The COVID-19 pandemic could threaten food security across the entire world, if urgent action is not taken.
That’s prompted the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to launch a new COVID-19 Response and Recovery Programme, which aims to mitigate the immediate impacts of the pandemic while also strengthening food systems and livelihoods in the long-term.
In Pakistan, women are major contributors to agricultural production and food security for their families, but like many other nations, the COVID pandemic has exacerbated an already alarming gender gap there.
That’s especially true for rural women, where the amount of work and responsibility that they have to shoulder has gone up, leading to a decrease in living standards, as they’re forced to stay at home and care for others.
Ensuring forests retain their rich biodiversity and continue contributing to the health and safety of communities everywhere, can help boost recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s the view Ewald Rametsteiner, Forestry Deputy Director at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) who points out that deforestation and degradation, is one way that dangerous viruses such as Ebola, have made their way into the human population in recent decades.
The announcement that the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize is being described as an “amazing day” for its workers in the field, who put their lives on the line to help at-risk communities.
That’s the message from Matthew Hollingdale, head of the agency’s South Sudan operation.
Sudan has been hit by devastating floods, the worst seen in decades, impacting more than 600,000 households across 17 of the country’s 18 states.
With homes destroyed and farmland damaged just ahead of the harvest season, it’s been another shock amid multiple crises.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), urgent funding is needed to support a country already facing alarmingly high rates of hunger and food insecurity.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us, all indications are, that cities are going to be “greener, cleaner, quieter, safer and more secure”.
That’s the strong belief of iconic international architect Norman Foster, who’s been sharing this sustainable view with mayors from dozens of cities at a UN Economic Commission for Europe event in Geneva.
