The Secretary General of the Pacific Island Development Forum (PIDF) Feleti Teo today met the Regional Economist for the Asia and Pacific Division of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Fabrizio Bresciani.
The meeting, which took place at the PIDF headquarters, discussed ways the two organisations could work collaboratively to assist the Pacific.
One of the 10 priorities set out by Pacific leaders during the inaugural PIDF Summit last year to focus on was the issue of food security.
The leaders of the Pacific had called for sustainable agricultural and fisheries development that would first meet the needs of the people.
IFAD, a specialised agency of the United Nations, was established as an international financial institution to finance agricultural development projects primarily for food production in the developing countries.
During the meeting, Mr Teo highlighted the need to find solutions to enhance the adaptive capacity of rural populations to mitigate the effects of climate change.
“Climate change with its projected sea-level rise is likely to result in significant losses of coastal ecosystems. The risks to agriculture are among the most urgent to be addressed. Most food in the Pacific is produced by smallholder farmers who are dependent on rainfall patterns,” Mr Teo said.
“We need to find new solutions to enhance the adaptive capacity of our rural populations, protect ecosystems and mitigate the effects of climate change.”
“The UN Environment Programme in its latest assessment of the Pacific says that the prospect of environmentally sound, socially inclusive growth with a lower level of indebtedness, transparent financial systems, food security and enhanced disaster preparedness is best addressed when island economies adopt green-blue economic policies. This is the approach PIDF has been tasked to bring to the Pacific and we are pleased that we can discuss today how we can do all this with the support of IFAD,” he added.
-ENDS-