Tashkent – The Director Normal of the Meals and Agriculture Group of the United Nations (FAO) QU Dongyu highlighted the massive untapped potential of Landlocked Creating Nations (LLDCs) that must be harnessed to make sure an efficient transformation of agrifood methods in these nations. He spoke on Thursday at the LLDC Discussion board on Meals Safety and the Sustainable Improvement Objectives (5-6 September) in Tashkent collectively organized by FAO and the Authorities of Uzbekistan.
In his opening remarks, Qu identified that the distinctive geographical traits of LLDCs missing direct sea entry typically results in larger prices of infrastructure, logistics and transportation, which hinders their full integration into international markets. On the similar time, the impacts of the local weather disaster are additional aggravating the state of affairs in these nations, leading to water shortage, land degradation, and biodiversity loss, amongst others, jeopardizing meals safety and diet.
To beat these advanced challenges and unlock the total potential of LLDCs, the Director-Normal reassured that FAO would proceed to supply these nations with at-scale technical and coverage assist specializing in 4 precedence areas:
- measuring meals losses on the farm degree on worth chains comparable to beans, maize, potatoes sorghum and teff; maize, potatoes sorghum and teff;
- offering up-to-date data and evaluation throughout the meals provide chain for data-driven choices, and calculating worth anomalies for particular meals commodity collection over time;
- supporting the UN Widespread Nation Evaluation by means of FAO’s information and technical experience to incorporate the agrifood methods transformation perspective into country-level processes; and
- selling youth-led World Meals Discussion board Nationwide Chapters to mobilize youth-led native motion to assist agrifood methods transformation – out of the present 14 chapters empowering youth and girls for sustainable growth, 5 are primarily based in LLDCs.
Different high-level individuals at this time included Abdulla Aripov, Prime Minister of Uzbekistan; Ibrokhim Abdurakhmanov, Minister for Agriculture of Uzbekistan; Rabab Fatima, Beneath Secretary-Normal and Excessive Consultant for the Least Developed Nations, Landlocked Creating Nations and Small Island Creating States; Janusz Wojciechowski, European Union (EU) Commissioner for Agriculture; and Alvaro Lario, President, Worldwide Fund for Agricultural Improvement (IFAD).
The Discussion board seeks to assist worldwide establishments to share experiences, talk about frequent challenges emphasizing local weather change, and discover collaborative options and partnerships. It consists of a number of working modalities designed to foster collaboration and actual progress within the growth of sustainable agrifood methods in LLDCs.
FAO’s assist to LLDCs
Since taking workplace in 2019, Qu instantly established a devoted FAO Workplace of Small Island Creating States (SIDS), Least Developed Nations (LDCs) and LLDCs, to leverage the information and technical experience of the Group to assist these most weak nations.
Moreover, the FAO flagship, country-owned and country-led, Hand-in-Hand Initiative was additionally launched to supply the technical, coverage and funding assist wanted to eradicate starvation and poverty, and to scale back inequalities. There are at present 72 nations collaborating within the Initiative, with one-third of them being LLDCs.
The FAO Digital Villages Initiative was additionally launched to assist creating nations, together with LLDCs, in try and leverage digital innovation to extend agricultural manufacturing and, in flip, enhance livelihoods and contribute to extra inclusive societies. Eight LLDC nations, together with Uzbekistan, are already a part of the initiative.
As well as, the FAO’s One Nation One Precedence Product (OCOP) Initiative is aiding nations to spice up their manufacturing and optimize the usage of native pure assets to realize meals safety and improved diet by selling Particular Agricultural Merchandise throughout totally different agro-ecological areas. At present, 22 LLDCs globally are selling nation particular merchandise by means of the OCOP initiative.
FAO can be leveraging its convening energy to supply related platforms for dialogue amongst nations going through comparable challenges. As an example, every of the FAO Regional Ministerial Conferences convened earlier this yr held a session on SIDS, LDCs and LLDCs to debate regional particular priorities, and to strengthen their engagement by means of the casual Ministerial community.
