MEDIA ADVISORY: 35th session of the FAO Regional Conference for the Near East and North Africa

16 September 2020 , Cairo – Food systems across the Near East and North Africa (NENA) need to change in order to ensure healthy diets for a growing, increasingly urban population in a context of water scarcity and advancing climate change. Such transformation should address the challenges of ensuring availability, access, stability and use of food in ways that provide smallholder producers and rural communities with opportunities in terms of driving income-growth, employment and increases in food production and productivity, while ensuring the sustainability of the region’s ecosystems and addressing climate change adaptation and mitigation targets.

Innovation and digitalization remain to be limitedly used resources in this field, and harnessing their power would be a powerful and efficient way to promote transforming food systems to achieve sustainable development.

Although the current situation is stable across the region, the COVID-19 pandemic could still affect some NENA countries negatively in the future. A deepening of the global economic recession and a prolonged period of disruption in the global and local supply chains may have considerable impacts on production, availability and access to food.

In this light, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is holding its 35th session of the FAO Regional Conference for the Near East and North Africa (NERC 35) for 2020 under the theme “Transforming Food Systems to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals”.

Ministers of agriculture, partner organizations, sister agencies and senior officials of Member Countries will meet to elaborate on regional challenges and priorities related to this topic in the Near East and North Africa region. This will ensure the effectiveness of FAO’s impact in the region and will help in defining its work priorities for the following biennium.

NERC 35 will be held this year virtually, from 21 to 22 September 2020, and it will be hosted by the Sultanate of Oman.

Media welcome

While participation in NERC 35 is by invitation only, representatives of news organizations are welcome to follow the proceedings live via Webcast and all conference documents are available online at the NERC-35 Website.

Webcast details:

Webcast for the first day 21 September

Webcast for the second day 22 September

Further information and confirmation to attend the webcast can be obtained directly by contacting [email protected] with a copy to [email protected] and [email protected]