eNews: May 2015

Welcome to the May 2015 eNews
 

Thanks to all of you who attended our 2^nd London policy night last week. During the discussion, Our co-hosts  One Acre Fund shared how their work contributes to agricultural development and food security and what lessons and opportunities they offer the new UK Government to expand support in light of the passage of the 0.7% Aid Bill and DFID’s forthcoming agriculture refresh strategy. Stephanie Hanson, Senior Vice President, Policy & Partnerships at the One Acre Fund joined me in leading the discussion.

The audience raised important questions about “Who” is responsible for leading interventions for food security? What happens when private companies or other NGO’s offer similar services in the same areas? Does this leave certain populations ‘out of the loop’? Or drive competition between service providers?  Whether or not these road bumps are overcome, is this all worth the effort? Further notes of the event are now available on our website. Please look out  for an invitation to our next London policy night.

A4I are very much looking forward to attending the Bonn Climate Change Conference from the 1^st to the 3^rd of June. We will have an exhibition stand where you can pick up a copy of our latest Policy Brief “Farmers on the climate frontline: Six recommendations for addressing agriculture in the UNFCC negotiations”. The brief builds on our submission to the SBSTA, a technical body to the UNFCCC, to emphasize why agricultural systems and smallholder farmers are vulnerable to climate change, how food security is threatened without improved incentives for better land management practices and ways that both agriculture and farmers can reduce their risks and build resilience.  The negotiation of a new international climate change agreement presents an opportunity to address agriculture’s need for adaptation and its vital role in achieving the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) goal of limiting global temperature rise to 2°C from pre-industrial levels. Negotiators can ensure that these opportunities are not missed by firmly rooting agriculture into the following six major elements of the negotiations:

1. Adaption: Governments must support, develop and build upon community-based adaptation actions
2. Mitigation: Governments must fund sustainable land management practices and support farmers to increase ecosystem resilience to a changing climate whilst minimising GHG emissions.
3. Risk and Resilience: Governments need to implement pro-active policies and provide investments for resilient agricultural growth.
4. Innovation and Technology: Governments need to ensure that innovative and affordable technologies are available to smallholder farmers.
5. Financing: Governments must provide the right incentives for farmers in developing countries to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change while contributing to the mitigation of GHG emissions.
6. Capacity building and Institutions: National and regional policies must complement and reinforce climate change adaptation and mitigation goals.
    

 If you are attending the conference, please be sure to find our exhibition stand and say hello.

We are co-sponsoring the London launch of the Chicago Council's latest report, 'Healthy Food for a Healthy World: Leveraging Agriculture and Food to Improve Global Nutrition' in London on the 2nd of June. Joined by the Honourable Catherine Bertini will be Jeff Waage, Per Pinstrup Anderson, Gregory D. Miller, and Montpellier Panel Member, Lindiwe Sibanda. This event will define pathways between the food system and health and explore opportunities to incentivize collaboration between the agriculture, food, health, and nutrition sectors. It will also consider the nexus between food, nutrition, and sustainability and discuss frameworks for optimizing livelihood, environmental, and health goals. If you are free in London, you can register for the event here.

Next month, I will be going to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) office in Dakar, Senegal for a conference highlighting the latest Montpellier Panel report ‘No Ordinary Matter: Conserving, restoring and enhancing Africa’s soils’.  The Montpellier Panel, calls for integrated soil and sustainable land management to become a global priority. Ousmane Badiane, IFPRI’s Africa Director and Montpellier Panel Member, brings together a group of distinguished experts to address the challenges faced by land and soil degradation in the Sahel, a region continuously tested by drought and other climatic extremes. 

Thank you for reading and I will be in touch next month with more updates!  I leave you with a video about the work of AGRA in Mozambique and the importance of soil health.



Yours ever,

Gordon