FAO wants African leaders to tackle hunger, malnutrition

Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has urged African governments to quickly address growing cases of hunger and malnutrition on the continent, according to a report released a few weeks ago.
 
FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva
The report which put the number of individuals suffering from hunger in sub-Sahara Africa at 224 million in 2016 as a result of climate change and conflict - an increase of 10 percent – indicated that cases of malnutrition had gone up to 22.7per cent from 20.8per cent between 2015 and 2016.

In a related development, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) announced that the German government had agreed to release €20 million to the FAO in order to help smallholder-farmers in developing countries to fight the shock of climate change and improve on food security.

Périn Saint Ange, IFAD’s Associate Vice President, said “These funds will not only help in our efforts to adapt smallholder agriculture to climate change, but they will have additional benefits related to other important cross-cutting issues like gender equality, youth unemployment and nutrition security.

“These efforts will go a long way to helping the world’s smallholder-farmers who generate up to 80 per cent of the food produced in many developing countries, access the information, the inputs and the technologies they need to face the increasing risks to their lives and livelihood posed by climate change.”


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