Regional Consultation On Social Protection And Rural Employment Opens In Bangkok

BANGKOK (Thailand), Oct 9 (Bernama) -- The Regional Consultation on Social Protection, Rural Employment and Food Security here has attracted government ministers and senior officials from 17 countries across the region. It is the first Asia-Pacific consultation of its kind, convened and organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), with technical support from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. The consultation is considering ways that social protection can boost demand for local food and food products in local markets through home-grown school feeding programmes, livestock transfers as well as cash and voucher transfers, according to FAO. Agriculture interventions could also provide opportunities for building strong social networks through farmers associations, cooperatives, producer groups and farmer field schools, it said. It said more than 80 per cent of the food consumed in Asia and the Pacific is produced within this region by smallholder farmers, fishers and pastoral workers – yet most have no, or only limited, access to social protection schemes. Many suffer from 'nutritional hunger' – able to feed themselves, but unable to access or afford the right foods to keep them nutritionally healthy, it added. It said linking rural employment with greater social protection schemes is vital to ensuring fairer, sustainable and equitable food production systems for smallholder farmers and other vulnerable rural populations across Asia and the Pacific. "While important gains have been made to reduce hunger in this region, it still remains home to 62 per cent of the world's undernourished population," said Hiroyuki Konuma, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative during his opening address to participants. He pointed out that 12 per cent of the people of this region continue to suffer from chronic hunger and are the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in society. "Eighty per cent of the world’s population has no social protection, no support, and that’s a serious problem," said Yoshiteru Uramoto, ILO Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific said in his opening remarks. "In Asia-Pacific 60 per cent are engaged in precarious jobs without access to social protections. As we know, a social protection floor would help to reduce poverty and develop human resources." --BERNAMA