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Showing posts with label meeting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meeting. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

FAO, IFAD, WFP host joint high-level meeting on El Nino impact

The rise on impact of El Niño climate devastation on agriculture in the Central America’s Dry Corridor has forced the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) to organize a high-level meeting in Rome, tomorrow, June 30, 2016, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Central America, NaijaAgroNet gathered has become one of the worst droughts zones in decades leaving some 3.5 million people food insecure, with most affected countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras having estimated 2.8 million people who are dependent on food aid.

The high-level meeting in Rome, NaijaAgroNet reports, would focus on the urgent need for long-term action to address the impact of El Niño, including building resilience for food security and nutrition for the most vulnerable populations in the affected countries.

NaijaAgroNet further gathered that El Niño and its counterpart La Niña occur cyclically, but in recent years, mainly due to the effects of global climate change, extreme weather events associated with these phenomena, such as droughts and floods, have increased in frequency and severity.

As said by FAO’s Peter Mayer, IFAD’s Joanne Levitan, and WFP’s Frances Kennedy, in a joint press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet, this situation has put at risk the livelihoods of millions of small-scale family farmers in the Dry Corridor, many of whom are heavily dependent on subsistence agriculture.

The trio equally clarified that the aim of the high-level meeting is to increase awareness of and the response to, this protracted and recurrent crisis, and to mobilize the international community to support the efforts of governments, UN agencies and other partners.

This includes strengthening of early warning systems, disaster risk management, and improving preparedness and coordination for emergency responses at national and regional levels.

In addition to relief work, they said, responding to the impacts of El Niño requires investing in improving poor rural communities’ ability to access land, credit and other resources while also ensuring they are provided with basic services like water, sanitation, health, education, transport infrastructure and electricity.  


Just as the FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva, IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze, and World Food Programme Executive Director Ertharin Cousin, would deliver the opening remarks, while the meeting would include a roundtable session with ministers from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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Sunday, March 2, 2014

NENA countries pledge cooperation on hunger, nutrition

 Governments from the Near East and North Africa (NENA) has wrapped up a five-day meeting on regional food security challenges pledging enhanced cooperation to tackle the critical issues of water management, food waste and building more resilient rural communities, reports NaijAgroNet.

The communiqué made available to NaijAgroNet after the 32nd regional conference of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for the Near East and North Africa, endorsed three key proposals tabled during the talks.

NaijAgroNet also reports that the first was a regional strategy framework to bring countries together to improve food security and nutrition. Though at present, the number of undernourished people in the 19 countries of the Near East and North Africa remains high at nearly 43.7 million, or 10 per cent of the population.

Reducing those numbers while coping with a ongoing population growth, increasing scarcity of natural resources and climate change will require much closer inter-governmental cooperation.

The framework endorsed today calls on governments to work together to  address lagging productivity growth through increased investment in research and development; improvements to supply chain efficiencies that will reduce exposure to market volatility and other shocks; and strengthened safety nets and nutrition education programs.

The creation of strategic regional cereal reserves to help offset spikes in commodity prices is another tool considered by the framework.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE




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