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Everyone cares about food security. But not everyone shares the same vision of how to pursue it. How can diverse organizations work together to achieve common goals?
That was the topic of discussion when GIFSL Executive Director Will Hueston and Dan Gustafson, director of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) liaison office in Washington, D.C., met with representatives of Heifer International at their headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas, in February to explore opportunities for partnership.
Heifer International (HI) is a nonprofit organization founded more than 60 years ago to improve food security by building production capacity at the local level, with a focus on family farms. FAO is focused on food security on a global scale.
“We talked about how FAO might work with Heifer, the expertise they might share,” Hueston said.
Hueston noted at the meeting that food security is a classical “wicked problem”—it’s hard to define, it’s a moving target, and it’s socially complex. The best way to take on such challenges, he said, is by coming at them from all directions, with multiple strategies. Even though it’s not always easy for organizations with very different scales and approaches to collaborate, it’s a key to success under such circumstances.
How might HI and FAO work together to improve food security?
The first step, Hueston said, is finding common ground. Both organizations, he pointed out, are science-based, work within cultural settings, strive to empower and improve assets of the communities they serve, and have a strong commitment to education.
Next is bringing unique strengths to bear on creating solutions. For example, HI might focus on empowering individual farm families in bolstering food security in a region, while FAO could help muster technologies to contribute.
Hueston encouraged meeting participants to take advantage of the shared-leadership model that emerged from the international work session GIFSL spearheaded in Bellagio, Italy, in December 2008. That meeting homed in on key leadership competencies of communication; a commitment to work across boundaries and disciplines; collective vision and influence; and the ability to create change. Such traits, Hueston said, are critical to forming effective partnerships.
“Down the road, we might someday be able to partner with these organizations,” he said, “so the work they do around the world can contribute to the ability of people around the world to develop not only skills and knowledge, but also some types of credentials to become more influential.”
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