FAO joined the Parliamentary Conference on South-South Cooperation in Rabat in February, where the focus was on the “Role of National Parliaments and Regional and Continental Parliamentary Unions in Africa, the Arab World, and Latin America in Enhancing Strategic Partnerships and Achieving Joint Integration and Development”. The conference was attended by more than 260 participants from 40 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, including 30 presidents of national parliaments and regional and continental parliamentary unions. Held at the initiative of the House of Councillors of Morocco in...

On 18 and 19 January 2024, Honourable Neema Lugangira, Member of Parliament of Tanzania, and Honourable Francoise Uwumukiza, Member of the East African Legislative Assembly (from Rwanda), two frontline advocates in the fight against hunger and malnutrition took part in discussion co-organized or facilitated by FAO at the 16th Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) held in Berlin, Germany. On 18 January 2024, Hon. Lugangira, Member of Parliament of Tanzania, participated in an Expert Panel “School meal nutrition standards as a tool to support the right to food in schools”, co-organized by FAO and the World Food...

Parliamentarians from different regions convened to discuss the role of parliaments and parliamentary networks in fighting hunger and malnutrition at an FAO side event at the 51st session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in Rome in October 2023, with conversation covering the Right to Adequate Food and identifying pathways and mechanisms to more systematically involve parliaments and parliamentary networks in CFS work. An exchange of lessons learned provided examples of how to capitalize on parliamentary networks to strengthen the uptake of CFS recommendations and their incorporation in national legislation and policies. The Second...

FAO is engaging with Member states of the Latin American and Caribbean Parliament (PARLATINO) as they look to design a regional model law on Agroecology. FAO already has a basis for this work, as a legal study it conducted with the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) within the Scaling up Agroecology Initiative in 2021, offers guidelines for the design of such a model law. In 2022, PARLATINO formally requested FAO’s technical support to draft the model law. Since then, FAO has organized three public consultations with the Caribbean, Mesoamerica and South America to collect inputs from...

As the world faces armed conflicts, a climate crisis, an economic slowdown, and the depletion of natural resources, parliamentary action to tackle hunger and malnutrition is critical. Parliamentarians – with their powers to draft and adopt legislation, approve public budgets and monitor the implementation of public policies and government commitments – are well placed to ensure that food security and nutrition, the progressive realization of the right to adequate food, and the transformation of food systems are prioritized on national policy and legislative agendas. To look at the way forward through parliamentary action, FAO, together with the Spanish Agency...