FAO statement at UNDRR Risk Reduction Hub event - Risk-informed agrifood systems in a changing risk landscape

Excellencies, 

In today’s interconnected world, risk is increasingly assuming a systemic nature. Risk-proofing the Sustainable Development Goals requires advancing our understanding of risk, which can guide the design of the solutions necessary for systemic resilience. 

Resilience metrics that help unpack and understand interdependencies between systems are imperative, as they can point towards integrated solutions.

FAO is working to advance understanding of how disasters impact agrifood systems, and in turn how these impacts ricochet across the interplay between the Sustainable Development Goals. This is key to risk-inform our field based intervention in strengthening the resilience of the most food insecure population. 

FAO is promoting a multi-risk or comprehensive risk management approach to build resilient agricultural livelihoods and food systems. Our intervention spans across four pillars – strengthening risk information systems, strengthening risk governance,  promoting resilience investment and enhancing preparedness and anticipatory action capacities in agriculture.

These complementary suites of comprehensive risk management actions contribute to reducing risks and vulnerabilities of smallholders and strengthen resilience and sustainability of livelihoods and agrifood systems.

Allow me to highlight a few concrete examples on risk information systems –  since the adoption of the Sendai Framework in 2015, as requested by the UN General Assembly FAO developed a methodology to measure indicator C2: direct agricultural loss attributed to disasters and has been supporting countries to strengthen institutional capacities on damage and loss information systems in agriculture, to report sectoral and sub-sectoral data into the Sendai Framework monitor.

FAO is working to support countries in better collecting disaster-related data in the agriculture sector, including through advancing methodology for capturing Loss and Damage in agriculture and the establishment of the Data in Emergencies Hub (DIEM). 

Ahead of COP28, FAO will release a report on the global picture of losses and damages in the agriculture sector due to disasters which includes both quantitative and qualitative analysis, pointing to the transformations necessary for resilient agrifood systems. 

Excellencies and colleagues,

Agriculture is one of the most impacted sectors by disasters, climate variability and extreme and other crises, but at the same innovations in the sector offer solutions for resilience.

Fully integrating risk considerations requires changing the lens from which we design policies, programmes and financial mechanisms; re-orienting development and humanitarian action towards long-term resilience over short-term gains requires bridging the divide between them and building the knowledge base on resilience metrics. 

In addition to advancing the global picture of how disaster impacts cascade and compound, we must also demonstrate the value of investing in solutions.

Research by FAO has demonstrated that proactive and preventative disaster risk reduction good practices perform on average 2.2 times better than previously used practices under hazard conditions – in monetary terms USD 1 invested, farmers received up to 3.7 in return.

 In addition, the return on investment of our risk-informed anticipatory action intervention is 7:1.  

From Sudan to Mongolia, with every dollar invested by FAO in anticipatory action, families were able to save up to USD 7 in avoided disaster impacts. 

It is worth noting that, reducing the impact of forecast hazards on livelihood and food security also brings additional benefits.

For example, in La Guajira in Colombia, FAO implemented Anticipatory Actions to mitigate the effects of drought and migration on agricultural depended households and this has made a positive contribution towards improving social cohesion between targeted migrants and host communities. FAO is also working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) towards scaling up joint approaches on Anticipatory Action and climate-related displacement in the Asia-Pacific. 

 Improved water management strategies will be crucial both for addressing water scarcity and transforming agriculture, as well as for reducing risks from floods. Understanding the links between the attainment of SDG 6 and SDG 2, and addressing the challenges resulting from agriculture’s demand and reliance on water, is critical to address hunger and malnutrition.

Looking forward to the adoption of the Political Declaration tomorrow and building on the other outcomes of the Midterm Review, my Office looks forward to working with those present today to drive forward the understanding of risk and resilience we need to address the challenges of a complex and volatile future.

Agriculture is one of the Resilience Solutions and together we must work to unleash agriculture's potential for building resilience of the most vulnerable.   

To achieve all this, coordination and collaboration among development, humanitarian, peace, and climate actors is key. I will end with one key takeaway message – partnership, partnership and partnership.