COURSE ID COURSE NAME LECTURER

:4201 : Actors in Local Development : Georgina Gomez

TITLE OF PAPER:
BOGOTAS POLICY OF FOOD AND NUTRITIONAL SECURITY

STUDENT ID (NOT E-MAIL ADDRESS): SB1764

Food and Nutrition Security as local governance Colombias capital, Bogot, has pioneered local policy making in the country. Such is the case with its Public Policy on Food and Nutrition Security (abbreviated PPSAN) from 2007. It is framed by national and international policy, both elaborating on article 25 of the United Nations (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food. The context from where it stems is that of donor agencies and international organizations that promoted the World Food Summits since 1996. The 1990s was a decade of policy reform in Colombia that is typically explained by an institutional reform that originated in a student movement calling for an informal referendum petitioning for a new political constitution. The reform paved the way for an increase of legal participatory arrangements, aligned with a wider movement towards decentralization. In response, as Von Einsidel (1996) argues, the newly decentralized local governments started assimilating private business management strategies: the incorporation of strategic planning into local government administration, was the proposed solution to integrate dissimilar types of planning in government, that globalization was bringing along. If, as Baud and Joop (2008: 2) say, donor agencies and international organizations are shaping issues of 'global governance', implying that local governments increasingly admit how other actors become involved in governing their localities, then Bogotas government admits to be influenced at least by an international agenda of the multilateral arena of health and food policy making (UNICEFS World Summit for Children 1990, the International Conference on Nutrition 1992, WHO and UNICEFs Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, and [at least the 1996, later ones are not explicitly acknowledged] FAOs World Food Summit on Food Security). Bogota also recognizes the need for citizen participation and mobilization as well as other actors (mainly private agents involved in distribution and sales of food in the municipality). This multi-stakeholder arena is the space of governance that the municipality opens to discuss the problem of the right to (adequate) food. As the city was inserting itself into basic rights as the city projected itself into a metropolitan center it had to develop new managerial strategies to deal with a growing population and its members territories. The local government decentralization process was speed up by the national governments own process as argued by Botero and Suarez (2010). This allowed more overt spaces of negotiation, not only with concerned citizens but with other actors that could act as such. Influences in the conceptualisation, design and implementation of the policy Power inequalities shape the way such negotiations are made. Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) has been promoted internationally mainly by the United Nations through the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture

Organization (FAO)1. These international organizations are also important spaces of dispute and convergence of interests that set differentiated agendas between developing and developed nations. In terms of food policy, the international organization discourse learned to appreciate the economic links between spaces of food production and of food consumption, as Maxwell and Slater (2003) argue. The 1992 International Conference on Nutrition and the 1996 World Food Summit were key to set a renewed agenda for instituting food security policy, where donors capitalized the morally desirable goal of eradicating world hunger. As it scaled down to national policy, Colombias 2007 National Policy on Food Security and Nutrition 2 definition remained faithful to that promoted by FAO, especially through a Plan of Action undersigned by all participating countries including Colombia and promoted as the result of the 1996 World Food Summit. Bogotas PPSAN acknowledges this tradition and consequently adopts it, at least to some extent. The following table contrasts the differences between these levels of policy. Table 1. Comparison between definitions of food security according to implementation level International Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life FAO (1996). "Food and nutrition security refers to the existence of sufficient and stable supply of food, as well as opportune and permanent access and consumption of it in quantity, quality and safety for all people, under circumstances that allow an adequate biological use, that allows a healthy and active life3 CONPES (2007, 3). i) Food security guarantees the realization of the right to nourishment. It is achieved in the stability or certainty in the provisioning or availability, physical and economic access and consumption and its use. ii) The unequal spatial distribution of burdens and benefits, gives place to different types of territorial development, and of location and distribution of infrastructure and urban services. iii) Any collective action that recognizes the indivisibility of the dimensions that sum up the right to food, the interdependency between process in the food chain, the different shades of centrality the former have on the latter, and the multitude of scopes needed for its implementation4 CDIAN (2007, 25-27).

National

Local

1 2

This argument is similar to the one presented for the 4202 course esay.

Also on previous policies since the 1996 National Plan of Food and Nutrition (Plan Nacional de Alimentacin y Nutricin)
3

All quotes from documents in Spanish were translated by the author. Original text: Seguridad alimentaria y nutricional es la disponibilidad suficiente y estable de alimentos, el acceso y el consumo oportuno y permanente de los mismos en cantidad, calidad e inocuidad por parte de todas las personas, bajo condiciones que permitan su adecuada utilizacin biolgica, para llevar una vida saludable y activa.

Bogota fails or eludes giving a precise definition to FNS, probably in an attempt to distance itself from or redefine the national and international precedents. At least three probable definitions can be found in the exposition of the PPSAN theoretical framework (i.e. chapter 2). The first one preserves (as does the one of the national policy) the FAOs analytical components of food security: availability, access, consumption, and (biological) use; this is even reflected in the specific goals into which the main one is divided (CDIAN, 2007, 60). Notwithstanding, in the second definition it introduces a distributional component that emphasizes problems of inequality and not as an elaboration of poverty lines (as is the case with those in the national and international level). Bogotas third definition stretches a local governance approach to underline a more participatory definition, in what seems an attempt to overwrite the top bottom structure of the national norm. The persons writing the PPSAN appear interested in such a transformative action. On page 11 it is stated that the decision to advance towards food and nutritional security, from a territorial dimension of the city and with a human rights perspective, represents a fundamental change in these politics orientation at the district and national level CDIAN (2007). This pretension is imprecise when compared with the national policys mandate to level down the policy to the territorial level according to the decentralization scheme already mentioned, and it is only on the grounds of human rights that FAOs international Plan of Action was justified. Bogotas policy does, however, bring forward tensions between the local left-wing government and the right-wing at the national level. Despite the above, there are important differences between the national and the local policies, but both are able to interact due to the common structure promulgated by FAO. Discretionary steering The legal author of the Bogotas Policy is the District Inter-sectorial Committee for Food and Nutrition (abbreviated CDIAN). As an institution created by the local government, it is presided by itself in the head of the Secretaries of Health, Education, and Finance, and the Directors of the four main Administrative Departments (Welfare, Public Services, Recreation, and Childhood and Youth Protection). Invitations to external actors are given to the local office of ICBF (the national Wellbeing Institute), one representant of food suppliers, a representant of higher education institutions with nutrition programs based in the city, and a representant from the National Health Institute involved in food research (Concejo de Bogota, 2003). This reunion of actors contradicts PPSANs statement that an ample group of public and private entities, local and national, were united to build a vision of the district, with a local sense. The experience of social, institutional and inter-sectorial coordination was put for the conception, execution, and evaluation afterwards. Such was the beginning of the Inter-sectorial District Committee on Food and Nutrition (CDIAN, 2007, 5). This seems to exemplify Shah and Shahs (2007) thesis that democratization through decentralization has failed. The CDIAN lacks citizens representation to attain government accountability and there seems to be no dissuasive elements from interest of political and bureaucratic elites to prevail. Thus, CDIAN remains distant from citizen surveillance. The majority of invitees are from the government itself, including
4

These translations try to be as literal as possible leaving trace of grammatical imprecisions.

most of the higher education institutions with nutrition programs. No CBO or NGO is considered. Participation from the private sector is reduced to one member. This condensates to one actor the competing differences of retailers, distributors and producers small and big, men or women. Additionally, no incentives are given to participate in engage in dialogue because only those within the district have a say. However, one major responsibility of the CDIAN is to update the FNS Plan with every change of the local government taking into account different stakeholders including both the private sector and communitarian participation (Concejo de Bogota, 2003, Article 5). Discretionary inclusion is what prevails. Differences in management showed the possibility to include private actors that usually had no say in food policy/politics such as peasant organizations, but this was not always the case. The CDIAN was created by the end of the elected mayor Mockus in 2003, a candidate from the political centre, as part of Nutrition for the Future. It was during Garzons left wing mandate (2004 - 2007) and before the one of Moreno Campo Obregon (2008 2011) that FNS occupied the spotlight in Bogotas policy, especially through the Program Bogot Sin Hambre (Hungerless Bogota). This occurred during the presidency of right wing Uribe (2002-2009). With the end of Garzons electoral period the PPSAN was formulated, but FNS policy was left unattended in the following electoral period (although this mandate was of the same political party as Garzons, unprecedented administrative scandals prevailed). The weakness of the CDIAN was put in evidence, especially through the failure of implementing the PPSAN. With the subsequent administration of Petro (2010 2013) FNS gained weight in the priorities of the local government. The Moreno Campo Obregon mandate lost popular support, among other things, because of its failure to continue with the FNS programs instituted during the previous mandate. This turn of events can be explained by community participation which was an important aspect of Bogota Sin Hambre and of the formulation of the PPSAN. It can be said it became one of the main sources of accountability for this policy. Involvement has allowed for outward leaders to make follow up to the processes they have been involved with and that have promised to alleviate or improve their vulnerabilities or lacks. Community participation became important as the Mockus and Garzon mandates fomented organization capacity among Bogotas people. Mockus emphasis on identifying collective benefits and emphasizing them in the public sphere might have been proved as having lasting effects on Bogotas citizenship. Garzons FNS programs created spaces for gathering around food through the creation of communal dinning (Veeduria Distrital, 2006). If, as Udehn (1993) argues, capacity to organize obeys logics of path dependency, then with Mockus and Garzn communities may have gained incentives and instruments for communal organization and subsequent collective action. This explains only a demand driven participation. The exclusion of the private sector apparently obeys a somewhat similar reason, that is, the historically constructed ability of these actors to act independently of the government. The Master Plan of Supply and Food Security of Bogot (Bogota sin Hambre and UESP, 2005)

identified four major threats to food provisioning. The first one relates to infrastructure, referring to how paved ways constrain urban mobility. The inclusion of the dominant private actors would lobby for costly improvements disregarding neighborhood provisioning. Instead, big companies have innovated in bringing small stores into small neighborhoods. A second threat is the physical concentration of the supply and distribution in big integrated chains reinforcing the problems of the first threat and the next one. The third threat is the small and medium scale producers, industries, and retailers capacity to organize and counterweigh big firms. The fourth one is the weaknesses of the response of the less matured supply chains to increases in demand in a rapidly growing city (in population terms). The above explains to some extent the local governments unwillingness to engage with these actors. The inability to create an attractive proposal for the dominant private players or to create adequate incentives for small and medium sized ones to organize their common interests (which the PPSAN already highlights) turns out to become a weakness of the policy. The strengthening of these actors is recognized by the policy and it seeks to promote organization platforms where they can gain empowerment. Challenges and opportunities It remains a challenge to incorporate community organizations and private actors voice into the policy making sphere. Although the PPSAN contemplates the problems of participation and proactively foments it, the CDIAN in charge of revising it might decide to exclude them altogether if the political interests of a new cabinet go in an opposite direction. Food and nutrition security should be owned by informed persons that are capable of effectively demanding change when needed. It remains to be seen how the structuring of the proposed participation strategies evolved into a food and nutrition security vigilance from the ground. In the meanwhile, the local government continues to be the only actor capable of (effectively) monitoring FNS. The concern for inequality is one of the most important features of this policy. However, redistribution is difficult to attain, especially in negotiations involving land. Most of the municipalitys land is concerned to be rural, but it is destined for protected areas, essential for the water supplys sustainability and climate change resilience. Food supply for the city is mainly dependent on the wider region, the so called Sabana de Bogota) plus the neighbouring departments (Bogota sin Hambre and UESP, 2005). Notwithstanding, these changes are difficult to occur due to the stickiness of a very unequal land distribution that reaches a land Gini close to 0,8 (IGAC, 2012) and the rural distribution of land is persistent since the colonial period (Ibaez and Muoz, 2011). Additionally, this falls away from the jurisdiction of the local government, making it dependent on a promising national law of land reform but that has, up to March 2013, solved little entitlement claims; it would also have to deal with weaker municipal governments in terms of their capacity to be co-opted by local elites. This is just an aspect of the PPSAN. Its range is much wider and therefore has to interact with many other policies both new and dating back from previous political

agendas. Its four strategic pillars subdivide into 18 lines of work, each of which is prone to relate to other plans, programs, strategies or actions not exclusively at the local level (see Table 2). Take for example line of work 1.4.1. on the democratization for supply infrastructure; it has its own aims including physical connectivity to through infrastructure (which articulates with the national, departmental and surrounding municipalitys governments), surveillance of transport costs and food transformation, and renovation of food markets. Table 2. Operationalization of PPSANs specific objectives Strategic pillars 1. 2. 3. Lines of work 1.1 Strengthening of peasant economy 1.2 Protection of hydric resources 1.3 Promotion of regional integration Democratization for supply infrastructure Integration of demand neighbourhood 1.4 Consolidate management networks supply in the Cultural transformation of district's localities operators/socialization of best practices Increase of operative efficiency Political, economic, social, and 1.5 Provisioning of cultural compromise with food safety nutritious and safe Inspection, vigilance and control of the food food value chain 2.1 Supply of food at just prices 2.2 Food support to populations exposed to food and nutrition vulnerability 2.3 Promotion of urban agriculture 3.1 Promotion, protection and support of breastfeeding and healthy childhood foods 3.2 Promotion and protection of healthy diets and physical exercise. 3.3 Protection and promotion of consumer rights 4.1 Promotion of healthy environments 4.2 Promotion, detection, management and control of nutritional anomalies according to a life cycle approach.

1. Food availability: sufficient, nutritional and 4. culturally adequate and safe; minimum water consumption permanent and sustainably for human consumption. 8.

10. Access for everyone to food and drinkable water in an autonomous manner and in the same conditions and opportunities. 13. Feeding practices and healthy lifestyles incorporating cultural diversity 16. Nutrition and healthy environments

It is also critical for the PPSAN to be aligned with other policies for budget reasons. Although public local expenditure on FNS has increased exponentially, it is unreasonable to believe that all such goals can be met with current budgets. It is not yet clear the strategies the local government will make use of to make the PPSANs action converge with other budgeted strategies. For example, line of action 2.2. importantly converges with the National Breast Feeding Policy as well as the Early

Childhood Strategy, both stemming from the national level but with already developed actions (and budgets that support those) at the local. One last challenge of the PPSAN hast to do with its ability to make front to global national spaces of policy that undermine its own proposal. Multiple free trade agreements have been signed by the central government with other nations. This translate into greater competition of food prices, in particular those infamously subsidized by other governments. The local response to global food problems (such as the 2007 spike of food prices and the reversal of their downward trend) needs to be sustainably undertaken. The apparition of biofuels and competing technological uses of crops and livestock. GMOs also constitute an important threat as it has changed the parameters of production internationally and nationally. Insertion into the global economy also means producing for the most favorable price; this can transform into a shift of preference of local producers towards selling in international markets while de- provisioning the local ones. Conclusions Everyone has something to be said about food and nutrition security because of its universalistic scope. All those who are alive have something to say about what sources of food and nutrition they chose, how they make those choices, and how they evaluate the decisions taken. The agrofood business understands its potential and relies on consumers response giving way to monoculture and to prevailing market conditions for which they are favored. This conflicting space involves actors from the local to the international levels. The formulation of a local government transformative policy that deals with the complexities of FNS can end up producing policy for the people but without them. In PPSANs case to avoid intervention of powerful actors that preserve the status quo a political regime can end up restricting the participative process so to have greater discretionality to alter things from the top to the bottom. Bogotas case had previous positive experiences with community engagements that helped the people make effective demands about processes in which they were involved, creating some sort of informal accountability.

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Von Einsidel, N. (1996) Strategic Urban Management: Applying the Principles of StrategicManagement to the Solution of Urban Problems, Paper presented to a CityNet Seminar,Shanghai, 7-9 November: 41-53.