The Centre for Environmental Policy and the Food and Agriculture Organization have teamed up to map natural resource-driven fragility.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has joined hands with the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London to create a tool for the mapping of natural resource-driven fragility, the global vulnerability. This tool is based on integrating the future technological and environmental issues with the availability of natural ressources.
The FAO Building Forward Better Initiative
The “Building Forward Better Initiative” is a result of the recognition that it is important to invest in human resources in fragile settings. It addresses the loss of human potential in fragile countries. It strengthens national institutions, improves natural resource management, and increases human capital. This will help to increase agricultural productivity, improve food security, and move towards the SDGs.
In the framework of the Initiative, a mapping tool is planned for the definition and visual assessment of natural “resources-diven fragility”, to guide decisions over geographical and thematic areas of intervention. The elaboration of “fragility maps” will not only enable the visualization of vulnerable areas, but will also allow the identification of root causes, thus depicting clear investment opportunities to foster healthier and more sustainable ecosystems.
Natural Resources Fragility
From climate hazards to manmade catastrophes, from the depletion of the planet’s resources to toxic waste, the world faces an ever-growing number of challenges turning countries and communities into fragile states. Poor people in developing nations are especially dependent on natural resource and ecosystem services for their livelihoods. They now live in areas with high ecological vulnerability and low levels of resource productivity. The poor living in such ecological margins and having low access rights to productive natural resources is a major factor in poverty. This puts at risk sustainable development efforts and the ability to address global pressures on water, energy, food security.
Assessing a state’s natural resources-driven fragility can offer the evidence to guide decisions over geographical and thematic areas of policies and international instruments that foster sustainable development and address climate change and environmental degradation, including relevant Sustainable Development Goals. Professor Nick Voulvoulis and his team are using a novel approach to integrating water, food and energy systems to create a tool to measure resource fragility. This will help to support sustainable development in developing countries through responsible investments and green policies.
Professor Nick Voulvoulis says:
“Currently, global figures on water, energy and food access hide major regional variations and a series of locally important imbalances between demand and supply. This could be a burden on the poorest countries. To support development efforts, we need to depict clear investment opportunities based on scientifically elaborated needs fostering healthier human-nature relationships”.
Maher Salman, FAO Senior Water and Land Officer, explains:
“FAO, as the leading UN agency working to promote food security and end hunger, recognizes the crucial importance of fostering sustainable agri-food systems, to support countries affected by socio-economic and environmental adverse conditions. The gap between natural and human systems and the more vulnerable humans and animals may widen due to increasing pressures on resources and rising global population. It is time to clearly identify the drivers of fragility and help livelihoods to emerge from a status of fragility ”
The project aims at developing indicators of fragility using a Water Energy-Food Nexus approach. It also incorporates environmental resources, climate risks, and future technology. The results will be used to design a tool to support stakeholders in identifying the critical axis of fragility to mitigate present and future risks”.
Notes
- The Food and Agriculture OrganizationYou can find the United Nations (FAO) is a specialised agency of the United NationsThis is what drives international efforts to defeat it hungerImprove nutrition Food security. The FAO has 197 members. It is headquartered at Rome, Italy and has regional and field offices around the world. They are active in more than 130 countries. It assists governments and development agencies in coordinating their activities to improve and sustain agriculture, forestry and fisheries. It also conducts research, provides technical support to projects, runs educational and training programmes, and collects information about agricultural output, production and development.
- The Centre for Environmental Policy (CEP) at London’s Imperial CollegePart of a group of ten universities that are ranked among the top ten worldwide, the Centre conducts applied and fundamental research in environmental sustainability. It is also part a university with a reputation for excellence in research and teaching. The unique interdisciplinary Centre in the Faculty of Natural Sciences is an innovative Department. It works at the interface of science and technology, as well as the economic and policy contexts in which it is developed or applied. The Centre’s research focuses on a broad range of environmental topics, with a particular focus on informing public policies and ensuring that commitments made by civil society, government and businesses to reduce human impact on nature and natural resource can be maintained. CEP is a platform that allows students to interact with key stakeholders. It ensures that the next generation of students can make significant contributions to solving environmental problems and producing effective, just and evidence-based environmental policy.