The Pacific is set to be well represented in FAO’s Asia-Pacific Symposium on Agrifood Systems Transformation with high-level delegations from the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu joining from the region.
The Asia-Pacific Symposium on Agrifood Systems Transformation is one of the biggest FAO events in the Asia-Pacific region in 2022 andis the world’s first follow-up to 2021 UN Food Systems Summit.
A year after the UNFSS, the Asia-Pacific region is significantly off track and, only expected to achieve the SDGs by 2065－three-and-a-half decades behind schedule. In many cases, unsafe or unsustainable food systems are part of the problem.
Some of the Pacific countries are even further behind in achieving targets SDG targets. The scarcity of critical, paralyzing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, chronic diet-related diseases, remoteness, and vulnerability to climate change-induced natural disasters are only some of the challenges the Pacific countries have to face while pursuing their national food systems transformation agendas within the framework of the UN Secretary General’s leadership to improve global food security.
The FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific is convening a three-day (5–7 October 2022) special symposium to unpack the economic, environmental and social elements and impacts of agrifood systems transformation and explore how innovations, technologies and digitalization can contribute to accelerating the progress of leaving no one behind across the Asia-Pacific region.