South Asia Policy Dialogue on Regional Cooperation for Food security
Pursuant to the United Nations Secretary-General’s “Zero Hunger Challenge” initiative launched in June 2012 at the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, development partners all over the world have been scaling up efforts to eliminate hunger. Reducing hunger and malnutrition is also a key target of the first Millennium Development Goal on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.
South and South-West Asia epitomizes the challenge of food security, both in terms of the present gaps and future challenges for its population. Food insecurity and hunger are enormously prevalent within the subregion and is evidence of the utter lack of inclusive development. Even more worrisome is the fact that progress in achieving food security has stalled, in spite of improvements in other dimensions of economic prosperity.
The ESCAP-South and South-West Asia Office based in New Delhi, in partnership with ESCAP headquarters and the ESCAP Centre for Poverty Alleviation through Sustainable Agriculture (CAPSA) based in Bogor, Indonesia, is organizing the South Asia Policy Dialogue on Regional Cooperation for Strengthening National Food Security Strategies on 13 and 14 August 2013 in New Delhi.
The Policy Dialogue is also being convened as part of the United Nations Development Account project entitled “Strengthening regional knowledge networks to promote the effective implementation of the United Nations development agenda and to assess progress”, which ESCAP is implementing in Asia and the Pacific. The project aims to build upon existing networks to create a regional knowledge network of food security experts and policy makers, and to ultimately provide a virtual platform that will be available to all to facilitate the sharing of ideas and good practices to enhance food security. Food security experts from Governments, research organizations, regional and international organizations and civil society from five countries in South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) are expected to take part in the Dialogue.