WEBINAR: Community Engagement to render food systems more equal and sustainable

22 June 2021. Last webinar in the “Community Engagement Days” series, entitled "Community Engagement for Collective Action" . The series, which was organized by the Dimitra Clubs Team of FAO with the support of Resource Partners contributing to the Flexible Multi-Partner Mechanism (FMM), aims to review the achievements, potential and challenges of community engagement for empowerment approaches. The fifth and final webinar in the series sought to provide concrete examples of how community engagement and collective action function as key drivers of successful rural development strategies, programmes and projects.

See the recording of the session in the original version.

Speakers showcased their experience with the use of community engagement approaches for collective action to strengthen the participation, voice and resilience of rural communities in various areas, including: climate change adaptation, food systems transformation and women’s empowerment, as well as COVID-19 response and recovery.

• Moderator: Mr Adriano Campolina, Senior Policy Officer and Rural Institutions, Services and Empowerment Team Leader from ESP
• Ms Christiane Monsieur, Coordinator of the Dimitra Clubs Programme from FAO’s Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division (ESP), thanked the nearly 1 000 participants that connected from around the world, as well as the expert speakers. She later discussed the way forward for scaling up community engagement in rural development and humanitarian assistance.
• Mr Benjamin Davis, ESP Director, described the crucial role of Community Engagement for Collective Action in advancing the discussion on compounding global challenges and their dramatic impacts on livelihoods, nutrition, and food security, especially within rural communities and vulnerable populations.
  “Only through collective action can we address the fundamental structural inequalities and imbalances that the world faces today. There is a need for urgent agri-food systems transformation."
• Mr Oumar Bâ, Mayor of the Commune of Ndiop, Senegal, and President of the Supervisory Council of the Senegalese Agency for Reforestation and the Great Green Wall. - Defining one’s own development: empowerment and community engagement.
  ”The best solution for rural development is to define how, in an autonomous way, communities can produce food, process it locally and adapt it to their local food systems without relying on external resources. In order to render food systems more equal and sustainable, we must transform our development paradigm, bringing autonomy into the centre and having a bottom-up approach so that communities can satisfy their own needs and their own food systems."
• Ms Kapilaben Bhailalbhai Vankar, President of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), and Ms Megha Desai, Senior Coordinator from SEWA. - Collective action for community development in India" During COVID-19 SEWA, delivered daily necessities kits at the doorstep of beneficiaries. 
• Ms Anne-Sophie Poisot, Agriculture Officer, Coordinator of the Farmer Field School Platform and Assistant Team Leader of Pest and Pesticide Management from FAO’s Plant Production and Protection Division (NSP). - Farmers taking the lead on their own development, thanks to field schools in Southeast Asia. Through joint observation and community-led approaches, Field Schools Southeast Asia developed an integrated pest management system. 
  "FAO’s Dimitra Clubs  have helped create the transformative dynamics of dialogues and democracy and have generated fertile soil for field schools to thrive." 
  “Asking the right questions is more important than giving the right answers.”