Agriculture is crucial to Africa’s development but needs increased mechanization to boost economic productivity, reduce harvest and post-harvest losses and meet growing demand for food. This is one of the messages that has emerged during the seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7).

In an effort to present nutrition related news at the global and country level, UNSCN and the UNN Secretariats are teaming up to produce the first comprehensive overview of recent developments supported and/or coordinated by the UN system.

The third issue for 2019 includes:

  • UNN analytics anchor discussions on nutrition investment in Mali
  • Bringing nutrition beyond Rome
  • The Philippines: The land of many islands and nutrition achievements
  • Towards Voluntary Guidelines for Food systems and Nutrition
  • UN nutrition lobbying starts to pay off in Liberia
  • Improving diets for human and planetary health
  • Publications and a calendar of nutrition related events

 Sign up for UNSCN E-Alerts and E-Newsletters here.

On the sidelines of the seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7), UNIDO, FAO and the African Union launched the Flagship Initiative to Accelerate Youth Employment in Agriculture and Agribusiness in Africa.

The 10th Nutritional & Health-related Environmental Studies Newsletter features the following articles.

Meeting & News

  • Scientists converge in Kingston, Jamaica to learn how to assess gut dysfunction using a stable isotope technique
  • Project meetings on assessing vitamin A body pools
  • Bringing stable isotope techniques closer to the people through e-learning platforms
  • Nuclear Techniques for Better Nutrition
  • Student’s visit from Wageningen University and University of Vienna
  • Double Burden of Malnutrition - Symposium Follow-Up Report
  • Results of FTIR use and ownership survey 2018

New publications

  • Measuring growth and medium- and longer-term outcomes in malnourished children
  • Challenges and opportunities to tackle the rising prevalence of diet-related non-communicable diseases in Africa
  • IAEA Human Health Series No. 35

Success stories

  • Dispatch from the warm heart of Africa: How nuclear techniques are contributing to understanding the double burden of malnutrition in Malawi
  • A day in the life of an IAEA nutrition expert

NAHRES Special

  • Launch of the UNSCN Nutrition 44 - Food environments: Where people meet the food system

You can download you copy here.

In their fight to end hunger and improve nutrition, African countries have the opportunity to tap into Japan’s knowledge of smart technologies, agricultural machinery and marketing, as well as from the East Asian nation’s high food safety and nutrition standards,said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu today.
Slow Food and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are organizing a study tour this week in northwest Italy for a group of Syrian small-scale women farmers.

25-30 August 2019, Tele2 Arena, Stockholm (Sweden)

World Water Week is the annual focal point for the globe’s water issues. It is organized by SIWI. In 2019, World Water Week will address the theme “Water for society – Including all ”.

The Week provides a unique forum for the exchange of views, experiences and practices between the scientific, business, policy and civic communities. It focuses on new thinking and positive action toward water-related challenges and their impact on the world’s environment, health, climate, economic and poverty reduction agendas by:

  • Linking scientific understanding with policy and decision-making to develop concrete solutions to water, environment and development challenges
  • Fostering proactive partnerships and alliances between individuals and organisations from different fields of expertise
  • Highlighting ground-breaking research, best practices and innovative policy work by stakeholders and experts around the world and from multiple disciplines
  • Reviewing the implementation of actions, commitments and decisions in international processes and by different stakeholders in response to the challenge
  • Awarding outstanding achievements

In 2018, over 3,300 individuals and around 380 convening organizations from 135 countries participated in the Week.

Programme

Registration

Wider, appropriate and long-term application of genetic improvement in aquaculture, with a focus on selective breeding, will help boost food production to meet a projected increase in demand for fish with relatively little extra feed, land, water and other inputs, according to a new FAO report launched today.

In many countries, the link between rural and urban areas is an increasingly important area of focus for sustainable development. There is also general agreement that any development of urban, peri-urban and rural areas should be “integrated”. The ten Guiding Principles and the Framework for Action outlining eleven areas of action are based on the premise that urban and rural areas should not be treated as separate entities when developing plans, policies and strategies. Rather, the aim is to harness the potential that their combined synergy generates.

Flyer

Urban-Rural Linkages: Guiding Principles and Framework for Action to Advance Integrated Territorial Development

UN-Habitat, in collaboration with the Food for Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other partners, organized a side event during the first UN-Habitat assembly titled “Strengthening urban-rural linkages to reduce spatial inequalities and poverty by leveraging sustainable food systems actions”.
The event brought together actors and partners from organizations working in both urban and rural sectors but also working on themes such as food, climate change, biodiversity, urban and territorial planning, economic development and finance. The event was attended by representatives of national governments, sub-national governments, civil society and other international organizations.

Following the side event at the closing plenary of the UN Habitat Assembly, Member States adopted a resolution on “Enhancing urban-rural linkages for sustainable urbanization and human settlements”, calling for new mechanisms to take into account urban-rural linkages, awareness raising and sharing of good practices, including addressing migration from rural to urban areas and providing a report on progress in four years at the next UN-Habitat Assembly.

Please find here the complete report of the side event.

FAO offers condolences to the family of former Director-General Jacques Diouf who has passed away at the age of 81.

Deadline for submission: 14 February 2020

Call for Papers for a new Special Issue in the journal Foods titled, "Advancing Healthy Food Environments for Sustainable Diets in a Changing World".

Manuscripts should address food environment and/or sustainable diet topics, including their linkages. Contributions may include literature reviews, conceptual advances, methodological advances, community-based case studies, empirical field studies, and big data analyses. The editorial team is interested in contributions from diverse socioecological perspectives across a range of food environments from wild and cultivated food environments to informal and formal market food environments situated in indigenous, rural, and urban food systems.

More information about the call and instructions for the submission available here.

Almost 5 million pigs in Asia have now died or been culled because of the spread of African swine fever (ASF), a contagious viral disease that affects domestic and wild pigs and that was first detected in Asia one year ago this month.