World Water Week 2019: Water for society – Including all

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

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FAO highlights the great potential of genetic improvements in aquaculture for better food security

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

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.

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Condolences for former Director-General Jacques Diouf

FAO offers condolences to the family of former Director-General Jacques Diouf who has passed away at the age of 81.
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Call for papers: Advancing Healthy Food Environments for Sustainable Diets

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.

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One year on, close to 5 million pigs lost to Asia’s swine fever outbreak

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.
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We need better stewardship of our land to tackle climate change, safeguard food security and conserve biodiversity

FAO welcomes the IPCC special report released today, which gives a comprehensive and stark account on the damages being done to our planet, highlighting how unsustainable agricultural practices can turn land from an ally into a foe when it comes to climate change, and putting forward workable solutions to reduce or reverse these negative trends.
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Call for experts for updating FAO/WHO recommendations on nutrient requirements for children aged 0 –36 months

BACKGROUND

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition, 2016 – 2025 (Nutrition Decade) which was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly as follow-up to the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) held in 2014, are bringing a renewed momentum for Nutrition with a clear expectation for a leadership role reaffirmed for FAO and WHO in providing evidence-informed guidance on nutrition and healthy diets.

Key to achieving the global nutrition goals and commitments is ensuring an adequate, healthy diet in infants and young children so that they can develop into healthy, productive adults. Proper infant and young child feeding is critical for improving child survival and promoting healthy growth and development, with the first two years of a child’s life being particularly important, as optimal nutrition during this period lowers morbidity and mortality, reduces the risk of noncommunicable disease, and fosters overall development. A key component of optimal nutrition during childhood and beyond is the adequate (but not excessive) intake of important micro- and macronutrients.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) established vitamin and mineral requirements for all age groups in 2004. Since this time, new data have emerged suggesting that requirements for some micronutrients may need to be updated, particularly for children. Therefore, and in part to inform the planned updating of WHO guidance on complementary feeding, the FAO Nutrition and Food Systems Division (ESN) and the WHO Department of Nutrition for Health and Development (NHD) are establishing an expert group on nutrient requirements which will update nutrient requirements for children aged 0 – 36 months, following the WHO guideline development process and in line with Article 6 of the FAO Constitution.

Prior to initiating the guideline development process, WHO conducted an initial review of the recent scientific literature on nutrient requirements, and compilation of national dietary guidelines from all regions, containing detailed information about nutrient requirements in the age group of interest. Using the data obtained from this preparatory work, FAO and WHO were able to prioritise the nutrients to be updated. The first nutrients to be updated by the expert group will be calcium, vitamin D, and zinc.

FAO and WHO are therefore currently seeking to identify experts who would be able to serve in the expert group that will be updating the nutrient requirements for children aged 0 – 36 months.

INFORMATION FOR EXPERTS

Qualifications

Successful candidates should meet most or all of the following qualifications:

• Expertise in one or more subject matter areas as listed below
• Experience in developing nutrient requirements, in particular for children aged 0 – 36 months
• Good knowledge of the English language, both written and oral
• An advanced degree in a nutrition or other relevant discipline
• Ability to contribute to the preparation of scientific documents and to work in an international environment with scientists from various disciplines
• Recent, relevant scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals
• Leadership, or invited participation, in national or international scientific bodies, committees and other expert advisory bodies pertinent to the scope of this work

Subject matter expertise needed

• Micronutrient metabolism, bioavailability, deficiencies and related areas, particularly for calcium, vitamin D, and/or zinc
• Infant and young child feeding
• Methodologies relevant to the establishment of nutrient requirements (e.g. depletion-repletion studies, nutrient balance studies, biomarker assessment, etc.)
• Nutrition epidemiology (including assessment of RCTs, prospective observational studies, etc.)
• Evidence review methodologies (e.g. expertise in assessing evidence and developing guidelines, experts in GRADE methodology, experts in undertaking systematic reviews)
• Dietary assessment

Expert activities

Experts will contribute to the following activities as part of the guideline development process:

• providing input into the scope of the guidelines
• developing key questions (in PICO format) that will guide evidence reviews
• prioritizing important outcomes for decision-making and developing recommendations
• examining and interpreting the evidence, with explicit consideration of the overall balance of risks and benefits
• formulating recommendations taking into account benefits, harms, values and preferences, feasibility, equity, acceptability, resource requirements and other factors, as appropriate
• identifying research gaps
• reviewing the final guideline document

SUBMITTING AN APPLICATION

Interested parties should submit the following documents via the submission form at https://extranet.who.int/dataform/258175 :

1. Curriculum vitae, including
• detailed education background;
• relevant work experience; and
• list of peer-reviewed publications.

2. Completed Declaration of Interests (DOI) form
• PDF and Word versions of the DOI form, along with documents providing guidance on completing the DOI form can be downloaded at https://extranet.who.int/dataform/258175

3. Signed Confidentiality Undertaking
• This document can be downloaded at https://extranet.who.int/dataform/258175

Process for selection of experts

• Each curriculum vitae will be reviewed to assess whether the applicant meets the qualifications and has relevant expertise in the subject matter areas listed above.

• Declaration of Interest forms will be reviewed. Any potential or perceived conflicts of interest disclosed in the Declaration of Interests form will be considered in the selection process.

• In addition to subject matter expertise, the selection of experts will also take into consideration diversity and complementarities of expertise, a balance of genders and balanced representation from FAO/WHO geographic regions including developing and developed countries.

• Representatives of commercial organizations may not serve as experts. They may be invited to attend part of the meeting as external resource persons, if required, but may not be present at the meeting when recommendations are being formulated.

Selected experts will be invited to contribute only in their individual capacity as experts and will not represent their government, nor their institution. The names and brief biographies of selected experts will be published to the FAO and WHO websites.

Completing the updating of requirements for all nutrients is expected to take several years, as nutrients will be updated 3 – 4 at a time. The expert group will be expected to meet once a year. The meetings will be in English only and all documents including systematic reviews will be prepared in English. Travel and per diem to attend the meetings will be covered by FAO and WHO. No honoraria will be provided.

Documents must be submitted by 15 September 2019 to be eligible for consideration. Documents can be submitted through the online submission form at https://extranet.who.int/dataform/258175. Detailed instructions for submitting documents are provided in the online form.

This call for experts is also cross-posted at http://www.fao.org/nutrition/requirements/.

Questions regarding the call for experts should be addressed to NPUinfo@who.int.

For more information please visit https://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/callforexperts-nutrient-requirements/.

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IPCC special report: Climate Change and Land

An IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems

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Greater resilience needed for African food security in the face of climate change

Resilience must be boosted in Africa in response to climate change, according to participants at the high-level Africa Food Security Leadership Dialogue hosted by the Government of Rwanda in Kigali (5-6 August), in partnership with FAO.
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Kuwait supports efforts to reduce hunger in Syria

Kuwait and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have strengthened their partnership to help Syrian farmers and herders recover and boost their food security and nutrition - all thanks to a $3 million contribution from Kuwait to benefit some 20,000 highly vulnerable people and their extended families.
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Italy and FAO confirm strategic partnership, including joint efforts to eradicate hunger and malnutrition

Qu, who took office as the UN agency's chief just last week (1 August), met Conte at the Italian Prime Minister's office, Palazzo Chigi. Conte reaffirmed Italy's partnership with FAO and agreed to visit the agency's headquarters soon.
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