Promoting traditional healthy diets is important for advancing our efforts towards a food system that respects the environment, culture and well-being of people, which is a fundamental element of sustainable development. That was the main message at an event organized today by the Government of Italy with support from FAO.
A 1,200-year-old farming and fishing site known as the “Horta” (garden) of Valencia has been recognized on the register of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), managed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

26 November 2019 from 15:00 to 16:00 CEST ( 09:00-10:00 EDT)

On Tuesday November 26th the Accelerated Reduction Effort on Anaemia (AREA) Community of Practice (CoP) is hosting the webinar: Simultaneous implementation of interventions to prevent anaemia. Are there any risks?

The webinar will explore this topic through a discussion with Professor Stanley Zlotkin and Dr Reina Engle-Stone.

More information can be found at the WHO Nutrition website here

Registration can be found here

Simultaneous implementation of interventions to prevent anaemia. Are there any risks?

Nutritional anaemias co-occur in various population groups. Thus, it is desirable to implement a combination of essential nutrition actions to address this public health problem, but it may lead to potentially excessive intakes of one or more micronutrients. This is especially relevant in settings where multiple stakeholders work to deliver public health interventions such as fortification of staple foods, biofortification and iron supplementation.

The excessive consumption of iron could have harmful consequences on the health and development of individuals and populations. They range from mild gastrointestinal side effects to increased risk of preterm delivery.

As interventions to reduce anaemia scale-up, several questions arise: Are the safety concerns justified? Is it possible to estimate the risks of delivering multiple interventions? If so, how?

Join the webinar to discuss this topic by registering here. You can also register to become a member of the AREA CoP, by clicking on the following link:

The Community of Practice (CoP) aims to support members of the global community dedicated to improving and scaling up existing methods and strategies for anaemia reduction in a holistic and cohesive manner; to build consensus for engagement in AREA at the global, regional and national level and commit to the achievement of the Global Nutrition Targets 2025 endorsed by the 65th World Health Assembly.

Through South-South Cooperation, countries across the global South are successfully exchanging technical expertise and building innovative partnerships, which if strengthened, can continue to play a crucial role in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
FAO Director-General, Qu Dongyu, said today partnerships with the private sectors are vital for raising production and nutrition levels for the world’s most vulnerable people who are poor or undernourished.
Fishing is one of the most dangerous occupations in the world, and human rights abuses are increasing in fisheries and aquaculture, FAO Deputy Director-General for Climate and Natural Resources, Maria Helena Semedo, said today.

The 2019 ZimVAC Rural Livelihoods Assessment results have been published and are ready to be shared at all levels. The dissemination exercise will be running concurrently with an update. Due to various changes that have happened resulting in shifts in the economy and environment, it has been recommended that we update the 2019 ZimVAC findings through a data collection tool which was shared with key stakeholders in advance and requires latest information from key informants at district level using a focus group approach. District teams are gathering and aggregating all the required data on the template and provincial/national teams are meeting them to validate and collect the data within the districts.

 

Overall objectives of the ZimVAC 2019 Dissemination and Update

The 2019 RLA results dissemination and Urban Livelihoods Assessment results discussion at provincial and district level is aimed at bringing results to sub-national structures in order to cater for the different levels for policy-making, programme planning and development and implementation. The dissemination will also provide a valuable platform to further discuss the implications of the results, issues/indicators that need to be monitored and provide a feedback mechanism of issues to be considered as priority in planning. A template will also be used to provide an update on the 2019 ZimVAC results on selected thematic areas with the aim to inform short, medium- and long-term interventions that address immediate needs as well as long term needs and are designed to build resilient rural and urban livelihoods. 

The specific objectives are;

  • To describe the current status at district level in terms of access to basic services such as (productive and domestic water situation), markets, prices of livestock and basic commodities.
  • To assess occurrence of diseases in livestock and malnutrition in children under the age of 5 years during the third quarter of 2019.
  • To determine livelihood opportunities currently available for the communities.
  • To determine the coverage of support programmes that aim to alleviate hunger and malnutrition amongst communities.

 

A new global atlas – the first-ever of its kind – analyses the opportunities and challenges of using Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) to monitor fishing activity around the globe.
The Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund (AHF) has contributed $9.5 million to an FAO-led project that aims to boost the resilience of farmers affected by conflict and natural disasters in 16 of Afghanistan's most food insecure provinces, the two partners announced today.
FAO and Italy’s National Research Council (CNR) have agreed to intensify their collaboration in iMarine, a cloud-based community platform to help improve fisheries management