By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – One of the world’s largest multilateral development banks, the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), has launched ‘Engage‘, a new digital platform which will promote technological and scientific solutions to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

IsDB President Dr. Bandar Hajjar announced on February 21 the launch of the new platform at an event hosted at Bloomberg’s European Headquarters in London, together with UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, Dr. Hayat Sindi, Chief Scientific Advisor to IsDB, and a group of business, innovation and development experts.…

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN | VIENNA (IDN) – The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Fund for International Development (OFID) has joined hands with the United Nations atomic energy agency in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 on ending hunger, achieving food security

Backed by the OFID grant of US$ 600,000, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) projects will benefit especially poor farmers in developing countries in Asia: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal and Vietnam.…

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – Strife and violence in some countries in the Near East and North Africa are casting a shadow on prospects for Zero Hunger across the entire region by 2030, according to a new report.

The 2017 edition of the Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) by FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, throws limelight on how ongoing conflicts and protracted crises are opening a wide “hunger gap” between countries being affected by intensified violence and those that are not.

NENA countries include, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.…

By Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General

Following is the text of a speech given by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (1997-2006), the founding chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, on September 7, 2017 at the ‘Making Waves’ conference in Afsluitdijk (English: Enclosure Dam), a major causeway in the Netherlands, constructed between 1927 and 1932. It is being reproduced courtesy of the Kofi Annan Foundation. – The Editor.

GENEVA (IDN-INPS) – I can’t think of a more symbolic and inspirational location to promote innovative solutions around water, food and energy than the iconic Afsluitdijk. The dam is a masterpiece of Dutch engineering and a symbol for the country’s centuries-long fight against flooding from the sea.…

By Ronald Joshua

ROME (IDN) – King Letsie III of Lesotho has been appointed as Special Ambassador of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for Nutrition. The Organization’s Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, made the announcement at the high-level International Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition  December 1-2, 21016.

The Symposium was held to explore country-level challenges and successes in the nutritional reshaping of food production, processing, marketing and retail systems. Malnutrition – including obesity and micronutrient deficiencies – blights the lives of billions of individuals and can trap generations in a vicious cycle of poverty.…