The first ever visit of FAO Director-General to IFPRI’s headquarters in Washington last week celebrated four decades of rich partnership that has generated cutting-edge technical knowledge and enhanced expertise for supporting food security and improved nutrition. In warmly welcoming FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva, IFPRI’s Director General Shenggen Fan noted that the IFPRI-FAO partnership is built on a shared commitment to make agriculture and food systems more inclusive, productive, resilient, and sustainable.

Together, FAO and IFPRI have helped enhance the capacity of policy makers to make evidence-based policy decisions, create information resources and networks for food security, strengthen the focus on gender in agriculture, spur strategic public investment in agriculture, promote rural development, and enhance the positive impact of agriculture and food systems on nutrition.  Following the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, FAO and IFPRI signed an updated memorandum of understanding.

During the visit, the DGs affirmed and discussed strengthening the long-standing partnership to continue generating innovative tools and evidence to improve food security and nutrition. IFPRI will engage with FAO to enhance country-level food policy capacity based on local needs.  The two organizations will continue to assess the impacts of climate change and other global crises; support better data collection on investments in agricultural research; strengthen gender dimensions in agricultural policy; and track and monitor Sustainable Development Goals indicators related to food and nutrition security.

FAO and IFPRI look forward to deeper engagements in the years to come in a mutual quest to achieve a world free of hunger and malnutrition.

For more information on IFPRI and FAO partnership, please see here.