UN-DESA webinar on “Building Food and Water Security in an Era of Climate Shocks" - President ECOSF joined in

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The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) in collaboration with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Program (WFP) hosted a webinar on "Building Food and Water Security in an Era of Climate Shock“on 24 March 2021. It was attended by large number of scientists, researchers, academia and the students. Prof. Manzoor H. Soomro, President ECOSF also attended the webinar.

The webinar looked at how climate change is affecting people’s access to water for sufficient, safe and nutritious food. Discussion during the session centered on the cross-cutting issues such as financing, governance, gender, energy, data and statistics. Mr. Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the FAO of the United Nations was the key note speakers. Mr. Dongyu highlighted that productivity gains, good governance and a coordinated holistic policy framework are the three major entry points for action to address water and climate-related challenges in agriculture. 

Climate change is increasing variability in the water cycle and distribution, reducing predictability of both availability and demand, affecting water quality, exacerbating water scarcity and disrupting the livelihoods of millions of rural people who depend on agriculture, the Director-General said.

Earlier Mr. Liu Zhenmin, UN Undersecretary General for Economic and Social Affairs emphasized that freshwater resources are becoming increasingly scarce as a result of population growth, urbanization, industrial development and changing lifestyles and diets, constraining capacities for effective adaptation to climate change and jeopardizing the sustainability of many ecosystems.

Mr. Amir Abdulla, Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP) underlined that agriculture is the main user of freshwater resources and necessarily must have a central role in comprehensive approaches to improving water efficiency. He further said that policy coherence is important for the agri-food system both as a user of water and also as a potential contributor to climate change mitigation.