Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

FAO's Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) programme will host a special webinar to mark the launch of a new report on public expenditure on food and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. The webinar will focus on the main findings of MAFAP economic analyses, revealing top trends and current challenges in expenditure on food and agriculture in 13 sub-Saharan countries, while underscoring the role policy monitoring plays in helping governments to spend wisely for farmers, consumers and food security. Experts will offer their perspectives and policy priorities for the way forward on better public spending on food and agriculture.  

The webinar will take place on 7 May at 11:00 - 12:30 (CET, Rome time). Interpretation in French will be provided. 



Please register here.

Agenda and speakers: 

• Opening remarks by QU Dongyu, Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
• Presentation on report's findings by Marco V. Sánchez, Deputy Director, Agrifood Economics Division (ESA), FAO  
• Expert panel discussion with: 
  • Yassia Kindo, Secretary General, Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation Development and Mechanization, Burkina Faso
  • Tewodaj Mogues, Senior Economist, IMF* (*Ms. Mogues’ remarks will draw on her analysis carried out in her professional work prior to joining the IMF).
  • Apollos Nwafor, Vice President for Policy and State Capability, AGRA
  • Leonard Mizzi, Head of Sustainable Agri-food Systems and Fisheries, European Commission 
  • Shenggen Fan, Chair Professor at China Agricultural University and CGIAR Board Member 
  • Thule Lenneiye, Coordinator, Agricultural Transformation Office, Kenya
• Short Q&A session  
• Closing remarks by Máximo Torero, Chief Economist, FAO
• And moderated by Bola Mosuro, Journalist, BBC Focus on Africa and Newsday  

To prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2021-2030 as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. When the strategy guiding this UN Decade was launched in September 2020, it was accompanied by a general survey, designed to assess what individuals already knew about restoration – and how they would like to be involved in the movement.

However, to accomplish the world’s ambitious restoration goals by 2030, individual and voluntary action is not enough. There is a need to strategically strengthen capacities of those stakeholders already involved in restoration. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration has launched a new online survey “Taking Stock of Global Capacity for Ecosystems Restoration” to identify what and whose capacities need to be enhanced to achieve the goals of the Decade.

The survey was jointly developed by a coalition of 38 organizations, under FAO’s leadership, and aims to: 1) provide a baseline of existing capacities; 2) help identify strengths, gaps, needs and barriers to achieving global restoration goals, and 3) guide the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration’s system-wide capacity development efforts, to the benefit of all involved. 

You are encouraged to take this survey regardless of whether you have or have not participated in the previous general survey. This survey is aimed at everyone involved in ecosystem restoration. 

The survey is available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, and Russian, and will take about 15 minutes to complete.

The survey will remain open until 15 April 2021 and can be accessed here. 

Global food commodity prices rose sharply in November to their highest level in nearly six years, according to a benchmark United Nations report released on 3 December 2020.

The FAO Food Price Index averaged 105.0 points during the month, up 3.9 percent from October and 6.5 percent higher than its value a year earlier. The monthly increase was the sharpest since July 2012, putting the index at its highest level since December 2014, the Food and Agriculture Organization said.

A key pillar of the Paris Agreement is the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF), which aims to raise ambitions for climate action through transparent country reporting. The development of National Forest Monitoring Systems with open and transparent data can enable action for forest and climate. In light of the climate emergency, it is time to scale up efforts toward accurate, open and transparent forest data, to catalyze higher ambitions under the Paris Agreement.

The FAO webinar “Open and Transparent Forest data: Innovation and Technology for Climate Action” will highlight global and national efforts in the field of forest monitoring that support the implementation of the ETF under the Paris Agreement.

Specifically, the webinar aims to:   

• present the “Building global capacity to increase transparency in the forest sector" (CBIT-Forest)” project and its contribution to the ETF under the Paris Agreement;
• present latest digital data sources and related dissemination innovations contributing to the Paris Agreement by promoting transparency and open data, and
• share experience from Bangladesh on data management and transparency.        

The webinar will take place on Wednesday 11 November 2020, 14:30 – 16:00 CEST.

To join the webinar session on Zoom, kindly register here.

Please access further information on the webinar here.