Global challenges
The "zero draft" is a very good basis for refinement. It obviously results from substantial work and, I imagine, a multiplicity of previous drafts! last sentence.
A few comments:
-- The first 4+ pages will benefit for further editing, including streamlining...
-- In several places there are references to "comprehensive policies and actions" (e.g. in #35, principle 3 and #34, principle 4). These might be modified to refer to "coherent and comprehensive policies and actions"
-- In #32 (Principle 2), sub-paragraph 'iv' is unclear. Might the intention be: "However, this is not a valid reason for cooperation partners to by-pass national structures. They should continue to respect the tenets underlying country ownership...strategies and implementation and, where necessary, support capacity development to achieve this"?
-- In #33(iii) it is said that "comprehensive analyses...require joint and coordinated assessments". Unless I am already out-of-date, recent inter-agency discussions and guidance have distinguished between "joint assessments" and "coordinated assessments" with the former being the rarely-achievable ideal and the latter being what might be realistic to aim for in most situations while advocating for at least joint analyses. Might the reference to "joint and coordinated assessments" be replaced by "coordinated or, preferably joint, assessments" or, even better, "joint analyses based on coordinated assessments"?
I hope this might be helpful. Best (Ron)
Sr. Ron Ockwell
Hi Florence,
Hector Malett’s third contribution referenced below is far more optimistic about future food production and supplies than most predictions I’ve seen. If the figures he quotes are correct, why is it that so many other ‘experts’ are foreseeing food supply problems in the coming decades? Have they not examined the same data, or do they interpret them differently? Can someone (in FAO or elsewhere) please explain.
But there seems to be another issue that Hector does not take into account: the (unsustainable) current contribution of agriculture - including both crops and animal/meat production - to global warming and to the pressure being put on other ‘planetary boundaries’ including nitrogen, phosphorous and ocean acidity to name but three. The team of scientists that has proposed the planetary boundaries (the Stockholm Resilience Centre and others) and many of the experts who are working on ‘sustainable development’ (e.g. Jeffrey Sachs) tell us that there is an urgent need for a ‘transition’ not only in the production and use of energy but also in agricultural production methods and food habits (notably by eating less meat) if we are to limit global warming to the famous 2’C and also stay within the other planetary boundaries. If I understand him correctly, Hector is counting on a more-or-less linear development of existing food production systems, and that would quickly drive us beyond the 2’C target and other planetary boundaries. Am I missing something?
(Ron Ockwell)