The Office of Partnerships and Advocacy Branch (OCPP) is launching a series of CSO dialogues on key issues of concern to FAO. The dialogues provide a forum for civil society perspectives to be heard and discussed with FAO staff. The first session titled Plant Genetic Resources: perspectives from the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) will be held on Tuesday April 16th. The IPC will present its working group on seeds and agrobiodiversity.  IPC is an international network that brings together several global and regional organizations representing small scale food producers, fisherfolks, agricultural workers and indigenous peoples. It plays an active...

Currently there are more than 370 million self-identified indigenous peoples in some 70 countries around the world. They have made relevant contributions to the world´s heritage thanks to their traditional understanding of ecosystem management. However, indigenous peoples are among the world´s most vulnerable, marginalized and disadvantaged groups in the world. Indigenous peoples have repeatedly asked for a more systematic dialogue with United Nations agencies. In 2010, FAO released the "FAO Policy on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples", with the objective to provide guidance to the agency's various technical units and encourage staff in headquarters and in the regions, as well as staff...

Council met this week to review FAO's work.7 December 2012, Rome - FAO's governing Council ended its week-long meeting by endorsing a change in the Organization's first global goal from merely reducing hunger to its eradication. "This unequivocal commitment sets our sights where they should be," said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva. "We cannot accept anything less than the eradication of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition." The Council, which meets every six months to oversee programme and budgetary activities, also endorsed the strategic objectives that will guide FAO's future work. "The strategic objectives which you have endorsed set us in the right...

13 March 2013, Rome - A new, faster and more precise way of measuring hunger and food insecurity across the world is soon to be field-tested by FAO in several pilot countries. The new approach relies on gathering information on the extent and severity of hunger from food-insecure people, through a carefully-designed annual survey to be conducted in collaboration with polling specialists Gallup, Inc. Starting this month, the new approach - known as the Voices of the Hungry project -- will be finalized in collaboration with major experts in the field and tested on a pilot basis in four countries to be...

Geneva, 15 March, 2013 – A top-level United Nations conference has, for the first time, laid the foundations for practical and proactive national drought policies to increase resilience to the world’s most destructive natural hazard, which is being aggravated by climate change. The High-level Meeting on National Drought Policy marked the first globally-coordinated attempt to move towards science-based drought disaster risk reduction and break away from piecemeal and costly crisis-response, which often comes too late to avert death, displacement and destruction. The meeting issued a declaration encouraging governments to develop and implement national drought management policies consistent with their development objectives. It...