News archive 2016

"Transforming African Agri-food systems for inclusive growth and a shared prosperity" is the theme of the 29th FAO Regional Conference for Africa, taking place this week in Côte d'Ivoire's capital.

The United Nations General Assembly today proclaimed a UN Decade of Action on Nutrition that will run from 2016 to 2025. FAO welcomed the decision, calling it a major step towards mobilising action around reducing hunger and improving nutrition around the world.

Absolute levels of hunger and poverty are the most dramatic issues when it comes to addressing inequality, FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said today. “The most pressing priority in terms of inequality is to help those people that are still living in extreme poverty and suffering from hunger,” he said at the Special Meeting on Inequality held by the UN's ECOSOC.

Improving food security can help build sustainable peace and even ward off looming conflict, as well as mitigating its impacts, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva told members of the United Nations Security Council.

Cuban Ambassador to the United Nations agencies in Rome, Alba Soto Pimentel, today formally presented FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva with Cuba's instrument of accession to the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing.

The appeal came at a meeting organized in Rome by four UN agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

The international community needs to find new and innovative ways of working together if it is to meet the goals laid out in the UN's new Sustainable Development Agenda -- and eradicate hunger and poverty, in particular -- FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said at the Forum for the Future of Agriculture in Brussels today.

The programme, focused specifically on the close relationship between forests and water, will start off by looking at ways to improve water security in eight West African countries: Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Sierra-Leone.

While the Asia-Pacific region has shown remarkable progress in reducing poverty and hunger during the last 25 years, it can lead the world in the complete eradication of these scourges within the next 15 years, FAO’s Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific heard today.

Thirty-four countries, including 27 in Africa, are currently in need of external assistance for food, due to drought, flooding and civil conflicts, according to FAO's new edition of the Crop Prospects and Food Situation, released today. The figure has grown from 33 last December, after the addition of Swaziland.