned that the Summit has undermined public interest in favor of corporate priorities. In the most recent exchange, the UN Deputy Secretary-General stated that accountability will be central for the UNFSS+4. However the CSIPM argues that despite the introduction of its Corporate Accountability Roadmap in 2025, the Summit continues to rely on voluntary commitments. It also overlooks crucial international efforts, such as the ongoing UN negotiations for an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.

The UNFSS’s persistent failure to address structural power imbalances is evident in its embrace of corporate initiatives and private sector investments, while ignoring the need for strong safeguards against conflicts of interest.

Voices from civil society, Indigenous Peoples, food justice movements, organizations of small-scale food producers and workers, continue to be co-opted or tokenized. These constituencies bear the brunt of corporate abuse, climate crises, and the military-industrial complex of the Global North.

“We fear this space has the potential to do more harm than good to those that urgently require global solidarity and UN leadership to see justice, protect sovereignty and ensure food systems won’t continue to be exploited for the profit of neocolonial corporate structures. The right to food is no more to be used in the deadly arsenal of warmongers and profiteers across the world.” — Ashka Naik, Corporate Accountability, and CSIPM Global Food Governance Working Group participant

For a human rights-based food governance

According to the CSIPM, there have been efforts by the UNFSS to include the right to food and the CFS, including through the invitation to the Special Rapporteur on the right to food and to the CFS Chairperson to join the UN Food Systems Advisory Group. However, these efforts, including those by its Coordination Hub, fall short of significantly integrating the CFS policy instruments into national strategies to drive a meaningful food systems transformation in the direction of the right to adequate food.

The CSIPM reaffirms its commitment to inclusive, democratic food governance rooted in human rights. Unlike the UNFSS, the Committee on World Food Security remains the only global and multilateral platform that recognizes the distinction between duty bearers and rights holders, where those most affected by hunger and malnutrition participate meaningfully in shaping policies that affect their lives.

The CSIPM welcomes the possibility of the CFS to consider the outcomes of UNFSS+4 during its upcoming 53rd Plenary Session, where it can provide a comprehensive analysis of the Summit’s report within an inclusive multilateral forum.

Ongoing citizen mobilization

Since 2021, civil society and Indigenous Peoples’ organizations have consistently denounced the UNFSS:

• 2021: A global counter-mobilization through the People’s Autonomous Response opposed the Summit’s corporate agenda and the marginalization of public interest voices. It launched the campaignFood Systems 4 People.
• 2023 (UNFSS+2): The People’s Autonomous Response released astatement denouncing the United Nations’ controversial approach to tackling hunger and malnutrition, and co-organized with IPES-Food a series of webinars titled “Who has the power?”
• 2025 (UNFSS+4): The message is louder and clearer than ever: We cannot endorse or be part of a space that reinforces the very forces we are fighting against.

The CSIPM calls on the international community, States, popular organizations, and civil society to unite their voices demanding a radical paradigm shift founded on social justice, food sovereignty, and the defence of human rights, to build sustainable, equitable, and resilient food systems.