From the onset, the Director-General highlighted that the world has continued to change rapidly since the Council met last time in July, noting that the adjustments introduced in the Organization have helped FAO to react better to the new normal and better serve its Members.
The European Union, FAO and Paradise Foods Ltd aim to improve opportunities for smallholder farmers in the cocoa sector
The United Nations General Assembly declared 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and boost economic development. Due to COVID-19, the Year has been extended beyond the first half of 2021.
More than 3 billion people live in agricultural areas with high to very high levels of water shortages and scarcity, and freshwater resources per person have declined by more than 20 percent over the past two decades, FAO's SOFA 2020 report says.
Global leaders called today for an urgent action to transform agri-food systems to make them more sustainable and resilient in the face of COVID-19 pandemic and other crises, and ensure that everyone has access to affordable, healthy and nutritious food.

25 November 2020, 14:00 to 16.30 (CET)

Register here: https://ec4nut.blumm.it/event/ar/5/mdd-w-from-collection-to-action-25-11-2020 
(open until 23 November 2020)

The high-level policy event will emphasize the relevance of MDD-W in the broader context of healthy and sustainable diets and food systems transformation.

Presenters will illustrate how MDD-W data can be used for promoting inclusive food security and nutrition policies at national, regional and global level, as well as for tracking the progress on SDGs, the Nutrition for Growth commitments and the UN Food Systems Summit Action Tracks. The objective is to encourage the political support and mobilization of resources for the MDD-W indicator's continued and scaled-up use with the aim to measure progress towards improving diet quality and at the same time raising awareness on gender-specific dietary needs.

Download the programme here

Duty Station: Bruxelles

Deadline for application: 07 December 2020

Vacancy announcement

25, 26, 27, 30 November and 1, 3 December 2020

The 3rd Global Conference of the Sustainable Food Systems Programme will be held virtually.

The purpose of this 3rd global conference is to to provide substantial input to the UN Food Systems Summit that is tentatively scheduled for the third quarter of 2021, building on the achievements of the SFS Programme’s membership during the first five years of implementation as well as the outcomes of the Programme’s previous two global conferences.

Previous editions of the conference harnessed consensus on a range of priority areas for action. The 1st global conference in South Africa concluded with the Pretoria Resolution, while the 2nd global conference in Costa Rica finalized with the San José Call to Action.

Objectives and outcomes

Following the San José Call to Action of the SFS Programme’s 2nd conference, the objectives of this meeting are:

  • To strengthen the common vision that suggests that only through inclusive multi-stakeholder collaboration will we be able to achieve the profound transformation, through a set of key actions and implementation mechanisms, that our food systems require;
  • To provide a platform for structured discussion around the science underlying global efforts to characterize and assess progress towards more sustainable food systems;
  • and, overall, to raise the political importance of sustainable food systems among public and private sector leaders.

The expected outcomes of the conference are:

  • To provide science-based recommendations on the range of actions that can advance food systems transformation within the priority areas identified in the outcome of the 2nd global conference, in contribution to the Action Tracks of the Food Systems Summit 2021; and
  • To provide recommendations that can help define the implementation mechanisms (including accountability mechanisms) for such recommended actions.
Speaking at the G20 Leaders' Summit hosted virtually by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qu Dongyu acknowledged the concrete efforts made so far by G20 members to keep food supply chains alive and food trade flowing amid the pandemic, and encouraged countries to continue using trade "to boost farmers' productivity, income and sustainability."
The heads of the the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), and the World Health Organization (WHO) today launched the new One Health Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance.