International conference on Food Security in Drylands
The International Conference on Food Security in Dry Lands (FSDL) will be held in Doha, State of Qatar, from 14-15 November 2012. The conference will bring together senior government officials, policymakers, researchers, scholars and experts, development practitioners and representatives of international and regional organizations, farmers’ unions, NGOs, private and public financial institutions and funds, private agri-business enterprises and the media. The conference deliberations will focus on three thematic areas - Food security, Water resources, demand and management and Responsible investment - under which a number of key topics, among others, will be discussed.
The International Conference on Food Security in Dry Lands (FSDL) will be held in Doha, State of Qatar, from 14-15 November 2012. The conference will bring together senior government officials, policymakers, researchers, scholars and experts, development practitioners and representatives of international and regional organizations, farmers’ unions, NGOs, private and public financial institutions and funds, private agri-business enterprises and the media. The conference deliberations will focus on three thematic areas - Food security, Water resources, demand and management and Responsible investment - under which a number of key topics, among others, will be discussed.
The conference is expected to yield an outcome document with distilled summary recommendations that represent the consensus of the participants on future courses of action required under all thematic areas examined by the conference. It will provide insights for future policies, strategic approaches and investments to boost agricultural production to enhance food security and to increase resilience to future price shocks. The outcome document will be crowned by the adoption of the Doha Declaration that would clearly set a target percentage and date for the allocation of a significant proportion of the national public expenditure for programmes and projects to achieve food security on an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable basis. The proportion of 10 per cent is proposed as a target to be realized by 2022. The outcome document will also present the main thrusts of an Action Plan to follow-up on agreed recommendations and commitments.
Chair of the Independent Science Panel at the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) Thomas Rosswall will be giving a speech at the conference.
The Conference is organized in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Bank (WB), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), the Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute (QEERI) of Qatar Foundation, the Arab Water Council and the Centre for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) of Georgetown University, the conference will take place in the premises of Qatar University (QU).