On May 24-25, 2022 IOFS Secretariat in cooperation with the UAE Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA) conducted a regional training workshop on strategic planning and policy development in food security.
The IOFS Program “Food Security Governance” that was unanimously supported by member states within the 3rd IOFS General Assembly meeting on 2-3 December 2020 in Turkey, and further emphasized in the subsequent General Assembly in Nur-Sultan, on 8-9 September 2021, highlights the importance of organizing regional multi-stakeholder workshops on food security.
The event contributes to promote policy convergence and greater coordination at the global, regional and national levels. It provides a dynamic platform that encourages discussions to establish networks for exchange and accumulation of the OIC Member States’ experience in food security governance, developing coherent policy frameworks and resilient inter-sectoral government systems to ensure the sustainable food systems of each country in the OIC region.
The opening session was inaugurated with keynote address by IOFS Director-General HE Yerlan A. Baidaulet which provided an overview of the key strategic vision of IOFS, emphasized importance of food security issues in the OIC region and urgency of improving policies, programmes and interventions for ensuring nutrition challenges responsive agriculture and food security systems. The session was also had the welcoming remarks of H.E. Mariam Almheiri, the UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment, that provides the patronage over the said IOFS Program and the opening speech of H.E. Saeed Al Ameri, Director General of ADAFSA, who extended the major support to this IOFS initiative. The IOFS DG also thanked for the opening remarks of H.E. Madiyar Menilbekov, Ambassador of Kazakhstan to the UAE, given the Embassy's role in supporting the IOFS program activities.
IOFS Director-General welcomed participants of the session and noted that UAE was the first region to champion the collaborative consultative events and supported IOFS initiative to enable actions agreed at regional level towards implementation of improved policies on the intra-OIC geography.
IOFS Director-General welcomed participants of the session and noted that UAE was the first region to champion the collaborative consultative events and supported IOFS initiative to enable actions agreed at regional level towards implementation of improved policies on the intra-OIC geography.
The event was complemented with signing ceremony of a Memorandum of understanding by IOFS Director-General HE Yerlan A. Baidaulet and Chief Executive of the Sustainable Food Systems Ireland (SFSI), Mr. David Butler and expressing strong commitment to develop a collaboration by two institutions.
The event attracted leading policy analysts, legislators, manufacturers, experts and participants of agro-industrial sectors from more than twenty countries to discuss effective and competent Food Security Governance and implementing the national and subnational legal and regulatory frameworks on food and nutrition security; as well as to ensure the coordinated and integrated relationship among governmental and other stakeholders.
The meeting allowed discussing the importance of IOFS role in institutionalizing the Inter-Regional Bridge to strengthen South-South Cooperation and conducting analytical studies on food security to adopt agriculture policies and framing legal basis grounded in expert’s analysis and recommendations to assist member countries' policymakers.
