This paper, commissioned by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), briefl y summarizes the mandate of the newly formed global FSC; presents an analysis of the major issues and challenges it faces; and provides recommendations to donors and the global FSC for possible ways to address these issues. The paper draws on interviews with key informants and four individual country case studies of food security coordination through the cluster system. Interviews were conducted with a cross section of diff erent categories of stakeholders, including UN agencies, donors, national governments, local and international NGOs, academics and the global FSC itself. A qualitative analysis of the interviews and case studies highlighted six major issues facing the global FSC. Leadership of clusters and coordination. Several important considerations on the issue of leadership emerged from the interviews and case studies, including the circumstances in which the UN should lead on coordination; the issue of multiple lead agencies; and the separation of coordination tasks from the agenda of the lead agency.