The event will take place on 25 September 2014 in New York City at the Faculty House at Columbia University. Coinciding with the UN General Assembly, the inaugural meeting of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, and the UN Climate Summit, the event will gather an invitation-only audience of 250 participants. To reach a global audience, thousands more will be in attendance through live video streaming and social media channels.
Why CGIAR and the Sustainable Development Goals?
How we achieve sustainable development will be determined by the opportunities provided to the billions of people engaged in crop and animal agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and the ways by which they manage the world’s natural resources.
The 2014 Development Dialogues will take place alongside the most important set of conversations on global development in recent years and is designed to leverage the presence of key players at the events in New York the same week.
Addressing challenges in integrated ways is fundamental for the social, environmental and economic dimensions of sustainable development. Further, reliable food systems, including value chains, markets, infrastructure, and consumption, are critical for human health, nutrition, wellbeing, and equity. Producing sufficient and quality food for nine billion people by 2050 is in itself a daunting challenge for research and development, and it must be coupled with access, stability and safety in the food systems to achieve food security and nutrition for all.
Despite significant progress in addressing the needs of the world’s poorest in the first part of the 21st century, 800 million people still don’t have enough to eat, and 1.2 billion live in extreme poverty. Additionally, climate change, cumulative environmental stress, conflict, dietary-induced obesity, animal-to-human (zoonotic) diseases and other stressors have slowed or reversed advances in both developed and developing countries. At the same time incentive structures, market failures and consumption patterns result in 40% of food being lost or wasted — an enormous misuse of our limited resources pointing to undervaluation of food and subsequent under-investments in food systems.
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is a member of the CGIAR Consortium.
IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan will be a key-note speaker at the parallel session: Expanding commercial opportunities for the poor.
Learn more: CGIAR Development Dialogues 2014
