FAO: exploring South-South Cooperation approaches to tackle a global pest emergency

23 July 2020 - The FAO-China South-South-Cooperation (SSC) Programme jointly with the FAO Global Action for Fall Armyworm (FAW) control and in close collaboration with FAO’s Office of Emergency and Resilience (OER) hosted last week the Programme’s first online joint formulation technical meeting.

In view of the challenges posed by the covid-19 pandemic, the Programme is adapting and innovating its work modalities, guided by its three core values: inspiration, inclusion, and innovation.

Representatives of four (4) host countries, namely, China, Ghana, Kenya, and Myanmar, and the Southern partner, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA), were invited by FAO to comment and jointly contribute to the drafting of a project document entitled “Strengthening inter-regional cooperation for sustainable management of Fall Armyworm through South-South Cooperation”.

A preliminary online exchange also took place prior to the meeting, ensuring a more efficient stakeholders’ consultation. 

“This will not be a standalone project, but will contribute to FAO’s coordinated efforts in fighting this transboundary plant pest, which can affect and threaten the food security and rural livelihoods of small farmers” said Mr. Jinbiao Wang, Senior Programme Officer, South-South and Triangular Cooperation Division, FAO.

This project will be supporting the Global Action for FAW control, which is an Initiative launched to greatly scale up current FAO efforts against FAW. 

The project will also be innovative and inclusive, as it will not only share Chinese technologies and expertise, but will also promote knowledge sharing and best-practices among countries in the Global South. Other developing countries, such as Tanzania, will also be invited to share their best-practices and good solutions.

All participants praised FAO’s efforts in moving the project formulation forward, also virtually, and provided valuable contributions and inputs that will be incorporated into the project’s design. 

FAW represents a serious threat to smallholder farmers. It has been recognized by the 2020 Global Report on Food Crisis to be one of the most current, common plant pests, capable of damaging crops and potentially leading to severe production shortfalls. 

Given the nature of transboundary threats, multilateral partnerships and collective action are required to tackle these issues. Such transboundary challenges cannot be controlled by a single country, but require multilateral and South-South and Triangular collaboration. As a response to this challenge, this SSTC project will assist four countries in the Global South to control the plant pest and to reduce losses caused by this global pest emergency.