Areas of work

The work of FAO on renewable sources of energy has been continuous since the UN conference on new and renewable sources of energy held in Nairobi in 1981 and was reflected in the World Food Summit and its Follow-up in 1996 and 2002 respectively. The issue of bioenergy and the need to emphasize that access to energy facilitates the eradication of poverty was stressed during the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development celebrated in Johannesburg in 2002.

Since then, an internal process began to assess FAO's comparative advantages - extensive technological knowledge, presence in countries and ongoing partnerships - and how best to mobilize its interdisciplinary expertise on bioenergy matters, ranging across agronomic, climatic, land use, gender, technology, industry and environmental considerations.

FAO work on energy can be substantially grouped in the following working areas:

• Bioenergy
• Energy and mechanization
• Energy and farming practices
• Energy and food loss
• Energy and fisheries

Further, FAO supports the UN-Energy initiative and is leading, jointly with UNEP, its Renewable Energy Cluster.