`FAO Introduces Resources to Assist Policymakers During Covid-19 Crisis - Olive Oil Times

FAO Introduces Resources to Assist Policymakers During Covid-19 Crisis

By Lisa Anderson
Apr. 20, 2020 11:34 UTC

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has updated their pol­icy deci­sion analy­sis data­base (FAPDA), which shares insight into how deci­sion mak­ers in the global food and agri­cul­tural sec­tors are address­ing the impact of the Covid-19 pan­demic.

In addi­tion to updat­ing their FAPDA data­base, the FAO has also out­lined some broad guide­lines for coun­tries to fol­low in order to mit­i­gate the impacts of the coro­n­avirus on the global food sup­ply chain.

Among these prin­ci­ples are avoid­ing food export bans, which will keep vital links of the food sup­ply and value chains mov­ing.

See Also:Covid-19 Updates

However, the FAO acknowl­edged that each coun­try is socially, eco­nom­i­cally and agri­cul­tur­ally unique, and there­fore needs tai­lor-made poli­cies. The orga­ni­za­tion also acknowl­edged that the cur­rent pan­demic raises a host of issues related to exist­ing insti­tu­tions.”

Examples of cus­tomized poli­cies that the FAO high­lighted were Poland offer­ing sub­si­dized loans for food-pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties and India intro­duc­ing soft­ware for trad­ing fresh pro­duce from ware­houses rather than from whole­sale mar­kets.

The FAO fur­ther announced that they are updat­ing their keep­ing food and agri­cul­tural sys­tems alive” pol­icy plat­form, which gives users access to analy­ses of the via­bil­ity of poli­cies designed to main­tain food and agri­cul­tural sys­tems.

According to FAO senior econ­o­mist Lorenzo Bellù, this plat­form, which offers access to poli­cies in more than 130 coun­tries, enables deci­sion mak­ers to move beyond pro­pos­als and diag­noses to pre­scrip­tive and evi­dence-based solu­tions.

There are a lot of trade-offs to con­sider, but this tool can help coun­tries make them wisely and con­tribute to expe­dit­ing the estab­lish­ment of holis­tic and inclu­sive pol­icy frame­works,” he said.





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