APN Advocacy Officer Heather Elaydi was in Rome from 11-19 October, 2016, for meetings of the Civil Society Mechanism (CSM) of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), and for the 43rd Annual Plenary Session of the CFS.

\The meetings included a two-day sitting of the Coordinating Committee of the CSM, where APN General Manager Mariam Al Jaajaa, who was unable to attend, serves as representative for West Asia.

APN priorities for the meeting included moving forward on establishing a constituency for communities living in protracted crises, and ensuring regional representation, specifically with the inclusion of a member from Asia, within the civil society Advisory Group of the CFS. The annual CSM Forum was also held, where updates on the CSM Protracted Crises working group, coordinated by APN, were presented to more than 200 civil society organizations from around the globe who were in attendance.

Elaydi also participated in the panel discussion of a CFS43 side event on Monitoring of CFS Decisions, where she spoke about the need to monitor the progress of the dissemination and implementation of the Framework for Action for Food Security and Nutrition in Protracted Crises (FFA).

Several recommendations on how to move forward with the FFA were presented, and were well-received by the participants of the event as well as by the panelists. Other speakers on the panel included representatives of the governments of France and Brazil, the FAO, and the CSM working group on monitoring. Approximately 100 participants were present at the event.