Highlighting that Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are particularly vulnerable to climate and food security challenges, President Irfaan Ali yesterday called on the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to establish a special adaptation fund for SIDS and low-lying coastal states.
The President made the call during his remarks at the FAO’s World Food Forum. Ali stated that climate pledges were made at the United Nations Climate Change Conference last year to boost climate adaptation financing but the funds promised would be inadequate to address the issue. He noted that that without climate adaptation finance, the agricultural sectors of SIDS and low-lying coastal states will continuously be at risk because of their particular vulnerability to climate change.
Without climate financing, he said, the agricultural sectors of SIDS and low-lying coastal states will be challenged to attract investment for production and productivity. “An increase in climate finance by at least 590 percent is needed. Adaptation finance remains far below the scale necessary to respond to existing and future climate change,” he said.
The president emphasized that investment is critical to the transformation of food systems. “Investment is needed in all stages of the food system. From adaptation to research and development, production, cultivation, food processing, marketing, distribution and trade [and] research. It is needed to expand and modernize agriculture and foster climate smart innovations and climate resilient agriculture,” he added.
According to Ali, due to the disasters that come along with climate change, SIDS and low-lying coastal states require substantial injection of resources for climate adaptation to ensure a resilient sector. Without this investment, he said, food security will remain imperiled.
As a result, Ali said, he welcomes FAO’s Hand-in-Hand Initiative that supports the implementation of nationally led, ambitious programmes to accelerate agri-food systems transformations by eradicating poverty UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)1, ending hunger and malnutrition (SDG 2), and reducing inequalities (SDG 10).
“However, as I’ve alluded to, SIDS and low-lying coastal states have peculiar and special needs, especially in relation to climate financing and interlocking food security challenges. SIDS and low-lying coastal states need climate adaptation financing on soft terms, more grants, concessionary interest rates, and long term repayment periods. It is my hope therefore that FAO can conceptualize and facilitate the establishment of a special adaptation fund for SIDS and low-lying coastal states, dispersed on the basis of a vulnerability index rather than under gross domestic product (GDP),” he said.
The President noted that climate change is critically linked to food production and the sustainability of food production systems and agriculture as he called for a climate development fund to help unlock much needed and specially tailored resources for SIDS and low-lying coastal states to help boast food security.
