FAO reports on response and recovery from COVID-19 impacts at OACPS SIDS Forum

As a follow-up to the 10 December FAO Brussels Dialogue “Weathering COVID-19 in Small Island Developing States: a pathway to resilience”, FAO presented a report on the current impact of the pandemic at the OACPS-led SIDS Forum, with the Ambassador of Cabo Verde to the EU, José Filomeno Monteiro Carvalho, presiding.

Angélica Jacome Daza, Director of FAO’s Office for Small Island Developing States, Least Developed and Landlocked Countries, highlighted the devastating economic consequences of COVID-19 for Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries and how they have affected national food systems. FAO suggested SIDS can minimize the effects of food system disruption by introducing measures to increase the resilience of smallholders, and by conducting food security and agriculture assessments, using evidence-based policy analysis.

As current Chair of the Committee of the Ambassadors, the Ambassador of Samoa and Permanent Representative to FAO, Fatumanava Dr Paolelei Luteru, emphasized FAO’s work to boost local food production as an essential component to revitalize the SIDS food systems, as many SIDS countries are highly dependent on food imports.

FAO Brussels Director Rodrigo de Lapuerta said the SIDS agenda was of key importance in the Organization’s work and stressed that his office fully supported advancing SIDS priorities within the EU.

The OACPS SIDS Forum was established in 2015 as a special forum to sensitize stakeholders and the general public to SIDS concerns, as well as to mainstream the SIDS agenda in ACP-EU relations, in particular, through issues reflected in the outcome document of the Third International Conference on SIDS, known as the SAMOA Pathway.