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FAO to help African, Caribbean, Pacific members for sustainable development

Xinhua, June 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Saturday tha the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) and FAO just signed an agreement for close cooperation "with an eye to bolstering national capacities to cope with climate change, enhance food security and support sustainable food production".

According to the Rome based UN food body, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed here earlier by Patrick Ignatius Gomes, Secretary General of the ACP, and FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva, which is in bid to support the 79 ACP members work "towards achieving the global Sustainable Development Goals" to be agreed later this year.

In the agreement, the ACP Group and FAO pledged to "strengthen their cooperation in support of actions contributing to better address the continuing food insecurity and malnutrition, hunger, natural resource management and climate change challenges in the ACP Group Member States."

The ACP "is a great demonstration of how the critical issues of food and nutrition security can be addressed by optimum use of our combined resources -- the skills, experience and policy instruments -- that have been tested by concrete actions in various parts of the world," said Gomes.

"ACP States are particularly vulnerable to climate change and FAO is well placed to help their family farmers adapt, produce more food and access markets in inclusive and sustainable ways," said Graziano da Silva.

Climate change is a matter of special urgency in tropical regions, particularly for the 31 island states among ACP members, according to FAO, which has offered technical advice to ACP members ahead of the international COP 21 climate negotiations to be concluded in Paris at the end of 2015.

Under the MoU, and building on the implementation of the Small Islands Developing States Accelerated Modalities of Action, or Samoa Pathway, the ACP and FAO will jointly promote mitigation and adaptation to climate change gradual effects in agriculture (climate-smart agriculture).

This will be done by advancing enabling policy frameworks, techniques and practices in water, energy, soil, crop, livestock, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, in the most vulnerable countries and regions, including ACP Small Islands Developing States (SIDS). Enditem