Ban Ki-moon appoint Gerda Verbrg, new coordinator SUN Movement

NaijaAgroNet:

The Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) Mr. Ban Ki-moon has appointed former German Agriculture Minister, Gerda Verburg as the new Coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Mr. Ki-moon, NaijaAgroNet gave this approve in February 2016 with the anticipation that Madam Gerda Verburg will assume full office by August 2, 2016.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that Gerda had participated in the 2016 Women Deliver Conference on May 16 through 19, to demonstrate that empowering women is essential for sustaining improvements in the nutrition status of everyone, everywhere. 

She spoke recently at the European Development Days held between June 15 and 16, about the centrality of nutrition to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the action needed from European development partners to build country nutrition capacity.

NaijaAgroNet also gathered that this came as SUN countries in the last quarter, shared their experiences through two virtual meetings of the SUN Country Network, discussing national commitments and setting nutrition targets, and the steps you are taking to build and sustain political commitment for nutrition action.

Arnold said, SUN Countries from across Asia came together in a regional workshop, held in Bangkok on April 25 through 27, to mobilise public finance for nutrition and another workshop to be held in Nairobi, Kenya between August 22 and 25, 2016 for African SUN countries.

SUN, is a unique movement founded on the principle that all people have a right to food and good nutrition and tends to unite people from governments, civil society, the United Nations, donors, businesses and researchers—in a collective effort to improve nutrition.

Remmy Nweke/ED, Ops

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 Pix: Gerda Verburg

Papua New Guinea, Uttar Pradesh, join Scaling Up Nutrition movement

NaijaAgroNet:

The Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement has announced the joining of the campaign by two states, namely Papua New Guinea and the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Interim Coordinator of the SUN Movement, Tom Arnold, disclosed this to NaijaAgroNet as part of the update on new phase of the campaign, which he was delighted has continued to grow and inspire transformative action as part of the collective efforts at improving nutrition.

He said that so far, in this first half of the year, the SUN Movement has welcomed Papua New Guinea and the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh as its newest members.

According to him, a new Strategy and Roadmap (2016-2020) has been developed with a consultative process, supervised by SUN Movement Executive Committee. 

“It will be launched by the Lead Group in September,” he said.

Arnold equally commended the respective nutrition communities for their contributions and commitment through the SUN Movement’s Annual Joint-Assessment exercise to consider progress and define future priorities.

“Congratulations to you all on sustaining the momentum and your continued efforts to drive the SUN Movement forward,” he said.

Nigeria has been a member of SUN Movement since November 14, 2011.

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Pix: Interim Coordinator, SUN Movement, Tom Arnold

African media urged to leverage WBG’s 9,000 open data to boost good governance

NaijaAgroNet:

Africa media practitioners have been urged to leverage on the World Bank’s estimated 9,000 open data on agriculture, so as to give drive to good governance, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Making this call recently at a 3-day workshop on reporting agriculture hosted by the Africa Media Initiative (AMI) in conjunction with the World Bank in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, the Lead Operations Officer, World Bank Institute’s Global Media Development programme, Mr. Craig Hammer advised participants to explore the power of open data to improve the state of content on agriculture and other sectors of the economy.

He disclosed that World Bank Group, for instance, has over 9,000 development indicators opened including data on health, nutrition, population, gender, poverty and equity, jobs, climate change to name a few.

“There are microdata on 650,000 variables from 1,200 surveys in addition to over 150,000 analyses, reports,” he said.

According to him by leveraging open data, media practitioners on the continent will spur good governance because open data has evidence to drive its story or information.

Hammer, whose presentation was on ‘Data-Driven Journalism Media,’ defined data as information that has been translated into a form that is more convenient to analyze, pointing out that nowadays, the world thrives on three distinct avenues, more so for media practitioners, comprising having access to information and open data, finding agriculture data with today’s relevance.

Showcasing where media fits in open data usage in what he described as information circle, Hammer described media as a watchdog that discloses to the public in real time relevant infomation; microscope which helps to simplify technical governance information thereby promoting accessibility by the public and facilitate engagement.

He also said that by way of media being a megaphone, it helps with the dissemination of now accessible governance information through various channels available to practitioners.

Equally, Hammer said the aforementioned would assist the citizens to understand, discuss and eventually offer feedback for the government to respond adequately.

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Experts list key dominant food trade in sub-Saharan

NaijaAgroNet:

Experts at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Food and Agriculture Orgaanisation (FAO) have projected some key dominant food trade to be expected in the next nine years, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This was contained in the latest Agricultural Outlook by the two organistion, saying that the bulk of all commodity exports will continue to originate in just a few countries, noting that imports, however, will be far less concentrated among countries, although China is projected to remain a critical market for some commodities, in particular soybeans. 

The duo of OECD and FAO emphasised the importance of well-functioning markets in enabling food to flow from surplus to deficit regions and improving food security.

At the Outlook's launch in Rome, OECD Secretary General Angel Gurría said: "Although we are now witnessing a period of lower agricultural prices, we need to remain alert as changes in markets can take place rapidly.”

He also said that the key priority for governments in the current context is to implement policies that will increase agricultural productivity in a coherent and sustainable way. Getting our agricultural policies right is critical to end hunger and undernourishment in the decades to come.

"Significant production growth is needed to meet the expanding demand for food, feed and raw products for industrial uses, and all of these have to be done in a sustainable way," said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva. 

"We are optimistic that most of that future demand for agricultural commodities will be mainly met through productivity gains rather than expansion of crop area or livestock herds," Gurria said.

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Sub-Saharan: OECD, FAO optimistic to end high agro price regimes

NaijaAgroNet:

The 20^th joint edition of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Food and Agriculture Orgaanisation (FAO) has shown optimistic of ending high price regime of agricultural products in the Sub-Saharan Africa, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The outlook published Monday and made available to NaijaAgroNet, projected that inflation-adjusted agricultural commodity prices will remain relatively flat overall in the coming decade. However, livestock prices are expected to rise relative to those for crops.

They noted that as incomes improve, especially in emerging economies, demand for meat, fish and poultry will demonstrate strong growth, stressing that this creates additional demand for feed, particularly from coarse grains and protein meals, causing their prices to rise prices relative to food staples such as wheat and rice.

The duo also noted that globally, the increased demand for food and feed for a growing and more affluent population is projected to be mostly met through productivity gains. Yield improvements are expected to account for about 80 percent of the increase in crop output.

In line with the baseline analysis made in the Outlook, under a "business as usual" scenario -- in which agricultural productivity grows at the current trend rate and no major action is taken to reduce hunger -- projected growth in food availability would result in a reduction in the number of undernourished people in the world from around 800 million now to under 650 million in 2025.

The analysis indicates that in sub-Saharan Africa the rate of undernourishment would decline an estimated 23 to 19 percent -- but because of rapid population growth the region would still account for a rising share of the world's population suffering from hunger.

This implies that without decisive steps to move away from business-as-usual, hunger would not be eradicated by 2030 - the global target recently adopted by the international community - and that decisive action is needed.

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IBM partners Techplus on agricultural challenges w...

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Gender dimension deserves consideration in global agric practice - World Bank

NaijaAgroNet:

The Head of Communications for Agriculture Global Practice at World Bank, Mr. Sarwat Hussain, has called for the consideration of gender dimension to ensure improved global agriculture practice, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Speaking recently at a three-day media workshop hosted by the Africa Media Initiative (AMI) in collaboration with the World Bank in Abidjan, Mr. Hussain said that women have been the link between food, household nutrition and family health.

He also said that this position by women gender deserves encouragement, since of the aforementioned outlines go through women primarily.

Hussain equally said that agriculture is a single opportunity for the transformation of emerging economies, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Stressing that productive increases in agriculture have all round benefits across the economy as with every dollar investment returns and even more depending on other sectors and other crops.

“… if you have a productive vibrant agriculture is the source of well-being and prosperity as countries have shown by focusing on sustainable agriculture for the benefit of all,“ he said.

 

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Pix: Eric Chinje of AMI and Sarwat Hussain of World Bank at the workshop.