Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

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.

FAO and Zhejiang University are co-organizing the Global AgriInno Challenge 2020. The aim of this initiative is to identify, accelerate and scale up youth-led innovative business models and digital solutions to address the challenges associated with the distribution and sales of agri-food products.



The Challenge is open for all youth with ideas for digital development solutions, who are invited to submit their application by 17 October 2020. 

 

The selected teams will be invited to further develop and pitch their ideas in Zhejiang Province, China on 27-28 November 2020 with all relevant expenses covered. Winning teams will be granted seed funding, and the opportunity to participate in a one-week agro-bootcamp and world study tour. 

To learn more about the selection criteria and how to apply, please visit http://www.fao.org/e-agriculture/open-call-global-agriinno-challenge-20…

Thursday, 9 July 2020 @14:00 - 15:30 (UTC+2)

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak continues to spread throughout the Near East and North Africa (NENA) - Arab States region. The pandemic will have huge impacts on public health and represents already an unprecedented shock to economies, food systems and labour markets globally and in the NENA region, affecting rural poverty and resilience. It is estimated that an additional 8.3 million people in the region could fall into poverty. 

Given this broader impact, the consequences of COVID-19 pandemic require responses that go far beyond the health sector; including measures to assist people and protect them against falling into poverty due to the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic, highlighting the crucial importance of inclusive, comprehensive and stable social protection systems. Systems that respond to differentiated needs across population and income groups, are flexible to be scaled up quickly in times of crisis and contribute to the resilience of food systems. 

FAO highlights the importance of using innovation and digital applications in social protection as a way to ensure that people can maintain their livelihoods and sustain themselves in times of emergencies and beyond, especially in rural areas. This webinar will set the stage by looking at some of the promising digital and innovative solutions in social protection in order to limit the negative impacts of this crisis on rural poverty, resilience and food systems, including on food security and nutrition.

The webiminar will address the following questions:

• How the NENA region has been affected by the crisis? (Socio-economic impacts)
• What social protection initiatives have been implemented to support rural areas that can be scaled up and replicated? (Selected success country-cases from NENA, and other examples)
• How can governments and partners foster innovation and digital technology applications in social protection to build the basis for a more comprehensive and inclusive social protection system in the long-term?  

Opening remarks:

• Abdessalam Ould Ahmed, Assistant Director General and Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa – FAO
• Rabah Arezki, Chief Economist for NENA Region – World Bank 

Speakers:

• Fabio Veras, Communications, Publication and Research Coordinator – IPC-IG, Overview of the social protection response to COVID-19 around the world and in the region for FSN. 
• Samman Thapa, Regional Social Policy Advisor for the MENA region – UNICEF, Overview of the child-sensitive social protection response to COVID-19 around the world and in the region. 
• Rodrigo Assumpçã, Social protection Management Information Systems specialist – ILO, Overview of the horizontal expansion of social protection to the informal and rural economy in Egypt or Tunisia.
• Chakib Abouzaid, Secretary General – General Arab Insurance Federation, Overview of the role of agriculture insurance as a response to COVID-19 in the region.
• Salma Zaky, Social Protection Officer & Marta Dabbas, Regional Digital Assistance Services Officer – WFP, Overview of digital technology applications in social protection in response to COVID-19 in the region. 
• Omar Benammour, Social Protection Officer – FAO ESP, Overview of FAO’s work on social protection in the region and the response to COVID-19: Example of Kenya, Tunisia, Sudan and Morocco.

Facilitated by: Omar Benammour, Social protection Officer – FAO

HOW TO ATTEND

Only registered participants will attend, please find the Registration Link here

Please note that the session will start on time on 09 July 2020 at 14:00 – 15:30 (UTC +2)

We invite all participants to kindly login 10 minutes before.

For more information please visit www.fao.org/neareast/events/view/en/c/1296227

For further inquiries please feel free to contact: [email protected] 

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in partnership with the Global Data on Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN); Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR); the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and the World Bank are inviting interested individuals to participate in the online discussion on ICTs and Open Data in Agriculture and Nutrition currenlty held on the e-agriculture platform.

The proposed online debate on the e-Agriculture platform seeks to explore the interaction between use of ICTs in agriculture and issues around open data in agriculture and nutrition and its effective use, with a focus on establishing what benefits and possible losses, can accrue to farmers, especially small holder family farmers in developing countries, if technology and open data are used conjunctively.