UN system machinery for coordinating follow-up to the World Food Summit.

FAO [UN Food and Agriculture Organization] does not stand alone in implementing and monitoring the Summit Plan of Action. Commitments 7.2 and 7.3 give responsibility to the UN's Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC) for coordinating interagency follow-up and to the Economic and Social Committee (ECOSOC) for receiving progress reports from FAO and other agencies. The UN General Assembly in December 1996 welcomed the outcome of the Summit and received FAO's first report on it at its 1997 session. The ACC has launched interagency follow-up by establishing the ACC Network on Rural Development and Food Security, as proposed jointly by FAO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). More than 16 UN agencies have joined and the UN Secretary-General has welcomed the intention to involve civil society and the emphasis placed on country-level action in the two-tiered network. All FAO country representatives and UN resident coordinators have been asked to help in setting up interagency thematic groups on rural development and food security at the country level. FAO has introduced a website for the network within SD Dimensions (http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/sustdev). ECOSOC has welcomed the ACC's decision to include follow-up to the World Food Summit within the context of the integrated follow-up process of all major UN conferences and summits. With these decisions, the machinery has been set in motion for early and sustained support from both interagency and intergovernmental bodies to national efforts to implement the Plan of Action.