Director-General emphasizes the need to ensure that science, technology and innovation are appropriate, accessible and affordable for all
New York – Science, technology and innovation offer “vast” potential for progress in ensuring food and nutrition security, reducing poverty and safeguarding the environment, while boosting sustainable agriculture, said QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). said on Thursday.
“It is critically important that we ensure that technology is tailored to individual needs and specific contexts, and that it is affordable and accessible,” he said in remarks at the ninth annual Multilateral Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development. Development Goals (SDG), met in New York.
The 2024 theme of the CTI Forum is fundamental to facing challenges in times of multiple crises, with an emphasis on the effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions. While Artificial Intelligence is expected to play an important role in future initiatives, it is especially important that any and all STI solutions are made available where they can be particularly transformative, namely in the lives of rural, indigenous communities, and places where issues of poverty, Food security and nutrition are deeply interconnected.
CTI has the potential to unlock employment opportunities, empower smallholder farmers, family farmers and rural youth and women, and bridge the rural divide, noted Qu. The use of CTI must also include careful consideration of its potential impacts, benefits, risks and trade-offs before it is adopted and scaled up, he added.
“While STI’s potential to bring about transformation is great, its use can be challenging and costly, and worsens disparities if it is not accompanied by an adequate enabling environment and basic public goods, especially for developing countries,” he said. the General Director.
FAO’s commitment
Qu highlighted FAO’s efforts to bring CTI closer to Members over the past four years, including through the development of an innovation model that promotes incubators and innovation centers, foresight analysis and work to transform and strengthen national agricultural research and extension services and counseling. Specific initiatives include FAO’s 1000 Digital Villages Initiative, the Hand-in-Hand Initiative and its Geospatial Platform, FAO’s participation in the Digital Public Goods Alliance and, in particular, FAO’s advocacy of the Science and Innovation Forum as one of the main pillars of the World Food Alliance. Forum since its creation.
It is essential to ensure adequate funding to successfully utilize STI for the SDGs, he added. This will entail ending the decline in public investment in agricultural research, harnessing innovative funding and funding opportunities, expanding South-South and Triangular Cooperation and promoting participatory approaches to the co-creation of technologies and innovation, he said.
Qu spoke on a panel alongside entrepreneurs who have developed innovative solutions, including an affordable milk pasteurization tool and new approaches to clean, affordable transportation.
The STI Forum is closely aligned with the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, to be held in July 2024, under the auspices of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), with a special focus on eradicating poverty, eradicating hunger and combating climate change and its impacts,
