CA-CoP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
for sustainable production intensification
Dear Subscribers,
Please see herebelow a self-explanatory message from Dennis Garrity regarding the Southern Africa Regional ‘Beating Famine Conference’ in Lilongwe, Malawi on 14-17 April, 2015. The announcement is attached.
Amir Kassam
Moderator
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: www.fao.org/ag/caDear Amir and Saidi,
We want to inform all colleagues in the Conservation Agriculture community that the World Agroforestry Centre and World Vision are planning to convene a Southern Africa Regional ‘Beating Famine Conference’ in Lilongwe, Malawi on 14-17 April, 2015.
We see this as a landmark event to emphasize the crisis of widespread land degradation in southern Africa in the face of climate change, and how this could impact food security in the region. We envision that the conference will highlight the impact of key agricultural and land management practices in addressing these challenges, particularly through such practices as conservation agriculture and agroforestry.
We are bringing together high-level policy makers and practical field experts, and aim to ensure that proven grass-roots solutions combine with enabling institutions. We expect the President of Malawi to open the event, and to have world-class professionals speaking on food security challenges and practical opportunities for application across the region. We expect 250+ delegates, with capacity for more, given the venue we have secured for this landmark occasion. The Africa Union and FAO have indicated strong interest in being engaged in the conference.
The conference will be a successor to the highly successful Beating Famine Conference that was held in Nairobi in April 2012. That meeting served as a catalyst for a great deal of tangible action and organizational collaboration across East Africa to address food security, resilience and livelihood issues and opportunities. Following the conference a number of NGOs incorporated land regeneration practices into their programs (particularly farmer-managed natural regeneration and evergreen agriculture) and governments examined their policies to find ways of creating enabling environments for uptake of these practices. We expect even better outcomes for this conference, given the interest and participation from the AU, the African Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance, other international organizations, governments, donors and the NGO community.
Attached is a brief conference announcement for distribution.
With my warmest regards,
Dennis
Dennis Garrity
UN Drylands Ambassador UNCCD.int
Senior Fellow, World Agroforestry Centre WorldAgroforestry.org
Chair, EverGreen Agriculture Partnership EverGreenAgriculture.net
Chair, Landcare International LandcareInternational.net
UN Avenue, Nairobi, Kenya
Mobile: +254 722 521204
Skype: garrity.d
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