DNA

QUETTA, JUN 18 – Ministry of National Food Security and Research(MNFS&R), Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) in collaboration with various line departments of Government of Balochistan and with the support of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Food Program (WFP), International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) has organized the Provincial Policy Dialogues on United Nations’ Food Systems Summit 2021 at Balochistan Agriculture Research and Development Centre (BARDC) Quetta.

The United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS-2021) will be convened in September 2021 as part of the “Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030”. The Global Food Systems summit is unique in the sense that it will identify game changing solutions and will launch bold new actions to deliver progress on all 17 SDGs, each of which relies to some degree on healthier, more sustainable and equitable food systems.

The Summit will awaken the world to the fact that we all must work together to transform the way the world produces, consumes and thinks about food. It is a summit for everyone everywhere – a people’s summit. It is also a solutions summit that will require everyone to take action to transform the world’s food systems.

In opening remark, Mr. Kambar Dashti, Secretary Agriculture Balochistan welcomed the guests and said that when we talk about food in Pakistan specifically in Balochistan, the challenges are huge with significant food insecurity and recently complex emergency i.e. drought, heavy rainfall, locust and current COVID-19 crises, which has also severely affected the food systems.UN Food Systems summit will certainly help Pakistan in moving forward from food production to food systems approach and preparing a compressive plan for transforming its food systems to ensure food and nutrition security for all.

Dr. Muhammad Azeem Khan, Chairman Pakistan Agriculture Research Council said that these dialogues have created a lot of interest among the policy makers, government representatives, scientists and researchers with representation from provinces, government departments, international partners, academia, civil society and private sector.

He continued and said that upcoming UN Food Systems Summit will bring together key players from the worlds of science, business, policy. Healthcare, academia, indigenous people, youth organizations, consumer groups, environmental activists, and other key stakeholders. Before, during and after the Summit, these actors will come together to bring about tangible, positive changes to the world’s food systems. 

In his concluding remarks, Mr. Ahmed Jan Essa, Provincial Head of FAO Office Balochistan said that it gives me immense pleasure to see the deliberations today for Pakistan National Food Systems dialogue, he congratulated MNFS&R, PARC and other partners for their leadership role and untiring efforts in organizing this critically important event in a province which is suffering from acute food shortage.

The national and provincial dialogues will for sure enable Pakistan to present its case and national vision for transforming its food system in the upcoming Global Food Systems Summit 2021.