28 November 2016, Addis Ababa - The African Union Commission (AUC) convened a group of stakeholders, including Regional Economic Communities (RECs), development partners and academia at the AUC premises in Addis Ababa to discuss an assessment report for the establishment of an “African Union Centre of Best Practices for Food Security (AU-CBPFS)”.  The idea of the centre emerged from the Malabo Implementation Strategy and Road Map which recommended the establishment of Centre of Excellence to contribute to the vision of Africa’s Agricultural Transformation. Facilitated by FAO and the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), the two-day assessment examined a cross-section of existing Centres...

14 November 2016, Morogoro, Tanzania - A new project by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) is set to support Tanzania’s efforts to increase rise production and productivity in twofold by 2018 through boosting productivity in farming among smallholder farmers. With funding from the Government of Venezuela, the Partnership for Sustainable Rice Systems Development in Africa project is going to support efforts to improve domestic rice supply and strengthen the rice market in the country.  “This project will provide an opportunity to build on on-going initiatives and partnerships by assessing national rice development strategies,” said FAO Country Representative,...

New agreement aims to improve food security, boost rural development, and address climate change in the Global South 11 November 2016, Marrakesh - FAO is joining forces with the South Centre, an intergovernmental organization of developing countries, to help the countries of the Global South eliminate hunger and malnutrition, reduce poverty, address climate change and achieve sustainable rural development under the umbrella of South-South cooperation. A five-year Memorandum of Understanding was signed today by Maria Helena Semedo, FAO Deputy Director-General for Natural Resources, and Vicente Paulo Yu, Deputy Executive Director of the South Centre on the sidelines of the 22nd Conference of...

Dubai, Tuesday 1 November 2016. South-South Cooperation among the Global South is a fundamental tool achieve the Sustainable Development Goals set for 2030, conveyed FAO today at a joint event with Rome-based Agencies at the United Nations Global South-South Development Expo in Dubai this week. Rome-based Agencies expressed their firm commitment to facilitating South-South Cooperation (SSC) and Triangular Cooperation (TrC), offering their services in brokering “match-making” between countries for agricultural development, stressing that SSC is a complementary tool to North-South Cooperation. “We all need to work together in the context of the big agenda set out by the SDGs,” said...

13 October 2016, Rome. FAO launched the idea of a City to City Cooperation Mechanism which aims to support cities in the South, particularly in Africa, to share and promote best practices to strengthen urban food systems and help speed up the implementation of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP). The launch took place during the first day of the Mayor’s Meeting of the Milan Pact held at FAO Headquarters in Rome.   City to City cooperation, especially through south-south and triangular cooperation, is an important way to share good practices, where one city context can readily relate to another....