FAO starts distribution of much-needed seeds and tools in cyclone-ravaged Mozambique

Farmers in areas left devastated by Tropical Cyclone Idai in Mozambique have started to receive much-needed agricultural inputs thanks to a joint effort by FAO and Mozambique’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to assist farmers to plant in the impending secondary growing season.
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The Green Climate Fund allocates $25 million to support FAO climate resilience project in Paraguay

The five-year project aims to benefit 17 000 vulnerable families, including those from indigenous communities, who depend on forests for their livelihoods, energy and income, by supporting the government’s efforts to safeguard Paraguay's forests.
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Sida, FAO and ECOWAS join forces to protect West Africa’s forests

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have joined forces to protect West Africa’s forests and help safeguard the livelihoods of millions of people who depend on them.
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Combatting all forms of malnutrition and promoting innovation in agriculture top FAO priorities over next two years

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva in an opening address today to the organization's executive, the Council, has stressed that FAO will focus over the next two years on promoting nutrition-sensitive food systems and innovation in agriculture.
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Joint child malnutrition estimates – Levels and trends, 2019 edition

The UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Group team released new joint estimates for child stunting, overweight, underweight, wasting and severe wasting (March 2019 edition) using the same methodology as in previous years. These new estimates supersede former analyses results published by UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank Group. Note the entire time series is updated; for assessing changes over time, comparisons should be made based on the update time series.

Given that country data are at maximum available from surveys conducted in the year previous to when the modelling exercise takes place, in 2019 the joint estimates were derived up to 2018 with extrapolation for stunting until 2030. 

The key findings of the joint malnutrition estimates (2019 edition), interactive dashboard, joint data set, regional and global joint estimate tables (2019 edition) and updated 2019 regional classifications are available online.

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FAO guide outlines how to protect forests from invasive insects

To facilitate adoption of classic biological control, FAO has published a guide that distills information in a clear and concise way to help forest managers in developing countries implement it successfully.
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FAO Food Price Index holds steady

The FAO Food Price Index held broadly stable in March. FAO also released new figures on the world’s cereal production and inventory levels, reflecting major upward adjustments made on the back of China’s 2017 agricultural census.
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FAO chief calls for innovative approaches and investments to ensure enough water for everyone in the Near East and North Africa

Scaling up innovation, policies and investments in the NENA's water sector is vital “to prevent water scarcity from setting us back in our ambitious vision of eradicating all forms of malnutrition, sustaining peace and leaving no one behind”, FAO Director-General said at the Land and Water Days in Cairo today.
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FAO and ADEPT partnership focuses on links between migration, agriculture and rural development

The agreement, signed in Brussels on the side-lines of the high-level event on Food and Agriculture in Times of Crises, marks the beginning of a formal collaboration in the areas of migration and rural development, with a focus on diaspora-related issues and agribusiness.
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New standards to curb the global spread of plant pests and diseases

The body charged with keeping plant pests and diseases at bay and trade in plants safe adopted new international measures to prevent pests from crossing borders and spreading. The standards, including protocols to block highly invasive pests such as Xylella fastidiosa and the oriental fruit fly, were approved during the Commission on Phytosanitary Measures’ (CPM) annual meeting this week.
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Monitoring and Evaluating for Inclusive and Sustainable Food Systems

3 and 4 April 2019
WICC Wageningen, the Netherlands

In order to deliver on the 2030 SDG- Agenda, we need to improve on the performance of food systems. 'Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals cannot happen without ending hunger and malnutrition and without having sustainable and resilient, climate-compatible agriculture and food systems that deliver for people and planet. (Source: UN Zero Hunger Challenge - ZHC).

Better understanding of and support for inclusive and sustainable food systems is needed for improved food systems. What effective role should monitoring and evaluation play in this? New evaluation approaches need to be developed to cope with the dynamic and complex nature of food systems, which feature multiple perspectives, multiple levels, multiple actors with multiple goals operating in multiple sectors.  

The main question of the conference is: “How should and can monitoring and evaluation support the transition towards inclusive and sustainable food systems?”

Sub-questions:

  • How should M&E support food system change, in all its multiple levels, with actors in multiple sectors with multiple incentives and goals?
  • How should M&E also engage with and assist the inevitable trade-offs between competing and perhaps contradictory consequences?

A working conference

The conference will be a working conference, where space is created to share, dialogue and co-create, so as to connect different perspectives, models and experiences on M&E that support inclusive and sustainable food systems. We will use a systems perspective and methods for pulling together ideas generated in the conference. This conference builds on the WUR SDG conference focusing on SDG2 and SDG 17, building alliances between different partners that work towards inclusive and sustainable food systems, where M&E can and should play a crucial supportive role.

The conference aims to generate practical ideas and partnerships for monitoring and evaluation based on principles that support of transition towards inclusive and sustainable food systems.

Find all information here.

Register here.

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Global Report on Food Crises: acute hunger still affecting over 100 million people worldwide

The Global Report on Food Crises 2019 presented today jointly by the European Union, FAO, and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) finds that around 113 million people in 53 countries experienced acute food insecurity in 2018, compared to 124 million in 2017.
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