Mark your calendars: Sunday, October 16 is World Food Day 2016, and the theme of this year’s event is “Climate is changing. Food and agriculture must too.” The day will be one of the most celebrated events on the UN calendar, with over 150 countries recognizing it during various events and ceremonies.
Rome is hosting several key World Food Day events on October 14th, all of which intend to shine a spotlight on the critical links between our planet’s changing climate change, humanity’s food security, and the future of sustainable development. Mayors and senior officials from more than 45 cities, including Abidjan, Madrid, Mexico City and Shanghai, will also attend a Mayors’ Summit in Rome to discuss progress made in meeting the goals of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact.
Rome’s event speakers will include:
Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister of Italy
Princess Lalla Hasnaa of Morocco
José Graziano da Silva, FAO Director-General
Macharia Kamau, UN Special Envoy on El Niño and Climate
Kanayo Nwanze, President, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP)
A special message on food security from Pope Francis will also be delivered at the ceremony.
This year’s The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report will be held on October 17th, the day after World Food Day 2016. The report will provide evidence on how a variety of agricultural sectors can help stabilize the global climate while simultaneously raising food output to eradicate hunger. The report will also documents the costs of inaction compared to the cost of interventions. The SOFA report will feature speakers José Graziano da Silva, Director-General FAO, and Kostas Stamoulis, FAO-Assistant Director-General, Hunger Eradication, Food Security, and Nutrition.
A final World Food Day event will be held by Committee on World Food Security (CFS) on October 17th. The session is set to endorse a set of policy recommendations on sustainable agricultural development, including livestock and on smallholder’s access to markets, and will also offer several panel discussions during the week, with topics covering sustainable value chains, experience in using the CFS guidelines on governance of tenure, rural-urban transformation and the review and follow up of the Sustainable Development Goals.