Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

FAO and partners have co-organized a series of Innovation Zoominars addressing the role of innovation and digital technologies in increasing resilience of smallholders to emerging disruptive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural livelihoods.

This Zoominar session will be part of ITU-UNESCO Regional Digital Inclusion Week for the Arab States, focusing on challenges facing the innovation processes in the agriculture sector with regards to governance and public policy aspects. The session will involve all partners and government representatives from the NENA Region and will emphasize on accelerating the development of innovation and digital agriculture in agri-food systems in the countries.

The discussion will examine the role that FAO and partners could play in facilitating the implementation and scalability of such innovations in the NENA region and guiding governments towards a robust policy plan of action to avoid the worst consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the agriculture sector and food security.

Join the Zoominar on Thursday, 12 November 2020 at 13:00 – 15:00 (UTC+2).

You can access the full agenda and further details of the Zoominar here.

Please find the registration link here.

This international technical webinar is part of the series organized by the FAO eLearning Academy, Agreenium (l'Institut agronomique, vétérinaire et forestier de France) and UN-ESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific). These webinars are an opportunity to share experiences and lessons learnt, discuss challenges, and propose innovative solutions and models. They aim to provide a holistic and comprehensive view of current trends in thematic areas related to global challenges, by combining development research and innovation perspectives.

The main objective is to give practitioners the opportunity to interact with international experts, United Nations officers, University professors, researchers and fellow participants, throughout the world. Webinars can be attended as interactive online sessions on Zoom, where sharing perspectives and asking questions to experts is encouraged.

The objectives of this session on Home-Grown School Feeding are to:

• define and explain concepts, benefits and beneficiaries of Home-Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programmes;
• present  the key elements of the HGSF elearning course to support the planning, design and implementation of HGSF programmes, and
• discuss partnerships as critical enablers for strong and potential successful HGSF programmes.

The webinar will take place on Wednesday 21 October 2020, 15:00 – 16:30 CEST.

Please register here.

FAO has launched The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2020 (SOCO 2020). The report aims to discuss policies and mechanisms that promote sustainable outcomes – economic, social and environmental – in agricultural and food markets, both global and domestic.

The analysis is organized along the trends and challenges that lie at the heart of global discussions on trade and development. These include the evolution of trade and markets; the emergence of global value chains in food and agriculture; the extent to which smallholder farmers in developing countries participate in value chains and markets; and the transformative impacts of digital technology on markets.

Along these themes, SOCO 2020 discusses policies and institutions that can promote inclusive economic growth and also harness markets to contribute towards the realization of the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals.

The report also looks at policy responses to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food value chains, both nationally and globally.

The report is available in all six UN languages and can be downloaded here.