Effective food safety management in NENA requires to adopt innovation and science-based approach, including updated food legislation, competent food safety institutions, effective enforcement capabilities, robust monitoring and surveillance programs, reliable data generation mechanism for risk analysis, and reliable conformity assessment services including laboratory system. However, there are still substantial challenges in coordination to access fit-for-purpose academic programs, risk assessment initiatives and data, and insufficient training for agrifood system actors that hinder the region’s capacity to adopt effective risk management to ensure the safety and quality of traded food. In response to these challenges, and through South-South Triangular Cooperation (SSTC), the FAO...

Rome, 14/02/2025 – A high-level meeting was held between Mr Anping Ye, Director of the South-South and Triangular Cooperation Division (PST), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Hon. Thabo Mofosi, Minister of Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition of the Kingdom of Lesotho. Minister Mofosi was accompanied by H.E. Mr. Thesele John Maseribane, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Lesotho in Italy.  The meeting served as a follow-up to an earlier discussion between the FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu and His Majesty King Letsie III of the Kingdom of Lesotho, which emphasized the critical role of potato...

In Viet Nam, the Director-General met with the Prime Minister, H.E. Pham Minh Chinh, during which the Director-General commended the progress achieved by Viet Nam in its development since the adoption of the Đổi Mới policy, and invited the country to share its good practices in agriculture development through FAO’s South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) platform with less developed countries in Southeast Asia, Africa and the rest of the world. The Prime Minister expressed his gratitude for the solid cooperation between FAO and Viet Nam and invited FAO to further support Viet Nam in restructuring its agricultural sector to focus...

The United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) and UN Development Cooperation Office (UNDCO) are pleased to announce the launch of a new e-learning module designed to strengthen South-South and triangular cooperation across the UN development system at country and regional levels. This self-paced online module, developed in collaboration with FAO, PAHO, UNFPA, WFP, and UN System Staff College, will effectively equip UN Country Teams and regional entities with practical tools and knowledge to mainstream South-South and triangular cooperation in their development frameworks.

Anastasia Mwamula roots weeds from her quarter-of-an-acre paddy field barefoot. It’s a back-breaking exercise. But, at 51 years of age and with eight children to feed, she’s gotten used to hard work. Every morning, Anastasia and her 58-year-old husband, Zakaria Wapali, leave their red-brick home on the edge of a tiny village known as Scheme View to tend to this and other crops on their 15-acre field, a two-kilometre walk away. There, they grow cabbage, bananas, mangoes, maize, cassava, tomatoes and—of course—rice. That’s because Anastasia and Zakaria hail from Butaleja, a farming district that could easily be described as “the rice basket...