 Yes. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening colleagues, especially also to those who are online. Welcome to the 2023 GAXA annual forum, and we know the theme expanding the global adoption of climate smart agriculture. It is truly a pleasure to see some familiar faces here and soon to become friends of mine here at our meeting today. So my name is Imelda, but please do call me Dada, and I'm co-chair for the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture. I am joined today by, you know, by everyone knows him, Mr. Hans Hugoven, and we are going very excited to have this full program to finally be able after the pandemic to be with you all together to discuss this very important topic as climate becomes more and more needed by our countries as countries increase their climate pledges. So now I just wanted to say that it may look like GAXA has taken a silent turn or has gone into hiatus, but we're actually have some achievements to share. Like for example, to mention that the ASEAN Climate Resilience Network, which is a staunch member of the GAXA family has, for example, addressed this big bottleneck in scaling up CSA through the successful creation of the first in the world multi-country sectoral readiness grant from the Green Climate Fund. And so I'm joined by some of our family members from the ASEAN Climate Resilience Network, it's some of our achievement. Here in Europe, there's also, Rossa kindly put my attention towards the development of the European Innovation Partnership, which on agriculture, which is now integrated in the EU Common Agriculture Policy Network. And they're doing a lot, especially in promoting 100 living labs across the EU, thanks to the development of the SCAR agroecology. More to this and feel free to talk to Rossa about this, feel free to talk to the ASEAN Climate Resilience Network about the grant. And this is actually, I mentioned these highlights that we are really not being silent. There's a lot of activities going on. And that's why we're very excited with this finally this forum to be able to exchange information as we go along in the next two days. So I just wanted to mention that for our meeting, this meeting is really framed around gaxas cross cutting themes of youth women and finance, being as inclusive as possible, but highlighting the central role of farmers in our work. But what what can we expect as well in the in the next two days, we wanted to launch and share new activity proposals that will give us the opportunity to engage more revitalize our engagement with the Alliance. And to see how we can accelerate these gaxas multi stakeholder actions, create new tools and share knowledge to lead positive change. So those are our objectives of these two days, but we really want to hear from you and your voices so we could do this during breaks during exchanges after all that great speakers that we have lined up. Before I hand over the floor to hands. I think there's some housekeeping rules. Firstly, that this meeting is being recorded. It's okay. Let us know it's not okay. Let us know as well. And tomorrow. Tomorrow we are going to have a translation from French translation tomorrow. And anyone we don't forget our members who are online. So please do give all your feedback or questions on the chat box and we'll make sure to incorporate your comments in the in the in our discussions. So, I think that that is so far my part and hands the floor is your style. Thank you very much data and good morning to you all great to have you here. And we don't only have you here in the room but we have already more than 50 people in the virtual room. So it's, it is an hybrid meeting. So we try to be interactive as possible with the whole world. So I wouldn't say only good morning and would be good morning, good afternoon and good evening. Great to have you here. Let's make it an exciting two days. Exciting means also interactive not only listening to, I think our excellent speakers, but see how we can turn words into action. And that's very much needed because last year. We were confronted with the perfect storm of crisis we all know, and we know all know that especially the developing countries are hit hardest. And we know the disling figures, 860 million people living in hunger. Every day you read in the papers about climate change, but we don't read in the papers anymore the 860 million people in hunger. And we don't if you don't act next year we go over the 1 billion people living in anger it's unbelievable. And on top of this we know from those almost 1 billion 345 million people are living at the edge of starvation. So it's all the more reason that we need to act. We have really a severe food crisis. And also that is a huge contrast because we are losing one third of our produced food every year. Let's be honest. We know our challenges. We have made our commitments already in 2015 by stating that in 2030. We have ended hunger. Of course we know that we are not going to achieve it. But we have to realize we have to increase our efforts to make it happen to come close to our sustainable development goals. And that means not only dealing with climate change but we also need to deal with agriculture production. We know that we have to feed around 50 billion people in 2050. And with the current production it needs an intensification of agriculture production in a sustainable way. So we know our commitments. We know how to do it at least we think how to do it. But we know we cannot do it at the global level. And Bill Clinton said last year at the United Nations General Assembly. If I go to speak in rooms. I say, we have our commitments. We know how to do it. And then I asked, how are we going to do it? And he said, then it was silent in the room. And that's the angle for I think also the Alliance for Climate Smart Ecoculture in the next coming years, how to make it happen at the national level. And everybody is speaking now about equity food systems. It's a new buzzword. But let's not forget that our food, our food systems starts with the farmers. Yesterday we had a presentation at the meeting of the International Agri-Food Network about FEO hand-in-hand initiative, a presentation of 15 minutes. In those 15 minutes, the farmers were not mentioned even. And only after 13 minutes, the private sector was mentioned. So there's something fundamentally wrong if you don't put the farmers and the private sector in the middle again. Because if we want to transform our food systems, it has to be done at the national level. And it starts with the farmers and it starts with the private sector. We have to give the farmers the access to technologies, innovation so that they can implement climate smart agriculture. We have to bring the private sector on board. And we always speak about funding. They will invest, but we have to make sure that they are sitting around the table. Luckily today they are sitting around the table. So that they really invest in our national food systems. And often we speak about the theory of change. Let's change the theory. Let's change the practice. We have our Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture. I think we are now nine years since its foundation 2014. The concept has arrived and everybody knows the concept. We have the awareness. Now, we have to go into the practice. Next year we have our 10th anniversary. And let that mark the shift to action at the national level. Let's discuss that these two days. And we need you. We need all the constituencies to do so. We have to learn from each other, work with each other, support each other. And that's why we have a hope and an interesting program for you these two days, everything in it, but we focus on farmers. We focus on innovation technology. And of course we focus on the youth. Where are we without the youth. So let's go into the next phase. Let's make it interactive these two days. Just don't sit and listen, but come in whenever you want. Whenever wherever. Here in the room and of course via your raise hand function, if you're virtually there. And it's now my great honor to announce the first speaker. And everybody knows her my dear and very good friend Agnes Calibata. And of course everybody knows her as the director of Agra. But I think she's even more known, because she's the special envoy for the World Food Systems Summit. It's amazing what she did. They're running up to the food system summit last year, and the food system summit itself, because at the waist, your awareness at the highest level. It made our heads of states and our CEOs and leaders organization aware of the biggest problem you have in July. We will have your United Nations Food Systems Summit stock taking where are we one year later. I'm sorry with implementing results. Are we really involving farmers private sector in a concrete way. So it's more than a pleasure to give the floor to Agnes Calibata. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for those introductory remarks. I'm really, really happy to be part of the conversation today. And it's really good to see old friends around the table food system friends around the table. Really proud that we are all carrying the torch and taking it forward. I'm also happy to be part of this conversation, but also to be part of this group that is looking at climate smart and culture and how we can do things differently. I'm not going to the details of the challenges we face today we know them, but let me just mention one, because we really always have to put things in perspective. We just went through a major drought in Kenya, it's done Africa that left a lot of people dead. And now the rents have come, and we're going through a major flood, major floods in one impact this week alone, they lost 130 people in one night. Right. And that is happening in many other places. And we know that Mozambique and Malawi still are going through the cyclone that just started recently. And there's no running out from the fact that climate change is actually now doubling down on its, on its velocity and how it's going to be affecting people. So for those of us that are sitting in this space is what we are talking about what type of action as needed. It's really really important that we raise our voices even higher yesterday. I just took a one day trip to be part of the Pittsburgh meetings that are happening in Berlin, just because I got the opportunity and I felt like even if I was there for one hour just to talk about some of these challenges that we go through and the level of effort that is needed to the communities. You know this challenge is a global challenge it's impacting people everywhere. It has unbelievable local impact. We cannot leave action to local actors because they don't have capacities the ones that are being affected the most, don't have the ability to deal with this problem. But you almost feel like countries that are struggling with debt are dealing with this challenge communities that are struggling with what is going on in their environments and left on their own. And we are coming in yes we are coming in with the margins support in many of these places. But sometimes it's a bit too late for some of those communities it's getting late. So what do we do. I just also remember that agriculture is part of the problem. Right, that that the foods, if there was one thing we learned from the food system is that our food system is also part of the problem that we actually are contributing 30% to degradation of the food system itself by degrading by the capacity, but also we are contributing to degradation of the environment. So yes, we are part of the problem, even as we are looking for food systems to food systems to continue feeding us and creating the solutions we need. There are many opportunities that are on the ground. Last week, we had a number of ministers here from Africa, trouble to Vietnam to look at some of the solutions they've been working on with the World Bank in climate smart agriculture, and trying to understand how some of these solutions can be adapted to the African context. People are actually looking for solutions. Here in Africa, in Kenya, we've been working with the government of Kenya on making regenerative agriculture real recognizing that again, highly rooted soils, we need to be thinking how to rebuild this capacity. And this is beginning to take hold. In Nigeria, a great ecology, and different practices of our ecology are beginning to give farmers better use than when we do the traditional agriculture the way we know it. And there I could go on, you know, many of these practices and many of these solutions will be better than me. But what I'm trying to say to the point that was made earlier, the tools are there. So I think that we need to raise our voices higher, we need to advocate even stronger for this community that are struggling within agriculture systems that are not paying work but also highly eroding. We need to understand that we can be part of the solution. There's a lot of knowledge that we need to share. There's already a lot. I appreciate the work that is doing in moving policies and ensuring that policies that do work in different places are being put forward and shared across 196 countries that that are members of FAO. But they're also country, like I said earlier, but they're also country opportunities for us to learn from if you went to one of you see how even as they have some of these challenges how they're wanting to strengthen their ecosystem so that it is more serious to climate change. If you went to, to some of these other countries that like I mentioned, you'll see different solutions that have been put in place, but we have to come back to really the whole idea of do these countries have the capability. Can we move faster? And I know some of our colleagues from the World Bank around this table as well. Can we move faster on financial instruments that have been talking about and rethinking financial instruments that make it possible for adaptation to work in Africa and other countries, more island states and other countries that are suffering from this. And can we make it possible for communities to get access to more resilient tools and means in the area that will work strengthening access to droughts, terraerans, varieties that can offer droughts terraerans varieties that are resistant to flooding which do exist. Ensuring that communities have more access to these ensuring that businesses are more resilient to the challenges that climate change is is bringing towards us, especially businesses in the country sector. I mean, if you're a business in the landscape in the livestock landscape in Kenya. You probably haven't worked there are three or four years in some of these places, and because you haven't worked there are three or four years, you know, look at business, you've probably collapsed, collapsed as an SME. This SME is to keep going that forever to build to get to to start up and they have capital and everything is being eroded by climate change. So financing is going to be very, very critical and adaptation financing is going to be very, very critical. In the meeting yesterday that we're in. It was good to see that the government of German stepped forward with the two billion investments in the Green Climate Fund. We hope that many more countries can do this. So that these resources their resources that have become available to countries, but also hope that the Green Climate Fund makes it possible to give you a poor countries to access adaptation financing. So that we can invest in a climate smarter the culture. So, I really want to, again, thank you. I want to challenge you that next year when we talk about the 10th anniversary. Let's do it in the film. Let's do it in places where we are actually seeing what is going on in these countries how these communities are copied, because it's here. They live through it every day, but they've also come up with coping mechanisms that can teach us a lot on how to support them on how to work with them on the policies on the investments that are needed. And the type of tools that we should be moving to support them even further so thank you again for having me as part of this conversation. Again, I challenge us to think about raising our voices higher, advocating and keeping these issues in everybody's faces. Working to ensure that local action is not left to struggling communities and farmers and small island states and ensuring that financial instruments are coming available. So thank you again and over to you chair. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Actors Calibata for your great words for addressing us, and also for your great global work. You're doing with food system summit a special envoy, but also your role as director, bringing action to the country in Africa, where it's needed most to the farmers. Thank you so much. Now I turn the floor to Martin Van Nielko. He is the global director for agriculture and food global practice of the World Bank. And of course we all know. The global journey of the global alliance of climate agriculture started in 2010 with international conferences in the Hague, throat in Vietnam for it in South Africa, and in 2014, the global alliance was born. And the World Bank was one of the two founding fathers, I would say. I don't have a more general neutral term, but one of the founding fathers of the global alliance of climate smart agriculture and it's great to have you here Martin. Thank you very much Hansen and thanks very much to me for the opportunity to talk about I mean the main focus of the annual forum as I will be focusing on mainstreaming climate smart agriculture is I think is very much aligned with the thematic focus of the forum today so I will talk a little bit of a presentation here thanks for putting it up on the context that we are in when it comes to food systems and of course we can't ignore the rising food insecurity. So that sets the stage for the why the challenges ahead and what needs to be done, the what I will also talk about the farmer's perspective Hans I think very, very important. And then on the how you know I will put actually for enablers that we think at the bank needs to be put in place. I mean to really really mainstream climate smart agriculture across the world I mean next slide please. So in terms of context and Hans you already, you know, mentioned it I mean the news on global food and nutrition security globally for continuous I mean to be very sobering I mean I think that came also out very clearly at the launch of the global report on food crisis yesterday. We particularly notes, you know you see this increase. No need to provide details there but we particularly note with very great concern that a gender gap in food security actually has grown eight fold I mean since 2018 such particularly women and children that are being affected by those rising numbers that you see there. Of course, the whole thing is that covert and the war in Ukraine accelerated the increase in food insecurity but in fact, food insecurity has been increasing. In 2015, actually the year the same year that the sg's were adopted and clearly now to achieve the sg to by 2030 what is needed now is to reverse the existing trend in the wrong direction and then make up for all the progress that has lost between 2015 and 2023 and use the remaining years. I mean to to accelerate progress towards zero hunger in the last updates. When I spoke at our board board of directors in the bank that was master the first we actually said that probably higher with a high probability that as easy to actually would not be achieved. Next slide please. Yeah, you don't see the entire slide actually because we saw some sort of people on the screen so I don't know where you want to correct that. You know, there are actually many drivers of this crisis, which are currently worsening all aspects of food and nutrition security across the globe, I mean it's not just domestic food price inflation. It's also causing alarm bells to ring around the world, I mean including in the developed economies. But there are also many factors that are actually compounding one another and actually entrenching this crisis across the various dimensions of food insecurity including food access food availability food utilization and food stability as indicated on the slide and these factors are playing out differently in each countries and that means, as I was saying and the action needs to happen at the country level, but at the same time they're no blueprints I mean so actions need to be tailored I mean to the specific conditions of the countries. Next slide please. Now looking forward. There are five risks I mean that we are particularly concerned about. And we think I mean that this compounding impact of those risks might make the global food crisis actually worse before it gets better. The first is the rampant domestic food price inflation. That already mentioned the second risk is the global fertilizer prices they have come down but I mean very big concerns about fertilizer affordability with that at the lowest levels, I mean since 2007 2008. The third risk is the declining stock stock to use ratios for the major grains. This means I mean that food availability might become more of a constraint probably moving forward. The fourth risk is the depressed production coming out declining grains and oil seed production in Ukraine. And the fifth is the. And a kind of a lot more and more alarming kind of news around, you know, if the El Nino around the corner that actually might actually happen in the fall. So those five risks, I mean role kind of raising red flags I mean that things might get worse before they get better. Next slide. And the response. Hans, you were talking about action. I think the bank, I mean put the money where its mouth is I mean they actually made available $30 billion between last year, May. And we said we would make it available. By June 30 2023 actually we made that available by December 31 2022. Since since since since there are no blueprints we basically offering a menu that actually countries can select from. And those are reflecting the four dimensions of food security. I mean the first element is support production and producers to ensure availability of food. The second element is to facilitate increase in food and agriculture inputs to ensure the stability of the food system. The fourth element is the affordability and making sure that's vulnerable households are protected to well targeted and nutrition sensitive social safety nets and afford element and this is where climate smart agriculture comes in. So that's a short term but also see how we can complement the short term with building resilience moving forward. So that actually the food systems are better prepared I mean to withstand future crisis. Next slide. I'm taking a step back a little bit. I mean, the bigger picture is that the rising food insecurity that we have seen for quite some time are actually reflection I mean that the global food system is not fit for purpose. I mean, as this slide indicates you know food systems, I can contribute to a healthy economy by being a driver of inclusive growth. Food systems can contribute to healthy people by providing healthy diets. And those of course are directly linked to me to the quality of human capital. And of course they also food systems can also contribute I mean to healthy planet by providing nature based solutions and climate smart agriculture is part of that. Right now there's a very big gap, I mean between what the global global food system is supposed to do, and the reality on the ground for that reason, as the two is out of reach, moving forward to 2030 next slide please. Now I, many people might already have seen that slides I mean this is one of the slides that we use maybe also work with Agnes in the in the for the UN food system summit where the World Bank was working on the on the finance lever. So when we say that the global food system is not fit for purpose that many many hidden costs, I mean they have been estimates of those hidden costs done in the lead up to the UN food system summit. Those are enormous 12 trillion dollars. And if you compare it to the market value of the food system, the food system is about 12% of global GDP. So that's about 10 trillion dollars per year. So the hidden cost of the food system, particularly related to environment and nutrition help us are very very significant next slide. And then, as you mentioned Hans as well you know I mean so we have a food system that's not fit for purpose, but then looking forward, I mean the current and the emerging challenges are enormous I mean the food system needs to produce food for 2 billion more people by at the same time. I mean the carbon footprint of the sector needs to be reduced in order to achieve I mean the goals of the Paris agreement without food system transition. The goals of the Paris agreement would not be achieved and that actually means moving away from business as usual because we're business as usual the carbon footprint actually will go up. At the same time, producing food for 2 billion more people are reducing the carbon footprint needs to be realized when the headwinds of climate change are blowing harder and harder and this you can get from the reports from the IPCC you know one one interesting figure there is that agriculture productivity would have been 22% higher if they would not have been climate change so actually farmers already paying a very steep price of climate change around the world now so what needs to happen next slide. Considering that the global food system not being fit for purpose. The vision is then that the need for fundamental transformation of food system that truly supports healthy people, planet and economy. And to make that happen we need to move away. I mean from the currently very volatile, unsustainable and in a cat in a catable grow towards green you know and we need to move towards green, resilient and inclusive development and to achieve that a number of changes need to happen. No and not going on detail, but those need to happen simultaneously. And of course they need to happen at the country level. This is not easy. It's quite complex and particularly when we say you know what we know what needs to be done that might be resources or what needs to be done that might be good examples or needs to be done. But basically to scale it up. I mean there are also many political sensitivity and what's really missing. We think is a political will. I mean by governments. I mean to take the difficult decisions. And I think I mean that's something to keep in mind when you move forward. Next slide. Now what does it means. What does this vision means for farmers. You know we think that farmers are part of the solution. And that we need to rethink what it means to be a successful farmer in the 21st century. Farmers should not just be seen as just producers of food, but also as providers of ecosystem services and global society and society is demanding and farmers should be rewarded for those services. Also we think I mean the farmers should be generators of renewable energy, biogas, I mean solar winds, etc, etc. So the economic perspective I mean that we can offer when we move towards scaling up climate smart agriculture is that farmers could actually have three instead of one revenue stream. And as you said Hans I mean farmers are entrepreneurs. I mean that actually that message suits resonate with them. I mean so moving from one to three revenue streams and I think climate smart agriculture can actually make that happen for them. Next slide. Now, how much need to be invested actually to get to get a worldwide food system transformation we've also done calculations about that in the lead up to the UN food system about $300 to $400 billion per year. The good news there also is that of course those costs are very, very significant, but also actually hold the promise of very attractive economic returns. There is a very strong business case for food system transformation. That's the core message of this slide. Now how to do that. Next slide. He put forward, I mean for eyes, I mean before the first eye is to realign incentives producer support to agriculture based on OECD data for a few years back is between 550 and $600 billion if you also include support to consumers, public support to agriculture and food is around $700 billion per year. Most of those incentives are not effective, only one sixth of those public support programs actually in support of public goods. The other is basically very much distorting markets efficiencies negative environmental externalities, etc, etc. So also about 33 to 35 cents of every dollar in public support actually hands up in the hands of the farmers. So considering this I mean we think there's a massive opportunity to repurpose I mean this $550 billion I mean that's now spent on to public support on agriculture and actually provide the incentives to farmers to invest in climate smart agriculture provide the incentive to the private sector to invest in greening supply chains for instance. You mentioned fruit loss and waste homes and then cold storage facilities, etc, etc. Next slide. The next is innovation, you also mentioned that I mean, we need to accelerate agriculture innovation. Right now farmers are under investing, sorry, counties are under investing in in agriculture innovation we use as a yardstick about 1% of agriculture GDP most counties actually are below that at the same time the returns to agriculture innovation I think about CJ are enormous 20 to 40%. So we need an urgent need I mean to accelerate agriculture innovation and a couple of changes there you know instead of just optimizing productivity we need to optimize productivity resilience and carbon footprints, simultaneously. So we need to strike a better balance between the upstream statistic research and the more downstream adapted research and extension services, of course I know blueprints, and I know silver, then there are no silver bullets. Then, the third eye is that we need to scale investment particularly of the private sector and the private sector spends about $2 trillion per year on agriculture and food this is not just investments and it's also procurement. We know that ESG standards of the food sector compared to all the sector actually is pretty low. So what can be done, I mean to provide incentives to farmers to private sector to to de risk, I mean some of those investments that are needed, but at the same time in return. I mean the private sector kind of improving their ESG standards I mean so that's the compact I mean that we put forward as part of the work that we did on the finance lever for the UN food system summit and so I think that work is extremely relevant. Because with the $700 billion in public support and the $2 trillion in private sector spending that massive resources available that can be put to work. Final slide. Institutions very critical I mean to strengthen institutions I mean for food systems as you said, Hans, you know I mean food systems might be the new buzzword, but you know, it means that different ministries in the governments actually need to work together more effectively. It's not just food systems go beyond ministries of agriculture. So in that sense, one of the things I've been working on you mentioned the stock taking exercise is how do you put actually a food systems lens, you know, on the budget so that's clear for the various ministries what the interface is with the food system and how they can contribute. I mean, to that. There's one final final slides, just for information that you know, because this all sounds very good. I mean on the how we actually in the bank. All of the, I mean to setting the states I mean to get those four eyes in place a lot of upstream work is needed. In that respect, we established three years ago, I mean the food systems 2030 multi donor trust funds, which aims to provide a catalytic to all of these four dimensions. We've raised in the last three years about $200 million I mean to support his catalytic work. So we're now actually working in about 20 countries across the various continents in actually moving this agenda forward and actually what we see also in our lending. Of course, because of the covert 19 and the and the and the stimulus packages that many governments have put in place. You know, many ministers of finance are facing physical constraints are rising debt levels as you also mentioned, Hans. So there is a huge interest by ministers of finance on how they can actually get a bigger bang for their existing buck. So, so we see that this crisis that we're in, as I started this context, you know also actually provides a lot of opportunities that we see increasingly reflecting you know in the demand that's being put forward for bank financing for agriculture and food. So I think we're moving in the right direction and of course we are we are very pleased to be part of of gags to get farmers on board actually to make that happen with a focus on see how far we can get by 2030 thanks Hans back to you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Martin for new coke. I can say a lot but I won't do for the sake of time but you can be assured that the slides of Martin will be circulated to all members of virtually and present today. I now turn to Michael Ketter. Michael, Michael and I start to know each other when he was Secretary General of the International Seed Federation and of course we know without seeds nothing will grow. And now is the chair of the International Acre Food Network and we are speaking about the private sector and companies. And I think thanks to the International Acre Food Network, which has an excellent meeting yesterday. I think we get more and more interest, and we have one person who is from the beginning already from Yara already from the beginning here in the Alliance. I think without the companies, without the equity business, nothing will change. So that's, we desperately need companies, not only for the investment but also for the technologies also for the capacities, Michael the floor is yours. Thank you, Deans, dear Dada, if you allow, as you proposed it and the Martin and colleagues. Yeah, lots of pressure on the private sector. We cannot fill the gap alone. And let me say, let me just say, I think, highly appreciated GAXA as a, and that's the important piece, inclusive multistakeholder platform and inclusiveness is somehow the key because it's about all of us together. Again, for what supporting the farmers looking on early here. I think it is all about our capacity. And you speak Martin and Hans about country level solution. Now, it's the field in the field solution. And I think that's the topic. The topic is how we can bring the innovation to the farmer, how we can bring best practices to the farmer how also farmers can share their best practices with other. This is the topic. Again, Martin, you showed nice and important figures we need to remind us public funding in agriculture research is going down. It's going down everywhere. The issue is that yes, private sector funding or private sector innovation is heavily increasing everywhere. And we said it to fall since 2000 to fall. The point is, where we need most innovation. That's where we cannot really invest vulnerable countries, give you an example, you take South Sudan, public private investment 10% why enabling business environment. I think this is I'm taking here an example can take many other examples. The main issue we are facing is, we have lots of innovation, we could have a lots of tools making it available to all farms. And to all farmers means also. Yes, we are private sector. Yes, we are looking for a business case but when we are speaking about making tools available needs to be a business case for us, but needs to be first of all business case for the farmers. There's no size of farmers who cannot be a business case to have access also to innovation and to tools. This is the topic how we can build also in this most vulnerable countries on the ground in the fields for each of them, a business case and access to tools. Perhaps Gaxa because you mentioned also, yes, we are entering a new era, when Gaxa started, it was about climate smart agriculture. Today, we are entering this era of systemic approaches. That means agriculture. It is good, because today agriculture is not only seen as the problem. Policies make policymakers understanding it's a solution. It's a solution for adaptation to climate change mitigation is another piece and it's not a discussion today but I think everybody agrees today there are tremendous opportunities in our capacity to drive production to help also to address climate change. Yes, there is a new era because we know also at COP now, agriculture is part of the debate and I think that's also a new thing, which happened after climate after Gaxa was founded and I think that's an important solution and we need to use this and I think therefore a platform like Gaxa should be our inclusive multi-stakeholder platform where it's not about only here, expanding global adoption. It's about really how can we act, how we can build this action on the ground this project based and Agnes mentioned, yeah, come to the fields. Yes, it's about this how we can drive together. I think that's the core from the private sector also how we can drive together this project based action together within also Gaxa. The International Agri-Food Network is representing the whole diversity of the cultural production system and up to the value chain. 15 international organizations from input to food and beverage, let's make it short, including the farmers. And I think our own goal, only goal is about engagement, but it's about making things happen. And yesterday you mentioned it. It was important for us. We had a full day with FAO on, yeah, partnering for betters, the full betters. And yes, we would like to see even more engagement. You mentioned we should go further because the private sector is seen as a solution, but therefore all opportunities for us to engage, but to engage concretely is something we are looking for. With that, ready to continue the discussions with you, ready to continue also to see how we can drive further together and Gaxa and thanks again for having also because I think, yeah, this trust in the private sector that we can and we will contribute also to achieve our sustainable goals. We heard yesterday we have to rescue them. Can we rescue them? I don't know, but count on us to be comfortable. Thanks for this. Thank you very much, Michael, for such a passionate speech calling for the creation of enabling environment for businesses to really thrive and support. Thank you so much, Michael, for the opportunity because there's really no lack or shortages of innovation. So, but before I go to the next speaker, I wanted to react quickly. You are very much appreciated. You mentioned that agriculture is now included a cop, right? And in fact, there's now this landmark decision on just for agriculture within the pop. I think that we have actual negotiators within the room from Southeast Asia. They're the ones really creating policies that hopefully will support some of the investments needed and the environment needed for businesses to thrive. So I just wanted to point out there's probably also other negotiators really inside the room creating policies. You started your speech with inclusiveness, right? And it's my pleasure to ensure that the youth's voice, as we say often the problems with agriculture is that there's really a dying population or very older population. So we really wanted to ensure that the youth is engaged in our total transformation measures. So it's my pleasure, Devine, to welcome you. We've just had a quick chat over email, I think at four or five a.m. when I couldn't sleep today. I'm trying to cancel another engagement, right? Because of our animal forum. So Devine, NTO, come. This is my pleasure to introduce you as the founder and managing director of the CSA Youth Network. Devine, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Yes, we can hear you well. Thank you very much. This is from Cameroon. I'm very excited to be part of this discussion. First of all, I have two points here before I get into my presentation if you have a friend over there. I just have to say that I want to echo here that the CSA YL founded the same year, same month for me, 2014. And we are so happy to be part of this and not for a long time. Especially when I heard my mother, Amnesty Halibaza, who appointed me back in 2020 to be one of the Fujisenswami Champlers, which of course are called to the entire world that we're the most strongly represented group to mobilize over 1,000 plus people, stakeholders, community leaders within the Fujisenswami process. And of course, we are so proud to be here. By the way, I heard about, my three sisters mentioned about expanding, which of course is the term of this forum, expanding globally and adopting to climate smart agriculture. We changed our strategy a few months ago because we came to realize that working as countries or within countries at the policy level, it was not going to be the best. So we decided to go right down at the grassland level. That's why on my screen right there you can find that we'll be able to set up a couple of our centers of excellence, which are actually within primary schools, secondary schools, t-birds, and equally university level. We want to go right down at the grassland level, at the primary school, where children are still being taught how to be put on their shirts and the trousers to go to school. So we are ensuring that they set up what we call home matrimonial schools, early clubs within schools, and we've done that so far, so good. So just like the statistics, we have 47 as of today, the centers of excellence globally, within five, across five continents, 33 countries across the world. Yes, and there we have over 40. We have five continents, we have 14 from Africa, North America, half three, South America, we have one, Asia we have two, and then Europe we have one. And in Asia, I want to be a bit more specific here, we have few rice, we have a strong MOU with few rice. Few rice, which is basically Philippines, that is much more focused on rice transformation. So we'll be sending interns, young students, young academician researchers, over there to few rice for internship and exchange program, which of course we are already piloting within the CRIM agenda. We only have the two regional committee commissions like Acerica for Central and Eastern Africa, and then Kadesa for the study. We've signed MOUs with them, just to let the world hear that we are not participating for the past nine years, again ten years next year. It's been a success and really a success. We have 13 international institutions, AECA, we can name them, and then equally have 21 universities across the globe, and 11 high schools and primary schools. And of course, we are including the United States, the United States of Connecticut, when I was there last year. I mean, I was able to set up a clock, a chapter of CSYI, we did the school there in Connecticut. So we are so happy about ourselves. We are so happy to be part of this forum. Unfortunately, we could not join you guys in person when I'm first. I'm happy to know, to tell us that we have our colleague, Domenico, who actually runs the program, he's right there, who is speaking so much and strongly. And I'm so proud to say that the team we have right now, of course, Ambassador Hampton has been there. It was there we were launching our A learning platform because we came to realize that it's not just talking about technology. It's not just talking about funding. It's not just talking about young people, women, we need to give them that space, okay? So the young person in Africa, naturally connect with the young person from South America. It's for this reason, we're able to work very strongly with our team within the CSYI in Argentina to set up what we call the CSYM virtual academy learning platform. In this learning platform, the interest, we have over one hundred interest across all the centers of excellence. We are making sure that they're smart with the various wrong people, with the various women, with the various children, with the various constituencies. And that's why, most specifically, to ensure that the program, the GASTA agenda, which we have been part of since inception back in 2014, and equally being one of the strategic committee members of GASTA, we've decided to set up a women's program, women in Africa, and children in our culture. So all of this has actually given us a lot of stepping stone to reach where we are today. And of course, in the afternoon, I should be speaking over here in a few hours, I should speak in a youth session, but I'm going to go digitally on some of our outreach and actually some of our capacity and what we're going to be able to do to have this established. I want you to have GASTA criteria, and all of them, they have been very, very much supportive. And of course, Ambassador Hans, the co-chair, the other thanks. And you remind everyone that we're discussing this morning to see how we can, like, share our agenda to meet up this meeting. With this, I want to thank you very much. Thank you very much. And this is from Cameroon. Over. Thank you very much for such a presentation that gives us hope and optimism, knowing that there's the youth involvement all over these total number of institutions. And we wanted to say we're here to help you grow your number. There's a slight noise on the side when we heard Phil Rice, because I think Dr. Margaret's father is a founder of Phil Rice. So let us know if you need more expansion and we're really here to help you. And I think that the presentation from Divine wraps up our opening session that ends in optimism. But I wanted to go back to some of the key messages from this opening session. For example, Martin's presentation really echoes a lot of what we have learned. Last week, the government of Vietnam hosted One Planet's fourth global conference on sustainable food system. And really a lot of what you mentioned that we are going to be delayed in the achievement of the SDG. There are different studies, but it seems like 25 years even delayed or 10 years delayed. There's all these things. And I think what really struck me in your presentation, Martin, is the critical role that we now have to find for CSA within this huge network of concepts, interrelated actors, multi-institutions, that's going to have to move in really an aligned and cohesive manner. And the role of political support. But also being always a half glass full person. There's an immense task that we need to do. But I really think, Martin, moving away from business as usual scenarios, there's so many initiatives happening all over the globe now, right? And how we could move away from business as usual scenario and really contribute towards the transformation. So both Martin and Michael's presentation really calls for investments and the creation of enabling environment that would support more investments towards this transformation. I hope that CACSA could really play a role in the creation of this enabling environment, either through exchange of information, policy implications. I think some of the projects being approved now by the Green Climate Fund are really all about readiness to create investment plans that will be backed by climate science. So we're really hoping to get into that. The most compelling message that comes is really from Dr. Kalibata asking us, right? To rise to the challenge of raising our voices higher and elevating local action. So I think let's remember that for our, as are the key message of our opening session. And with that, I think I also have the honor to now move into session two, if you will allow me. Or is there any reaction from the group about the key messages from the opening session? Otherwise, we'll move to session two because we identified that really I think, Michael, you mentioned innovation a lot in your speech, because this is really in order to respond to the climate crisis interrelated risks that are all there, compelling us to the crisis. We really need to look at innovation and technology and work towards scaling them up. And the good facilitation unit of GAXA together with the co-chair has put together some successful studies that will be shared with us today. And our first case will be I'm honored to introduce Dr. Kirit Nanubai-Shellat to give us a short presentation. Dr. Shellat, we met at COP 27 while you were online and I was there shivering in the cold air conditioned tent in COP 27 in the middle of the desert. So Dr. Shellat, we will be very curious to really hear a good case study on scaling up innovation and hopefully it will be a brief presentation. Dr. Shellat, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Good morning to everybody. And it's a great pleasure to be part of this very important deliberation for solving or meeting the challenge that world is facing today on front of food security, poverty and food for hungry millions. Salute to all. I congratulate GAXA functional unit for organizing this very good meeting with virtual participation. I see Frederica Beck on the team and let us take this program forward. I will start because we are talking about technology and I will start with Indian perspective. And in India developed sustainable agriculture, it have had recurrent eminence, which like what we are facing today, we faced it in early 50s, used to import food grains. We had 90% of families below poverty line and there were starvation and so on and so forth. Today it has self sufficient in agriculture food and it exports. This is story of last seven years because India prioritized agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries and particularly farmers. It introduced technology driven agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries. It paid special support to marginal and small poor farmers, animal holders and fishermen and focused on reduction of poverty with massive water harvesting program. It introduced technology through induced development, which is combination of communication information to farmer doorstep delivery and guidance of how to use appropriate technology with scaling it down for small holder. Most importantly, it made technology adoption affordable by subsidizing it introduction. This is very key. We have variety of technologies, but farmer can't afford it. So we have to subsidize it, make it such, scale it down to the requirement of his land. There are small holdings or one animal, two animals. So how do we scale down the technology available and how do we make it affordable? So that farmer can adopt it. Otherwise he will just stare at the big farmer how he's using his technology. In the arena of climate change, India introduced climate resilient program and now all its agriculture is climate resilient or climate smart agriculture. Because today we are in arena of climate change. There is no question of any agriculture activity, which is not smart. So we have to think first important thing is that all agriculture is climate smart agriculture. Second focus is to be on farmer. We have to make farmer climate smart. So India introduced, we introduced in India selection of crops based on soil health analysis by farmers selection of crops which can be sustained by soil fertility, promoted natural farming that is no chemical inputs in the farm, introduced solar energy where excess energy is bought by electricity company. And it is a confirmed source of income to farmers because farmer does produce excess solar energy than it can use. It has now recently introduced seaweed development. Seaweeds are growing in seawater, not dependent on rainfall. Introduced weather advisory followed by agro advisory and we set up a separate agro met the department of meteorology department which is responsible for this, promoted vermiwals and composed introduced resistant seed varieties and strengthened its infrastructure for storage, transport, marketing, export and communication. All this involves now this is second key important recommendation, convergence of efforts led by the leadership with focus on farmers, scientists extension network, community leaders, civil society members, agree marketing and milk cooperative input and agro industries supported by very active public leadership. By public leadership, we mean both the permanent administration and elected people. Most importantly, it set up in each district agro scientist agro science center known as KBK, which has nine scientists of different discipline and mandate is to guide farmer and visit them the spot visit. This is backed by liberal crop and animal insurance schemes and minimum support price. NCCST, which is our organization, we are a civil society organization working in villages with a consortium of NGOs, we are working in about 1000 villages. We worked in collaboration with Florida agriculture mechanical university farm USA to promote CSA and develop guidelines for building climate smart farmers. We are working in different climatic zones of Gujarat and Maharashtra state of India. And it is realized that wherever farmers have followed the climate smart agriculture guidelines and weather advisory, they have increased income by 30% irrespective of problems of weather. And now we are working on second edition of climate smart building climate smart farmer because the situation is becoming from bed towards. Now I request Nisa who is the CEO to take this forward. Nisa. Yeah, thank you so much. And thank you so much to Baksa for giving us the opportunity to share our experience in this forum. I would like to just share our because as our executive chairman mentioned, we are working in the more than 1000 villages. So we have a practical experience. And based on this practical experience, I would like to share two or three points. We are talking about the technology and innovations. How it is affordable and accessible. Last month we had a meeting with the farmers of the one state Gujarat state. I asked one question. And I say SK if you have the answer is yes, you just raise your hand. I ask the questions you are 300 farmers who are from the states are here. You all have a smart mobile phone. All the farmers hands raised like this. Good. And the next question I asked. Okay, very good. You all are using the WhatsApp and YouTube and all the farmers including women's and man's. They all are laughing and they raise their both hand and say yes, we are using the WhatsApp and YouTube. And I say it's very good. And I say the last and third questions. You all have a tractor or power tiller or machinery is like sprinkler or sprayer. You know how to repair and maintain it if it is not using. Please raise your hand. Surprised. Four or five young farmers or farmers who are like a little bit educated, they raise their both hand and I say see. We are the farmers, we are working on the ground level, right. We know how to use the technology. Of course, we are the farmers of our last generations also doing the farming. And we don't know how to repair the tractor, how to maintain the tractor. Okay, we are a border business line. If some salt are stuck in our nozzle and our sprinkler are not working, how we can repair it? No, we don't know. So that's why I'm asking question to you why I'm sharing this example in this forum because technology and innovations are like a link. We all have a technology in the country, but how it is affordable and accessible. Our farmers who are very poor, who have a like a very small patch of land we call in India and especially Gujarat, it's like a beaker. So very small like two or five beakers farmers are there in the meeting. They are affordable, the UG, 2G, 3G, 4G network, they are paying up 100 rupees and 200 rupees for their net also. Then I say, why you are not using the same money for the training? You spend, you contribute little bit and take the training because this is our main occupations. So I need to like focus and launch a campaign. Farmers, they understand. Farmers, they are sitting there, they understood what I am trying to say to them. So they say, yeah, you are right. They have this knowledge. They have this information. But how as a country, how as organizations, how as a forum, how as a council, we can share with them and we can like organize. And we give them a training and just realize that this is your main job and you have to do like this. So need to provide awareness for the innovations as a campaign program in this scenario of the global bombing. This is the first things we always realize and in the state of the Gujarat where we are working. We are doing for our farmers who are women and men. Technology is available and it's reached at the certain level. This is the main things I had experienced of the 22 years. I've worked since last 22 years in the same. Kuchu, because we are a little bit pressed for time. Yeah, so how we can upscale it? At present, we are working for the thousands and lakhs, but how whole state, how all the country, how we can do that, how the farmers are using the technologies. Just one little one recommendations that I had experienced that's why how we can do the EDB program. EDB means the exposure dialogue program. The Philippines have one expertise, Indonesia have one expertise, India have one expertise, Nepal, Bangladesh, how we can do, how can work together and how we can share their expertise, innovation technology at the South Asia level and share with our countries. We take it forward. If it is usable, if it is accessible, affordable, then farmers are using the water but technology also are using farmers that they don't want to invest more. But if it is affordable, accessible and farmers know that technology, it's increased that profit or income in the farming and the 100% using and the young generations start to evolve in this. So thank you so much for the giving us the opportunity for this presentation. Thank you so much, a chair of the CACSA and all the participants for listening us and thank you so much. Thank you so much. Here it and Nisha for your presentation we try now make it a little bit more interactive, so that you don't only listen but also have the possibility to make remarks and ask questions. I look around both physical room as well as the virtual whether or not somebody would like to ask question or make a remark. Thank you, Mr Chairman. So you see, would you please state your, of course, I know you'll better for everybody that's there. I'm Margaret, I am the director of International Agricultural Affairs Group of the Department of Agriculture of Thailand and I'm also a member of the ASEAN CRN, and, and so I just like to comment on, on the slide that we already heard, particularly on India's presentation. So I could sense that we have commonalities. And as the co chair that already mentioned that there are a lot of activities initiatives already on the ground and, and, and thank you Martin and Michael for for your insights on how we could systematically move forward. So still the question is how do we scale up. That is the main problem actually that we are facing. We have a good enabling policy, political support is there. We prioritize CSA activities. In the NDC we still have prioritized on transportation and energy, but the contribution of agriculture is still very little. So we are thinking to really highlight on the adaptation for benefits, how we could really scale this up. And so this, what I'm saying is that we already have those initiatives programs CSA programs. But we really need this scaling up. And so I would like to hear some gaxas direction on how we really scale up direct to the grounds direct to the farmers so I think gaxa would be best on this. So I really have high hopes that what we could output from this forum will be really put on the grounds and really solve this problem of scaling up. Thank you. Thank you very much for your remark, crucial remark. Because that's why we are here in Rome, or in the virtual room to see how we. If we have good examples in practice, how can we learn from it and how to scale up and I think that's one of the messages I think we have to see in the course of today and tomorrow. Also, when we have some of new projects to be done by gaxa, how we can work with that I give the floor to Ernie Ernie sheet. I think you hit the nail on the head it's about implementation and as we set the stage this morning this afternoon, I've got the good fortune of moderating the action group reporting out session where we're going to have five models of very innovative approaches to implement climate smart ag systems that sustainably intensify production that improve resilience and concurrently reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So this is, this is why we're reconvening after a two or three year hiatus is to look back and and lift up some of this great work this underway. Thank you very much, Ernie. We're already resonating now and I think that's important and of course that's the strength of gaxa, because we are an alliance or a network. And to get it, we can do more if we reach out to each other and help each other support each other. There was a question online I think that's perhaps it's relevant also for some of our members to answer. I have a question on, I think it's related to Dr Margaret's question. How do we integrate technological advancement with the farmer field school approach in smart climate agriculture with small holder farmers, any idea from from anyone and this came from Mr Fongo Eric. Plexus. Let's think about it and sorry. Do you want me to respond. Yeah, I'm happy to just share a few reflections from a company perspective so I work in Yara so we're a global fertilizer company. We have very deep agronomic knowledge that can support farmers. And we have 800 agronomist around markets all over the world. Of course 800 agronomist can only talk you to a limited number of farmers. We're working to digitize our knowledge and make that knowledge available to the farmers, meaning that we have to connect to the farmers so in Asia as an example, about 30% of our tools sales in Asia is now being done through digital channels, meaning that we know who the retailer is who the farmer is, and with knowledge about the farmers crops and the location. We can give a very targeted and specific advice to the farmers on how to use our products. But this doesn't scale in itself, because we are just one company and there are dozens and hundreds of companies competing about the farmers attention. So we are sure that the digital systems are interoperable. So we are now shaping the algorithms we use to provide advice in such a way that our solutions can also be embedded into the offering of other companies. So that their apps or their digital tools can send data back for us being analyzed and a piece of advice is being sent forward again. This way of ensuring interoperability is one way forward to make sure that technology can reach as many farmers as possible. Thank you very much great example I think that we certainly usually for the sake of time we continue now to go to our second speaker on the innovation and technology. And that's Christina Chirico Chirico. So it's difficult to pronounce last name so that's why they always call me Hans because my other name is impossible to pronounce. But Christina is the head of Internet is Internationalization Office of the Conventation Italiana. And she was very much active also in the, and I would say, establishment of the World Farmers Organization, as well as the minute World Farmers, or the EFAT Mediterranean Committee. Christina, very much welcome. We would like to listen to you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm here. I'm very proud to be here. Thank you for the invitation, because we are members of GAXA through our Association Agricultural Vita. The name means agriculture is life. So it's an impressive meaning for us very important for us. And we give a strategic importance as the representatives of the Italian farmers to the research and agriculture in Vita is a real research body from Machia Agricultural Italiani. And it is also a vocational training association to deliver knowledge and instruments to the farmers and to the technicians. And so we are very glad to know GAXA is putting farmers at the center of the work and also the dialogue today. It is a very important network in order to understand the meaning of the term innovation and technology. Obviously, we see access to innovation and technology from our point of view, the point of view, the perspective of farmers. So let permit me to say that we work a lot as the Italian farmers in research and dissemination project delivered directly to the farms, research projects, but also concrete services to the to the to the farmers. And which is our methods. We have a direct change and network with the scientific realities in Italy, university, and also research centers. In order to maximize the dissemination and the acquisition of new technology or new knowledge by the farmers, but at the same time I would like to stress that we apply a farmer to farmer approach. It's not enough for us the direct link with the universities and research centers. It is extremely important in order to deliver knowledge to farmers to create a direct link between farmer to farmer. This is very successful for us and we would like also to have a change with other experience on this table with the same the same aspect. Our key messages today to be briefed are based on our direct experience. The first is the relevance of training for farmers. All innovation must be supported for us by training and dissemination to farmers. Consider obviously that we are thinking to deliver the latest technology available at the moment, but at the same time is also important sharing the knowledge. The other aspect that I would like to stress today is the access to the innovation. It is also the economic sustainability of innovation. The technology must be economically sustainable for farmers. We have to consider the cost of the technology today, because if we put so important to innovation and knowledge for the climate resilience of farmers. We have to consider how farmers can have the ability of innovation or this technology into the farm. So the cost of technology is also important for us. The second aspect that I would like to stress today is a follow virtue spouse in the transfer of technology. What does it mean for us to be useful the application of a new technology and innovation must be adequate to the level of development of a reality of the sector not be too sophisticated because they had to enter in the current in the daily activity of the farmers do not bring just technology. We had to give knowledge to people knowledge to farmers and training to them, obviously, as I said, we have some specific experience in Italy but also abroad, for example, we're working in a project in Albania, it is a small country in in Europe. Our first action of our association is training the local expert to work with the farmers organization, obviously with the same aspect. We're working today in a project the name is rural Albania financed by the Italian agency of the international cooperation dedicated to it. But another aspect that I would like to read to you today, it is another aspect linked to the role of the farmers organization and the training bodies promoted by the farmers organization to represent the real needs of farmers. The dialogue the dialogue is very important but we have to dialogue with the farmers on the field but also through their representatives in Italy we say that the farmers organization are intermediate bodies. In order to have a clear picture of the reality on the field and farmers organization are working today for this aspect. Another aspect that we insist on the need of capacity building. It's not easy to represent the need so we have to to learn how to do it, it had to be one part of the program also for us of gaxa. I have to conclude, because we have to be brief, and I would like to give to you a best practice that we consider best practice and we invest a lot on it recently. And with memorandum of understanding with with our organization Italian Farmers Confederation and crea crea is the public Italian council for research in agriculture and it is also member of gas. We created a network link between the crea with the 72 research centers of crea in in Italy and our young farmers because for us research innovation new technology means good use at the center. So in this collaboration, which we are working on, we are finalizing investment in knowledge investment in research, concretely with the young farmers in in Italy. So to conclude, we believe in this collaboration we are working a lot on knowledge sharing innovation, and we affirm the need for more resources, this is the first aspect, adequate policies linked to the needs of the farmers as I said, so that the research and the farmers can find effective solution against climate change together. So this is my message today to you and I would like to share with you our experience. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Christina. Especially also because we always speak about when we speak about innovation and technology about accessibility affordability and how to implement it but you put forth a clear necessary dimension. Not just to the technology but also how to get the knowledge to use it and how to get the training to do it, because otherwise it doesn't make sense and I think certainly tomorrow when we speak about something new activities of. I think it's very important to implement it as well. With that, I give the floor to our first to the audience rather than the question or remarks. I see two and there is a microphone for those who are sitting in the second row. Thank you. Mr. Good morning everybody my name is you did the four and I'm a farmer from the Netherlands together with my husband I run a regenerative dairy farm. So, and I am a member of the global farmer network. And I really really appreciate the message you're saying, because I strongly believe that farmers from all over the world have a lot of knowledge as well to share together. To learn from best practices as well. And the global farmer network is a network with 240 almost 250 farmers from all over the world. Like I am from the Netherlands there's farmers from Italy as well but also Honduras, the Philippines, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, almost every country is a member. What I see is that farmers can learn a lot from each other as well. And I guess that's really important for you as well to know, because you're. We're talking about making sure for access to new technologies needs training, but we can share a lot of knowledge as well. I know farmers from South America that practice no tillage for decades already. So there's a lot of things as farmers we can share with each other but also with the entire network because it's really important that we work together with this and think with the farmer with the farmers together. So I'm really excited and thrilled about the words you're saying and I'm a strong believer in farmer to farmer but also farmers as part of the network working together. Thank you. Thank you very much for the strong message we certainly have to take it up. I give you the floor again. Thank you, Mr Chairman for giving me another chance but I really like what he was saying he was saying because we did it in Thailand already that we have established 880 to we call it learning centers were in all the ministry ministries are helping in it in every center and and we we in each learning centers. Because you know, geographically, geographical nature is different from from each location. So, so they are concentrating on the geographical characteristic often and they, we have this we call it local philosophy. The village in one village you have this, you know, those who are already old and they have this experience and knowledge, indigenous knowledge in the locality. So, we, we designate them as someone who could design a kind of production or agriculture system in every specific location. So that is a very, very good, very good examples. And, and it's effective actually that that enhance the integrated approach of all in his interministerial approach, and also it is designed by farmers themselves by the local communities themselves. We learn from one another, and, and most so that it allows inter cross cross community learnings when when, when, when we organize some kind of a study basis exchange of business from in each community. Thank you. Thank you very much. And of course, we're here to share so please do one. Thank you so much for joining me here together. My name is Nala Muller, and I am president of the NGO from in DLC Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo. And I totally agree with was what means to go said about knowledge to share that we had an activity with young people in DLC. So, and I go to it is a training camp. So to ring, we, we need to some young people, not just from DLC, but also for another country. We realized that there is a problem with, there is problem with young people, and they can also share their solution, not just in one country in DLC or any else, but they can share this experience and also solution what they have. And it is very important to acknowledge and also how they can, how they can also reach the government. And so we, we develop a program so to connect the young people also with the government what the speaker said, the great space intervention they did. We need a national solution too. And then this program allow us to share all issue of young people with the government. And so we need to work together and also to establish another partnership or to work with another stakeholders or not just one country but also to have experience of foreign country. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. The sharing just goes to show that we have so many amazing stories know as Christina was sharing their experience with Italian farmers. It makes me reflect as well as to what's happening in the Southeast Asian region. So we heard perspective from, from the presentation short brief and mighty presentation of Christina, we got the voice from the farmers organization from the government and from the NGO so, and, and I know that there's more amazing stories if we just have more time. So, so that was great. And now we're still discussing, we're still on the issue of innovation and technology. And I'm very excited to introduce the next speaker because I recently been attending hackathons, which seems to really emphasize a lot of innovation coming up specially from the youth sector. So let's hear it from Mr. Walid Nassar who is online. He's the founder and CEO of this is hard for me to pronounce. There are 31. Walid, I'm sure you will pronounce it better for us, which is a digital agriculture platform offering precision farming solutions in Egypt. Why does the floor is yours. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Thank you Mr. Sherman for giving me the chance to be among this morpheus group. I would like to introduce Zara'i. Zara'i, it's how this house written, it means my crop in Arabic. So we write it in Franco Arab letters to be written in English letters. So it's simply my crop written in Arabic. And that's a message that I want to highlight if I want to highlight something here. It's about localization and adoption of innovation in new markets and new emerging countries. This is the key. I recall a message from a very important speaker about how can we adapt this technology into new markets and new fields and new countries. I believe localization is the key for adapting new technologies. And actually for a green field market like Egypt, where my startup is coming from. I believe adapting existing technology that has been propagated all over the world, that's a key progress. That's my induction message. Myself, I would like to introduce myself as Wereed Nasra. I'm the CEO of Zara'i. I'm a computer engineer coming with 24 years of experience working with global vendors like Oracle and SAP and Esri before. Zara'i is my startup for the last 15 months now. We are addressing the main challenges affecting the agricultural industry, the economical stress, the water stress and climate change, because climate change has been hurting the agricultural industry in Egypt and all over the world. We are coming with a solution to introduce new technology to the market to help farmers optimizing their cultivation process and efficiently utilizing the resources. Next slide please. We came up with three main services. We believe that these three main services will complement the whole crop production lifetime cycle in the field. So we are offering crop monitoring and crop management and crop insurance service. For crop monitoring and applying GIS and remote sensing and satellite imaging into the agricultural industry in Egypt, that's something very new. And what we have been amazed by the eagerness of the smallholder farmers in Egypt to adopt this new technology, because as a green field, farmers are eager and they are hungry to use tools and use technology to help them in their cultivation process and their agricultural activities. So I will not go through Zara'i's services, but I want to highlight key messages here. For addressing climate hazards and climate smart agriculture, we believe that climate financing is important to address climate change. And for climate financing, we are offering two main services that I want to highlight. Next slide please. First is carbon farming and carbon sequestration. That's part of our proactive approach to climate smart agriculture, because carbon sequestration, that's an important income for smallholder farmers and also directly addressing net zero global targets and the global sustainable development goals. And here I would like to highlight the challenge. The challenge is in financing and funding such a project for the first time in Egypt. And we are implementing carbon farming and carbon sequestration on palm trees. Palm trees was the first time in the world to apply carbon sequestration on palm trees and apply regenerative agriculture in Egypt, in Siwa Oasis, by the way, in South Egypt. For introducing new technologies, user adoption is the biggest challenge, but we have seen lots of attention and lots of interest from smallholder farmers across Egypt and all over the MENA region. Funding for such projects is a challenge. We have been trying to fund this project with Acorn Rabobank project, sorry, with Acorn project with Rabobank for the past few months. It's a challenge, but again funding is the main challenge for introducing new technology. Second slide please. Crop insurance and crop insurance against climate risk mitigation. That's the main message that we are trying to say here and to mention how we are addressing climate change and climate smart agriculture reactively. Because for the first time in Egypt, for the first time after 15 months of talking to Mr. Insurance, which is a national insurance company and other governmental organizations, for the first time Egypt will release the first crop insurance policy in the next few weeks. At the startup we are providing the risk mitigation services to support Mr. Insurance and the national insurance company to provide this crop insurance. We do that proactively by assessing the historical performance of the crop and the climate hazards affect on the crop to help the insurance company assess the insurance value. Also, reactively, when there is an incident or a climate hazard that affected the crop, that's when there is a claim and we help the insurance company through remote sensing and satellite imaging to assess the damage that's affected the crop and the reimbursement value. We can do that using technology in days, not weeks or months. We can do that in days. I think those are two examples of climate smart agriculture technologies that we are trying to introduce in Egypt and across the MENA region, Middle East and North Africa region. And I can mention two things here. First, technology adoption and user adoption is a key for adapting new technologies in green field markets and emerging markets. Funding and financing for new initiatives and new services, that's very important to help this new technology reach new markets. And I believe that startups and other startups all over the world are a good vehicle to connect technology and NGOs and government organizations and smallholder farmers and agricultural companies in the local markets. That's a message I wanted to say in this important meeting. Thank you very much. If you can go to the next slide, please. Thank you very much for the opportunity and for telling you about the founder journey for the past 15 months in an emerging market. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. What it and it certainly we will share your slides to all the members present here in the room and virtually now also for the sake of time I would like to turn to Gladys Gladys Morales. The next question is the senior officer change delivery and innovation. Look to the wording change. And innovation delivery. At Eva's change delivery. I'm sorry at the office of the president president and vice president of Eva and of course Eva is a very strong organization in Rome supporting farmers on the ground. Thank you very much. Thank you so much chair. We could move to the presentation. I would like to before we start, I would like to thank you for the invitation. Not only the forum organizers, but everybody that is here participating today. So if we could have the slides up please. So very quickly for those people in the audience that are not familiar with if it and the work that we do on innovation, I would just like to give a first glance to if it let's move to the next slide please. So very much at the glance. Since 1978. If it has been investing 518 billion in of those 20 that have reached 518 billion and we have invested 23.2 billion in grants in constant. What is the main challenge that we're facing today and something that we keep repeating and we both FAO and if that were advocating for the latest cop. Climate change is a reality. And of climate change, a small scale farmers and indigenous populations are the ones that have contributed the least to climate change. And yet, they are the ones that are most affected by climate change. And those investments that we were talking about before and I really appreciated Michael's words about how the amount of investments in research is decreasing, but not only the amount of investments in research. But also the portion of those investments that we're making on innovation and on climate adaptation, the amount of those investments that reaches more holders and indigenous populations is minimal compared to the damage that we are. You know, all of us are contributing to their, to their livelihoods. Another piece of information that I think it's important is that is a small scale farmers earn only 6% for every dollar of food that they produce. We also jointly argued how every dollar that we spent on resilience now today saves up to 10 dollars in emergency aid in the future. That's very, very important data, because you know we keep we keep talking about not responding to emergencies but if we build the resilience before through, through climate smart agriculture and through innovation, we can save a significant amount of in contributions. Let's move to the next slide please. I'm going to focus now on in innovation, the change delivery and innovation unit. I lead the corporate and also the programmatic aspect of innovation for the organization. And to resonate some of the words that have been saying, as we say before my intervention, three main approaches are important and when we deal with climate smart agriculture and innovation. Those three factors have to do with the increasing productivity of course building resilience and at the same time, reducing emissions. So in terms of that approach, we make maximum use of natural processes and ecosystems, less external inorganic inputs and waste, diversity and proportionality of production and mixture of traditional and new technologies. Now, because we're we're, it's cursing time, I won't go into the details of this, but I think that it's, it's crucial here also that in our interventions that the approach that we're using in innovation is multiple benefits. So in terms of multiple benefits what we see across our projects is that we're reducing emissions, we're enhancing resilience, increasing productivity, increasing yields. And there is, of course, poverty reduction. Next. So before we move to the specific case case studies that we have. For me, Christina Curico was mentioning the how the financing training skills development and at the same time dissemination are a combination that is working is delivering results for for bilateral organizations for government organizations, but also for the international organizations. I cannot emphasize enough how important financing is, but also that the training the skills development, and we're not investing enough in dissemination we're, we're jointly failing to do that and last year we had the meeting of the federal development banks and procurement here in Rome and if it was hosting that meeting of the trillions and of dollars that we have for procurement and also of the financing that we make available for innovation. We jointly have to recognize that not enough efforts are being put in place so that we reach and we work also with communities with organizations and startups that are local we tend to keep working with exactly the same organizations, the same companies that have access to the information that we distributed through traditional channels. Sometimes investments in communications and marketing are seen even by our contributing members as a waste of resources, and they are not because many of the solutions that we're looking for the farmers are already, you know, this is the main problem that they have. So they think about it all the time, and many of those solutions could be there, but we are not tapping into those solutions because they don't get access to the information they don't get access to that financing. So, in terms of the problems that we have identified and we're trying to address through innovation and innovation challenges at the fact, I would say that we are focusing on three main ones. One is data access to data and information, we don't have enough data and information to be able to provide farmers with with solutions that are relevant to them. Second one is access to finance, and the third one is property rights. So, based on these three main challenges that we have identified, then the solutions that if it is providing is also, you know, they're also focusing on these three main factors. So I brought today two examples from some innovative use cases that if it has one is in Egypt and I was very I was listening attentively to the presentation from the private sector in in Egypt, and a project also that we are financing in in Vietnam. They, without going into the details of the financing and the portion just to give you an idea, 24% of the financing of these projects in Egypt are going to specific climate adaptation and 40% of this is going to in in Vietnam is going to climate adaptation. The most important thing here is that is the approach that we have which is test, learn and adapt and making sure that the financing the training and the support that we're giving to, to the teams through innovation challenges and through the innovations that we have in the program in the in the programs is is using this approach of learning making sure that we are implementing that learning in in our solutions. Next please. So to give you an example of, and with this I will conclude to give you an example of one of the projects of the current if innovation challenge. We don't we're not placing enough enough emphasis on on risk mitigation I was interested also in listening to the presentation before about crop insurance. And more than that, how are we working with farmers how are we making sure that our approaches are addressing really the needs that they have in that we are in continuous consultations with with a with a small holder farmers, when we are developing designing and developing these innovations. So one of the things that we do at if that is through tools like linear innovation and behavioral design. We established those conversations continuously I was listening to you Michael before about our business case has to make sense also to the farmers and ensuring through linear innovation. We're ensuring that we have that conversation with the farmers, but that conversation doesn't stop there doesn't stop you know it has to be continuous it has, you have to be testing your products continuously you, they have to be the solutions need to be with them by them for them so that's something that we use in our in our approach continuously so digital climate risk, which is the project that we have under the innovation challenge is focusing on that is focusing on using artificial technology, artificial intelligence to address risks so that the loan officers have more information, more and they can make informed decisions about who to give the loans to, but farmers also have access to all this technology so that they can increase productivity and build resilience before climate and economic shocks shocks arrive. So that's one of the ways that we use innovation and lean approach to innovation, so that we're working together with a small, small farmers using technology, but making sure that those solutions are being addressed in the needs of the small company. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Gladys for taking for giving us an overview of eFUDS program in tackling scaling up innovation. I think everyone agrees completely that scaling up and financing are very important tasks in our measures to combat climate change. I know that there are so many burning questions I have myself some burning questions to you but we've run out of time so I'm encouraging everyone in the room to perhaps have a conversation with Gladys later on, you're joining us right Gladys. Yeah, so just can I take one minute to suggest a way for exchange of information. Unfortunately, we want to make sure that our last speaker would be able to speak. No problem. No problem. Please go ahead, but please do write your, your information that you wanted to share on the chat box. Sure. Yeah, thank you. So, thank you Gladys again, and hopefully our members will approach you during lunch, I myself would come with some questions. And lastly, we wanted to invite Dr. Harry Hunter, who is the CEO of Next Gen Tech. Very exciting career on robotics and artificial intelligence and intelligent agriculture. I think Dr. Hunter you can better also introduce more of your work, and I give you the floor down. Hello, can you hear me. Yes. Thank you very much. Well good morning and got some members. Everyone I'm really excited to be here honored. So my experience started with robotics and I spanned into artificial intelligence. Some people call me the next Iron Man some call me the futurist, but to get going to get the slides up please Can you see the slides. So what we were talking about today is coming from the portion or the thought of adoption adoption trust right so facilitating type adoption by farmers globally by using open source decentralized platforms. Well, that's a lot to think about right. So this is the problem. I have been for the last 10 years, talking with small, small holder farms and large farmers, and mainly crop farms I recently started into dairy farmers. And one of the things is. Okay, Dr. Hunter okay Mr. Mr wise guy. I don't trust you, because I don't trust this technology and I don't trust. Where's my data, where's this and it's too expensive, and I said to myself. I'm absolutely right. So I started going into rural areas and I started doing some research in Nicaragua where I'm from Nicaragua. One of the poorest countries in Central America, actually in the North America, only second next to Hayden. So one of the first problems of tech adoption everybody talks about tech, but everybody also knows that tech is very expensive. Right is lack of access. So one of the things about it is, sure, everybody has a smartphone. Right. But let's talk about artificial intelligence. What does it take to have artificial intelligence. What about satellite engineering, right, down to the farmers. So you're talking about, let's just say big 400 plus more acres large farms, having smart irrigations that are hundreds of thousands of dollars. I tell you because I come from Silicon Valley, I've done the biggest of the Fortune corporations in the world of products and I understand costs really well. So costs is a problem, lack of access the problem, lack of knowledge and skills we've been talking about, hey, how do we provide this training to the farmers how do we provide this adoption and how do we bring in costs together as a whole. Because having myself been booting the grounds with the farmers, going through through the world how climate change affects them. Just recently in California, when does California have this type of snow, and then the droughts, and then the floods, and how can these things be prevented. Right. So, then there's the area of resistance to change. None of us like change. Let's be honest here. Right. Well, someone tells you you've been doing a routine X amount of time and then tell you okay now you have to change. Now you have to adopt this. Now you have this new responsibilities, and now we're going to show you about drones and I will show you what. No, no, no, no, I don't want to do this, even though they're interested but once you get going with the work, they can get very complex. Right. So here we go with trust building right with open source decentralized platform. What does this mean, and very short is free free, having localized teams enthusiasts engineers. I have talked to about 600 and my network is about 300 something of previous Silicon Valley engineers who want to do something new and change. They completely know and accept yes, we have a problem with climate change. How can we help. Right. But what platforms do we have for communication. So, once again going back to the part of trust, when you start talking with the farmer, especially small holder concerning data. So it's the assurance that farmers are in control of data. Number one, doesn't everybody in this room and around the world, you want to know where your data is. That's your personal data. Imagine now going to a farm where we're talking about you hear this globally. Oh, this new hat, and this new hat, and this new hat, you know, hacking, stealing of data and identity effect. So what happens when all this data to data the new goal gets stolen from from from people from these farmers. The number one concern that a lot of these farmers, I speak to work with have is, where's my data and how might be recorded, and where's it's going on the internet, and what about artificial intelligence making these fake things right. So transparency of data pipelines. When it comes to open source, for instance with blockchain, maybe you guys have heard of it is transparency is exactly where your data is, it's stored in specific ledger right. And the whole point is that you one control your data, you are all times will always know where your data is, right to having that you have the accessibility of not knowing where your data is and what can you do with that data. How comfortable are you sharing this data. So I've talked to about half of the farmers which been about 1000. And the last maybe the eight years were told me, I only want to deal with farmers, I only want to deal with the specific localized or specific region of farmers. So we talk and we share and so forth. So I've been making products, basically, very, very low cost products that is not so much in the selling it. Here you go. And let's see what happens products that build this type of data data pipelines for these smallholder farmers, where they are loving it they're saying oh my gosh so this is not with big tech. So this is not attached Gmail and this is not attached to this and it. No sir, no man, this is you guys, you control it, excuse me you control it, you deal with it, you see it, you're monitoring it, you have full access to everything at all times, right. Next, next slide please. Would you try to be a little bit brief now because we are. Yes, yes, I'm going as high as I can. Benefits of decentralized platform for farmers. So access to affordable and innovative technology. So once again greater control of transparency data, reduce dependency on big tech. It goes back to, you don't want to be dependent on massive tech. The problem is, once you have one part of technology requires a second part of technology requires a third part technology. It starts firing out control concerning costs concerning dependencies, and a lot of farmers just don't like that right and if we're talking about adoption and trust. You need to really take it slow potential for more sustainable and efficient farming practices, improve market access and profitability. Next slide. So the potential of open source and decentralized platform. Once again is breaking away from big technologies. If you have blockchain technology, everybody, you hear blockchain everybody thinks crypto currencies. No, not at all blockchain is this not only tied to cryptocurrency in the financial world but it's also tied to just how how data can be stored how data can be shared. So data is controlled and accessed by specific groups, or who are the people want to share it with, and they're working to solve. We're together to solve global issues and agriculture. So, right now there is five smallholder farmers, crop farmers in Nicaragua, in a very rural, very poor area, and through through artificial intelligence and through the three printing the each, the whole budget is $500. For smallholder farms, farmers five, and it ranges from five to seven acres to produce crops. And this has a lot of the intelligence of Silicon Valley, for instance, or around the world. And it's a database that they all share to each other. It all deals with phones, right, as most of everybody has phones, and they're starting to see real real possible new solutions that also now start getting into them be entrepreneurs for and starting to look for micro loans, for instance, and this isn't a very, very, very poor country. Next slide please. So here is my last slide. The future is already here is just not evenly distributed. I think from everything here of my work and what I've been doing is, we really need that trust the farmers need to trust technology, but technology should not be as complex to be some abstract. Right. And this little chip, this tiny little chip, very, very low cost has the intelligence of 100 years of farming in North America has the intelligence of lessons learned of disasters or droughts, hurricanes, everything to think of. And this little tiny chip. Once again, we're providing farmers, holder, smallholder farmers, the intelligence of Einstein without having an Einstein the intelligence of so much where they're now talking to the systems automation is being done for them low cost Jones not big tech drone just low cost Jones are going doing their thing, checking coming back and farmers are speaking to these things and they're learning just real quick by the insights given. So, I know we're running out of time so I'm, that's all for now. Any questions. Good to go. Thank you very much. We are pressed for time I think we had more than an accident and interesting session about elements related to innovation and technology. And we started with accessibility scalable affordability, but we had to deeper dive what it doesn't mean because it's about knowledge sharing it's about training. It's also about listening to the farmers the farmers need but do they need not what do we think they need but do they need. So that comes again back to capacity building. And again, of course, everything what we're now doing this morning is clear. It has to be implemented at the national level. We need national programs and not national programs only of governments, because they're always mentioned and centered, but we need programs for the farmers by the farmers for the private sector by the private sector. And it means that it has to be decentralized needs localization, but it means also adoption to local circumstances. And that's of course of course that's the financing, as well as making full use of what we have now, the digital arena, because when we speak about sharing. It's enormous, enormous possibilities which we have now. It's the first glance of what we can do as the Alliance for innovation technology. And now return to the youth the youth is going to take over now. Every host thing. Of course, global lines for climate smart medical quality and when I was starting working here in Rome. I was missing in many sessions to use. And I tried to push but it's a traditional sometimes conventional organization. They cared about the youth. And when I was chair in the council said let's give the floor to the youth. No you have to be careful because you don't know what they're going to say, as I don't want to know what they're going to say because they will. Enlighten us. They will make sure that it will be lively, and they will make sure that we get the messages we needed. So, because he came in. And we work together. And now because he developed the world. Put form by the youth for you this year in October we have the third session. I'm so proud to have them here. And sure we be assured what you're now going to see is something different than we have seen this morning because you can sit here take over. We're glad to listen. Thank you thank you Hans for giving me your chair. I'm not going to mess up your, your organization here and thank you also Gaxa for inviting us to to speak today. My name is cousin yoga and I'm the coordinator of the of the World Food Forum as some hands was mentioning. And perhaps before we start with a group of really distinguished speakers who are who are here with us today talking about the youth is the future that's the title of this session. Let me perhaps remind everybody how important youth is in the policy sphere as Hans said and we really hope still that the council perhaps at some point will allow for a youth statement to be read. That was a public statement right. We also see of course that youth plays a crucial role in all the different spheres of food and agriculture in promoting and adopting climate change by mitigation by advocating for action, promoting innovation technology we have heard before, providing training, creating entrepreneurship and business opportunities, building collaborations partnerships all of these different things is where we see a crucial role of the dynamism of youth. And when I look here around the room I'm sure we are all very useful. I'm also hopefully a bit useful but I'm also not that young that's why I also asked some of the actually young colleagues that are working on the youth to join this session and I'm very glad that at least some are sprinkled in the in the room and and joined us here today and I hope for a bit of an interactive session here. And I hear that you are very interactive crowd so very looking forward to that. And yeah, perhaps a couple of words about the World Food Forum itself its hands was mentioning about two years and pretty much two years ago actually in April. In 2021, we came up with this concept of the the World Food Forum as a platform that did not exist. There was simply no platform for youth to engage with FAO and their own based agencies in a systematic manner. We proposed at the time and we had political and also financial sponsors, including hands in our advisory board, a platform that will be driven by youth for youth. The facilitator knows so I'm just coordinating is literally driven by youth and supported by a network of partners, but really creating these types of spaces that are necessary for youth to get active to be empowered in the, in the different fields of the agri-food systems, be it in policy through a youth assembly that we that we created with youth policy leaders in innovation where we're working with young researchers and scientists with startup leaders, young startup leaders. Of course here we're working very closely I see also our friends from EFAT where we are working really closely on innovation in particular, but also education because we saw that when it's coming to food and agricultural education in primary secondary schools is practically absent in tertiary schools of course we have a lot of specialization happening but we do believe that there should be a much more of a focus also in primary and secondary schools to really bring youth at a much earlier stage to the issues of food and agriculture to the food to the solutions that we also have in terms of climate smart agriculture and others. And perhaps as a last point here, you, we were asking the youth at the World Food Forum, what would you like to have as a theme last year. We had in 2021 we had a first forum, which was online after that we asked, what is what what should be your what should be our focus next year when we're coming together, and when we are when all of your activities are accumulating in this intergenerational moment, which is the flagship that that happens here in with which which is more of a galvanization of all of the different things that we're doing. And the outcome of that survey was that they wanted to talk about two main major things which was really on their minds. One, how can we ensure that healthy diets are more globally available. And number two, how can we make sure that that happens within the planetary boundaries that we have. And the theme of last year was healthy diets healthy planet and I think for the climate smart agriculture community. This was really almost a silver platter for engaging with youth here on solutions in this at this at this moment we had also a nice session with gaxa during the World Food Forum 2022. Now for this year. We asked again. And one thing was becoming very clear climate action is becoming even more pertinent and and urgent for a lot of the youth. So this year's theme was designed as agri food system transformation accelerates climate action. And the idea here of the youth was how can we make sure that exactly what you're doing with climate smart agriculture can accelerate the mitigation of climate change can also accelerate actually the adaptation. And, and, and how can youth help here in in driving perhaps also supporting sometimes perhaps also giving new solution ideas to the to these important topics I'm sure that is something that will resonate with many of you as I see this really accumulating into hopefully a lot of interesting solutions that can go to scale at the World Food Forum next year which is going to be on the 16th to the 20th of October and I'm sure that everybody's invited of course that this will be an interesting into intergenerational experience to advance on this food action accelerating climate action. And I think we have a small video before we are going to the speakers. And I would like to invite you to watch this very short. So, no, please don't be scared. Enjoy. Yeah, there's no sound at the moment. And I think somebody needs to share the screen. I'm not sure who the technicians are so. Oh, look at me over there. Okay. Well, this is a nice little pause. Let's talk. And here we go. Share this green. That's looks very serious. Thank you. Thank you. And yes, all young people are invited we have a call coming up on Monday for delegations. We have youth delegations and representatives and observers we know that some countries don't like the idea of delegations so we also allow youth observers and also partner delegations youth delegations from our partner organizations and other entities that are part of the supporting network of this of the World Food Forum so we really hope that this year we will have a very broad based youth representation at the at the forum and perhaps also swapping over to the CFS. And that we are coming to the to four fantastic speakers in this section on youth is the future. I would actually use probably already is leading at the moment so perhaps is also the present so but yeah in the future for sure is going to be. They will they will shape our future. And first I have here, Roberta, Yana, the senior advisor of the Italian Ministry for the environment and energy security youth for climate, and yes, I give it a floor. Thank you very much and good morning everyone. Thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to present the youth for climate initiative I will be sharing the presentation with my colleague in Manuela Vignola as well from the Ministry of environment and energy security of Italy. And we'll be glad of course to answer any question over lunchtime to be very, very brief and short with the presentation. And you for climate is a global initiative co led by the Italian government and the UNDP formally launched last year in May, and developed by young people youth led organizations and strategic partners including connect for climate which is a communication on climate change of the World Bank. And it started with the standalone event which took place in Milan in Italy during the pre cop 26 in 2021. And it was taught as a, let's say one shot event to allow young people on the stage to present their ideas and distances to the ministers coming to attend the pre cop. Actually, it was such a powerful and successful event that it was decided to, to transform it into a permanent initiative and in partnership with the United Nations. So, this is where it started, since the first event in Milan we had a second event in New York and this year, and it will be in Rome. And the, the initiative aims to build around the, the instances and the proposals made by the young people in the youth for climate manifesto which is the document developed by young people in the first event in Milan but always growing and of course to boost youth action youth climate action and provide the support to young people in developing new and innovative solutions to tackle climate change and to enhance young people in participating more and more at the international level in dialogues with governments and have a real influence on the international processes. So the next slide please. Go on and wait. Okay, thank you. The core components of the initiative are the flagship event, the knowledge hub, which is the web platform and the solutions. The flagship event as I said the first one to place in Milan the second in New York. This year, we will have the event hosted in in Rome and it will be back to back with the World Food Forum, in order to maximize youth participation and and exchanges and giving them the possibility to attend the several the many events of the youth, the World Food Forum. We will invite 150 young people from all over the world, shortlisted from the over 1200 project proposals we received and the aim of the event will be to award the best project proposals with with funds to be concretely implemented. And we also developed a web platform which is growing and growing now with more 5,000 participants and it is meant to be a virtual space where young people can exchange ideas get to know each other and also receive information on what is happening at the international level mainly on climate change related issues but also on sustainable development and the SDGs overall and receive materials to build their capacities on climate change. And the third component of the initiative is composed by the solutions and I will give the floor to my colleague Manuela to explain them better. Okay, good morning everyone. My name is Manuela. Thank you for having us today and for giving the opportunity to share with you the youth for climate initiative. If you can just go to the next slide. The call for solutions were designed to support and implement a youth led projects and activities. The first call for solution was launched last September in New York at the end of the flagship event. It was closed at the end of March and we received quite an impressive number of applications since it was the first time that we launched this type of initiative where we were quite shocked by the amount of applications but it means that young people want to be involved to have a say and to be part of the solution. The youth for climate solutions is based on the UNDP facility but the entire content of the activities that has been designed with young people during the past two years. Next slide please. The call for solutions is addressed to young people aged between 18 and 29 that are single as a single individual but also a representative of NGO or private sector. The themes that were identified for this year are urban sustainability, energy, food and agriculture and education. And particularly on food and agriculture we must say that we have received a very interesting proposals and we see a lot of synergies with GAXA and I think that we can explore how to better synergize our inputs and resources to get the maximum of our both initiatives. Next slide please. So far we have also 14 partners in order to build cross-generational partnerships. These partners are important because they are providing young people not only financial resources but especially mentoring activities and also all the support that they would need to put together the proposal. Again, the type of partnerships are very wide so we can collaborate also in terms of activities and also we can host on our virtual platform workshops and activities that can be used to share information, to disseminate the best practice and less on learn. Next slide please. The shortlisted candidate, longlisted candidate will be invited to the flagship event in Rome and the selection committee will then identify shortlisted candidates that will receive an award up to 20,000 US dollar. The selection committee is made by of Italian Ministry of the Environment, represented above UNDP, but also our partners and of course young people that have been involved in the advisory committee which is the body that does in the creation and design of the flagship events and all the other activities that characterize our initiative. Next slide please. The evaluation criteria for the projects are quite huge in terms because we want to make sure that the projects have also an impact in the community that are designed for and will reflect the objectives of the Paris Agreement but also the SDGs. Therefore, they are shaped with one of the selection criteria is also the degree of innovation in terms of innovation for the community where the project is developed but also replicability. The effectiveness of the budget, the impacts on the environment, particularly as I said with the SDGs and climate challenges, impact on the community and potential of gender equality. Next slide please. We are very active on the social media. As you can see, we can count of a number of partners, particularly UNDP and Connect for Climate. And since last year, we registered one billion interactions under the hashtag Euforclimate. So please make sure to follow us and to engage with our activities on the platforms and everywhere. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. This is really an exciting platform that you're building up. It's really interesting and we should also talk after this session because I think there's really a lot that we could, I think, learn from each other and also benefit youth and youth participation. But I opened the floor for any comments or questions that are immediate in burning. Otherwise, we can go to the next speaker. I see none at this point. I'm sure there are a lot of questions about this fantastic project project. But we moved to our next speaker, Divine Theokam, the founder of the Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network. And I believe he has spoken already before at the opening but it's online, if I'm not completely mistaken. So Divine, great to see you and the floor is yours. Yeah, thank you very much indeed. Can you hear me? Yes. Perfect. Thank you very much indeed. I mean, I heard colleagues saying that youth for future generations, I would like to echo here that youth at the present are not the future. So they need to be capacitated right now, not tomorrow, right now, as I speak right now. So we want to say that at the level of CSIW and actually done a lot of work in the past 10 years, of most 10 years, but next year we're going to celebrate our 10th anniversary. And I'm very, very happy to say that, of course, I feel at home because it's our model. We are organizing this framework of another forum. To go straight to the points, in the morning I shared earlier than this, I shared the achievements at the level of CSIW. I heard the co-journalist of World Forum, Gazuki, saying that we need to engage young people in doing that. For the past six months we've been doing that already. I'll have remarkable results and tangible results. It's for this reason, we have over 11 primary and high schools already engaged in climate smart practices right at the basic level. And I wouldn't end there, we equally have the nursery children below three years of implanting trees, young Cameroon and other campuses. So I want to say that gap has been met by CSIW. The second slide, please. The second slide, anyway, the second slide actually shows the virtual academy in learning platform that was launched a few weeks ago. Well, of course, Ambassador Hans, right there, and we have over 304 ambassadors present. And this was just to show the commitments or to recall the commitments of policy makers, of diplomats, of stakeholders in learning education. Because one of the outcomes of COVID, I always say, COVID had two different thresholds. One, where poverty line 1.25 US dollar mark was actually dropped, you know. In the sense that a lot of people went to poverty again due to COVID. But again, the positive message is that, or the good news is that with this framework we're able to think out of the box, bringing education much more at the learning framework. And that's why CSIW is very, very happy to see that we have a learning platform right now, whereby we are accommodating over 120 interns across 50 or 45 centres of excellence across the globe. Where within that framework, we have facilitators, experts in various thematic areas, big climate change, this agroful system, better, you know, Tvert, you know, better, building the capacity of the on-schooled or informal education. We've done that already and we're very, very happy to say that. And of course, we head in towards the ambition summits and equal to the SDGs summits in September. We've already started this framework to ensure that we're going to assess massive dialogues on SDGs as much as possible. Yeah, this framework, I'm sorry the stats are not going on, I don't know why, but I think this presentation was just to show you all that young people are really doing things. We have a portal for the children, we have a portal for the youth, we have a portal for the women, and we have a portal for experts in the various domains. So I'm so, so happy. Now, I want to echo here. Training young people is good, but now we've been able to come up with a framework of exchange program, the climate smart culture education exchange program, where there is a student-to-student mobility, student-to-student mobility and researcher-to-researcher mobility so that they can benchmark their ideas, their knowledge sharing, they can equally build their capacity themselves because it has been proven that youth to youth is better off than youth to lecturer capacity building. So this mentorship is actually going on. We are so happy to say that, and of course, looking at the theme of the upcoming World Food Forum, where we actually make sure that addressing the aspect of agri-food system, how do we transform it? I want to say here that young people youth are the enablers of transforming the broken agri-food system to us achieving SDGs, one on SDGs. We are actually really, really important components of the SDGs because with hunger, we cannot go to school. With hunger, we cannot be talking about environmental health, we cannot be talking about gender parity, gender equality, or social protection. So we felt that those two SDGs are key components on ensuring that we achieve the SDGs by 2030. Of course, without looking behind the agenda in 2063 for the African Union. The last point I want to share here before I hand over to you, my brother, is that CSI right now, we are very, very happy to collaborate. Of course, we are one of the coalition members of the World Food Forum, and we are here to announce publicly that we are in 10 years next year, 10 years. And we will be joining efforts, of course, with all the room-based agencies and equal development partners to make this event a remarkable one. We are looking forward to having this anniversary on the continent of Africa because we all know that Africa is a continent of the future. In Africa, it has 65% arboland on use, which means that it has not been cut. We have African young people who have not yet explored, who have not yet understood that our culture is the way to go. But right now, that's at the front line. And that's where right from primary school, we've been able to discover a world called Glamour Smart. Glamour Smart, our culture centers of excellence. So without the centers of excellence, we are not sure we're going to go anywhere. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much, Divine. And I really hope we will meet in person this year at the World Food Forum in Rome. But I opened the floor again also for any immediate burning questions or comments or remarks. If there are any. Yes, no. Otherwise, we are moving on to our next esteemed speaker. Jessica Musamhindo, the CSA coordinator from Zimbabwe. And over to you. Jessica is online. Thank you so much. Can you hear me now? Thank you so much. It's good to be here. I remember in 2021, we participated virtually. So I'm so happy to meet all of you today. I'm from Zimbabwe and I'm representing the Zimbabwe Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance. And I'm here for the young people. So I'm going to give an overview of climate smart agriculture in Zimbabwe. As the government of Zimbabwe has established many CSA initiatives, which are enabling policies that help CSA. Tracing back, back before, I think 10 years ago, the NGOs were the custodians of the CSA programs. The government were not at the forefront of running the CSA, but now they've adopted it. And they are trying to make policies which enable us as youth to participate and also be more involved in CSA. So in 2019, the government of Zimbabwe established a manual for agriculture, which was launched by the president of Zimbabwe. And its custodian is the Green Impact Trust. And in this manual, it clearly states what has to be done in order to spearhead CSA. In 2021, the government also tried to establish, they came up with an idea of creating a regional college for CSA. And this idea was endorsed by the government and it's under a public-private partnership with the Green Impact Trust and the French Development Agents. It also established a framework which ran from 2018 up until 2028 under the minister of lands, agriculture, water, climate and rural settlement. And in this framework, it clearly states the gender roles, youth, importance of ICT and a lot of many initiatives which are to be done. We have actually have key milestones, especially with the regional college which is to be established. And there was an invitation of a public-private partnership to establish this college. And so far, the Ministry of Lands and the Department of Livestock have endorsed it. And they are also now helping us with drought-tolerant and crop varieties, which, you know, as Zimbabwe is an agricultural country, and we mainly depend on agriculture. So due to climate change, you have noted that there is decrease in food security. So new technologies are needed for drought-resilient crops so that we can achieve food security. We have also noted that we have the education, the farming extension in industry sequence. So in education sector, the government of Zimbabwe has established what we call Education 5.0, where there is teaching, research, community engagement, innovation and industrialization. This is to promote climate smart agriculture along the value chain. We've noted that in our government, agriculture is now a mandatory course from the infant grade up until the university. No one is selecting that you want to be in agriculture. You have a basic understanding of agriculture from at a young age, probably at five years they are now learning agriculture. It's mandatory. We've also seen that youth now have a perspective of what is called climate smart agriculture. And as you can see, everyone is saying that the youth voice is important, and we are the majority. The majority here present, I'll be representing the majority of the youth, but there is a group that is mainly, that is lacking to be represented. If you look at the youth, we have different types of youth. We have two categories, we have urban youth and rural youth. As you can see, for urban youth, they have access to resources, they are on social media, they can learn more like what was divine talking about programs, trainings on internet and virtually. But there is this group that I really need to talk about which is the rural youth, which does not have access to these, to these programs, but they are the ones at the center of farming. I am here talking, but they are there in the field. So I think there is need of scaling up our initiative to the rural youth. My perspective is, we need to have focal points in our countries so that they have their youth will be on the ground working with youth farmers or youth lead farmers, so that whatever we are learning from our universities from our, from our organization is going out there into the rural community. From where I come from, in Zimbabwe, some areas don't even have internet connectivity. These people are lacking because they are lacking of information. If we just think that we are going to establish policies, training programs to cater for the urban youth, then it means we are lacking, we are failing the rural youth. There are no people who are going to be in the field for them, then they are going to be lacking out. So to be more specific, rural youth are the best and that the particular group, which are to be included because they are on the ground and that the ones who are mainly affected by climate change, because they rely mainly on agriculture. And like people in urban, when they feel that they don't want to farm, they can go and shop, buy, but for them, they have no other opportunity or way to have a living. So there should be efforts to involve these youth so that they have the capacity to be equal with the ones in the urban areas. So as you can see, there is a promotion of innovation and industrialization. But when you are in the rural, you probably have a very good idea, but you do not know who to scale up or who to take your idea to the top level. And these youths are lacking on opportunities. So I think it's for students who are in the university, the youths that are in university, they have a very good opportunity to maneuver in job career. But for those that are in the field, there is lack of employment rate is increasing lack of employment, but they have their land. In Zimbabwe, it's difficult to acquire land when you are young people, but we know that we have our inherited family land, where we can actually try to help them so that they can actually utilize their warm rural lands. The lands are pretty big so that they can actually practice climate smart agriculture. We have what we call Young Farmers Association, but as you can see, mainly Young Farmers Association, those usually that have the opportunity, like I have the opportunity to be here, I can have links with other organizations and they can take me in. But for those rural youths who are going to help them, who are going to scale up their idea, who are going to help them with the initiatives that they have. So the key message for me today I'm advocating for the rural youth. I think there's need to help these, that certain type of group, there's need for capacity to building, because some of them are already in the farming, but they have lack of market. There's need for linkages and synergies between a farmer and the market. There's also need to access to opportunities. It doesn't mean that when you do not have formal academic background, you are not producing well, so you are not supposed to have other opportunities which academic sectors can have. I think me being here as CACSA can facilitate and help us with this certain type of group by creating synergies and maybe working with universities, because now because of the Education 5.0 we are mainly talking about we also emphasizing on research, innovation and industrialization. But when we work with the universities, it means that during the research time they can go out there and teach the rural farmers, they should be on the ground with the farmers, with the youth on the farmers. Usually in Zimbabwe, we have in my native language, we have what we call Zundera Mambo, and this is an initiative where the traditional village had caused all farmers in the village, they meet, they discuss what's affecting the agriculture sector, their problems, what they are looking for. So I think we can actually have this initiative where we can work with our village head so that they link up with farmers, link up with young farmers, and then we start to help them with initiatives. And we need to look at these youth in the national programs so that they come up with innovative hub and with their indigenous knowledge, other than saying we need data from university, a published paper, because if we do that, we are lacking the youth. We are lacking, and this group is the majority of group which are out there. So I think my key message today is to let us look out for the rural youth. Let's not just have policies or programs which cater for the youth that are privileged. They are brilliant people out there. I'm so lucky to be here, but someone might be very brighter than me, and with a lot of ideas, who is a farmer is missing out on these opportunities. Thank you, over to you. Thank you so much and very true. I think rural youth, marginalized youth, but also indigenous youth, we have not talked about this group are definitely groups that have specific needs as well and also specific difficulties in view of the marginalization in the discussions that we have on both policy but also in the innovation space. So thank you so much for giving us this fantastic example from Zimbabwe what you're doing there. We hope that we can showcase perhaps also your work at the World Food Forum as we have some space for country case studies there. We have also some local chapters on youth in food and agriculture opening up in different countries so I'm sure that this could be a very interesting case for for many to be inspired by and learn from. Yes, we have a hand up, which is great and we have two hands up the three hands up, you have inspired Jessica that's great to see, perhaps go first to Dr. Rajid Naseem online from Pakistan and then sir here in the in the audience but over to you, Dr. Naseem. Thank you very much. Am I audible. Yes, we have we hear you. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I am working as a associate professor and director in the International Center for Climate Change Food Security and Sustainability over here in the Islamic University of Bahá'u'lláh to Pakistan, and also we are the members of Gauksa last year we become the member and I was very much interested to participate physically but due to some reasons I think the Gauksa Fascination Center might have the lot of you can say things that I was unable to make it to be presented physically, but overall I do in those Jessica that we have to have the provide the opportunities to young researchers, young youth, especially students and also we have to keep the you can say opportunity is especially for least develop areas as well as least develop and say countries as well. So we have the consortium on climate change sustainability and conservation over here in Pakistan in which more than 80 universities, research organizations, private sector industries and different types of NGOs are working on climate change, climate smart agriculture or without with us on board and we are really interested to have some practical implementation of all the policies, especially funding opportunities that we have to Gauksa and from this platform I would request to you can say put all the you can say much of the you can say opportunities should be allotted for the least developed areas universities and because I do really agree with the Jessica comments that we have to wrap up perhaps your your comment and and the question to the to the panel that would be great fantastic thank you. Thank you. Just, I will, I will endorse the Jessica that we have to provide the fortunate opportunities to the least developed universities and least developed you can say rural youth. So this is all about from I said, thank you very much. Thank you very much I don't know Jessica if you want to respond or perhaps we go to some of the comments that were here in the room and then a round of response at that point I think I think yes sir you had your hand up also your neighbor I think I didn't handle. I don't know who was first but I saw a lot of hands coming up so that was great great to see. Okay. I'm from Uganda, and I'm from the farmer. First of all, I'm just, I'm sorry, I'm just giving the general comment because I came late and I'm sorry for that. But at least I have struggled and come here and I thank the organizers, because from the plane to here they are for that's why sometimes you see me dosing. Having said so, I'm commenting on innovation and technology. We have a problem. I am a farmer and I have all that experience, and I have been working with my fellow farmers, that when we talk about innovation, we, we talk, we don't talk much about local innovations, and also using indigenous knowledge. And in most, in most cases we just jump on scientific innovations. Therefore, if we don't change that way how we look at things. And we don't promote this local innovation, especially in promoting local innovation and they have worked in Uganda that's why I stick to that. Then, about the use. Also, we have a problem with the, with the use we are talking about the use, but we want to do the use to be inspired and to be interested in farming when they have grown up when they need a university studies. But for me, this is my experience. I grew in the hand of my grandmother, because my mother died when at the age of two, in a very poor family. But because my grandmother was a farmer, I took that inspiration of farming, and the way how they were farming was really fantastic. Therefore, I am, I'm requesting that we started this small children when they are young, and even you people from developed countries, you can do it because I have a colleague in German, but they have a garden like this. They admire about that small garden, but that is that's one because of time I'm just in a brief. Then, sadly, this has I have been talking about this in our country in Uganda, that you, you people, especially the people at the high level, you have left farming to the point vulnerable. Well, as without food, you cannot also survive. Therefore, that's why now agriculture, the farming has become as business as usual. We are talking about how are we promoting farming, how are we promoting agriculture. Power has put so a lot of billions and billions of money, if I did the same thing, and so many other agencies, but it is no change, especially for the poor. I would also request, as we are addressing our culture of farming, that farming in the developed countries has a bit with farming in developing countries, or less developed countries, because for some, for you people in developed countries, you have a lot of incentive, you have a lot of support. Now, for example, I'm also, when I have been looking at it, I have been following Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, the way how they are supporting farming, because maybe they have the resources or I don't know, but at a high tech, therefore, when we are looking at farming, if we want to be successful, we should also try to look, how is the farming in the developed countries, how is the farming in the developed countries, how is the farming in the developed countries, and what can we do. And it is good, you have invited us, people at the grass root to tell you, because some they have been inviting me to different, different meeting at a national, at a higher level. That's what my, that's my contribution. Thank you. Thank you so much. So my comments build exactly on that point. That as we talk about climate change, as we talk about agriculture, as we talk about solutions that we can be delivering. I think we have to be sensitive to the fact that it's not monolithic. Agriculture is a very, very diverse industry, big, small, variety of products that are grown, variety of capacities to produce. And in our messaging, I think it's really important to be talking about opportunities, as opposed to just problems. I heard an opportunity message there that with the right support, developing countries can lift up and become climate smart and help themselves and help the world. And we can have that same type of example everywhere. And for the passion in the room, and I really appreciate the youth coming forward and being involved. I'd urge you to reflect a little bit about the messaging, because the message of hope, and the message of positive successes is a critically important part of the overall message. And it might just be me, but when I listened and saw that video, my takeaway was, it's all broken. I didn't see the successes that are already coming. And when you look at the people in this room, we know that the industry isn't perfect, but there is so much hope and progress and commitment to go forward. And by the help of youth, boy, we can accomplish anything. So I think message is important and communicating ongoing progress in the context of a challenge is something to pay attention to and reflect upon. So thank you. Thank you very much for this comment. Yes, over to you. Thank you, Margaret, but then again from Thailand. Very exciting listening to particularly to Zimbabwe. Curiosity wise, how do you bring the youth in the policymaking process. I am from the public sector. I have a perspective from the private sector. And so, how, how, how do you bring the, the, how youth I heard in policymaking process of the government. How it become legislative. And also, for example, I must share our policies for the youth in Thailand. When the climate smart agriculture was introduced. Everybody's getting to be smart. Right. So we have under the ministry we have these young smart officer. Yes. And also now we have these smart young farmers, and these are being managed by the Ministry of Agriculture by the Department of Agricultural Extension. And so, and so I'm just curious whether your program is being mainstreamed in the public sector so that the policy could could support the youth in your community because I understood that you are from the non-government organization, and I'm from the public sector. And so how, how do we link and how could GATSA help bridge that linkage. Thank you. Thank you very much. Do I see yes one more. And I think with that then we go out to more. Hi, hello. I'm Rajiv Rajiv Pandey from India. And I would like to share how we got into climate smart agriculture and what is the status today. So, it's a small story. And I understand, you know, talking about food and, you know, at the time of lunch, it's a bit difficult for everyone, but so I was part of this anti trafficking project in India in Andhra Pradesh in 2006, 2007, where I realized that, you know, talking about anti trafficking is not the only thing which which could have been done there. So I realized that, you know, we need to get into the root cause of the problem. And we realized that that region is, you know, rain deficient, and there is very little rainfall. And because of which a lot of human trafficking at the same time, you know, migration was also happening to the nearby towns and the, you know, metropolitan cities. So when I discussed it with the local community there, we realized that, you know, people are migrating because there is no food. So food was the root cause and no food and no work. And that's why all the problem was happening. So, we started working on it. And we realized that, you know, millets are suitable for that region, because it takes very little water to grow, and very little input cost. So no chemical input in the crop and farmers can, you know, earn a good amount of money from that. So and we also realized that the last successful crop was in 1985. They started growing ground nuts. So we started with five farmers and today we have more than 10,000 farmers with us who are growing millets and successfully growing millets. So we did, you know, meeting with farmers and training and capacity building. And we also did revival of, you know, old and ancient tools which were used for, you know, weeding and other things. We also created a seed bank there. And we, when we realized that farmers have started growing and there is no, you know, processing centers and markets. So we motivated youth, their local youths to set up the processing plants. So that was on a, you know, involving the private sector there. So they started, you know, doing the primary processing and after that, we started linking them with the market. But the market was not mature for millets. So then we, in 2016, we set up this company, Millets for Health, which started marketing it with the end user. So the consumers. So we created a brand and then the, you know, we started working with, you know, end users and we also did training on how to cook with millets. So that created the entire value chain of the millets. And today, there are a lot of people who are, you know, using millets in India and abroad. We also focused on local consumption within farmer communities and good food ingredients for the urban poor as well. So because we realized that, you know, the urban poor is taking the hit and they don't have a very good health index. So we started working with them. We launched a project called Ghar Ghar Potion, which is a nutrition at every household. So we started working with mothers, you know, training them on innovative recipes and so our initiative is, you know, from farm to tummy. So we entered into each and every value chain of the ecosystem. And that's why we realized that, you know, it's important to, you know, work at each and every, you know, segment. So that is all from my side. And at last, you know, we also believe in, you know, farmers don't need our sympathy. They need our respect and we owe them that respect. Thank you. Thank you so much, sir. And we have one last question here and then we go back to the speakers from before, but yeah. Thank you very much. So I'm Francesco from SLI 2030, which is a new member of DAXA. We are an organization that acts as an officer and connector among the stakeholders of the rise of sectors. And we have a global approach as we coordinate a network in over 60 countries, but we have a narrow focus on one specific archaeological and climate smart approach, which is the system of price intensification. So I, I wanted to ask Jessica about what actually was driving the commitment of Zimbabwe government. And I think it's important to understand the climate smart agriculture, but before that I also would like to reflect a moment on the fact that we are stating how country led transition country led actions are key to achieve transition. And I think it connects very well with what was mentioned by our colleague from iFAT, about the lack of investment on dissemination as well as the engagement with country based organization. To achieve what Cristina was mentioning about merging technologies dissemination and training. Yeah, sorry. I think today we are in an optimal situation because we cannot really be satisfied with COP recognizing more and more the role of agriculture, but we would like countries to commit more in their national and national contribution with more like bold commitment to implement climate smart agriculture. So I said today is a good moment because NDCs are being reviewed and by 2025 they should be sub-divided again. So I also would like to know as a new member of GAXA, if GAXA is planning to work together with national government and with all the stakeholders, private sector, public sector, who is needed to contribute to this transition to actually support countries in committing in implementing climate smart agriculture in their NDCs as well as with the implementation phase of their NDCs. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. And with that, I hand over to Jessica perhaps first and then also the other speakers for any comments and responses. Jessica, over to you. Thank you so much. I would like to answer you first. When you say what moved the government of Zimbabwe to adopt the CSA strategy. Our country is an agriculture country. And due to climate change, we have been having a lot of drought periods here. But with the NGOs coming in, they were teaching, they were bringing in technology on how to use conservation agriculture. And from that we discovered that the government discovered that there were a lot of success stories, especially in region four and five in Zimbabwe. You can't grow maize in that area. But through conservation agriculture, when we were told that you have to tell the minimum tillage cover crops, so moisture conservation, we noticed that those areas were now harvesting more than they used to do. So, because of that, the government saw a lot of success stories in 2013 hours at international crop Institute for the research would travel to different regions as assessing the project which we implemented. And because when an NGO enters a country, it doesn't work on its standalone, it also work with extension officers, and these extension officers will go back and report the success stories that are happening in the country. And that's why the government of Zimbabwe was motivated to adopt this new technology and now they are now also embracing agroecology regenerative farming. And they have now and with conservation agriculture in our native language, they call it from Buddha. So when you tell someone that we are doing from Buddha, that person is likely to adopt it more because it's in the language that he or she thinks is very good for it doesn't think that someone is coming and giving me this that I don't know, but they feel like they are the owners of the initiative. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, and your question. Our government has a minister of youth. So, when we have a minister of youth, we can register our youth organizations through that. So when you register your organization, it's easier for you to log in ideas. You want what you think would want through that ministry and we get you presented through that ministry and our minister of agriculture, land agriculture, water and climate and raw settlement have actually also have a youth desk, where you can go and launch if it's a problem if it's help if it's need. And then at least you'll be helped in the language you have got different language you be helped in the language that you feel best that you, you can know. So, for government to appreciate that when you work with youth organizations that are registered, you will be called when they are when they are called for policymaking I remember in 2021. The Glasgow cop. We, there was a youth group Africa youth initiative for climate change. It traveled the whole country, engaging youth, asking what you need to be represented at the cop, and we made a one document, which was presented at cop at Glasgow. Thank you so much. I'm looking at the other presenters if there's any comments or responses from their side at this point. Any other burning questions otherwise. I know that there are only two more elements that are holding you from going to lunch. And it is promised it's very short. This is going to be led, and also entirely, it was entirely done I was not involved in in any of that by the young colleagues, Anna and let's see so we're sitting next to me. And before we are going to that. We have one extraordinary example of how to perhaps also change a bit the communication we do with youth. As I think I heard before, we have great solutions out there. What if imagine what we could do if we could motivate youth to get on board, work with us on make and make this happen. So, this particular individual is doing that he's communicating with a completely different way he's a young 20 year old poet who has last year at the World Food Forum been giving his a poem for the for the World Food Forum and he's from Lagos, Nigeria, and I think we have a small video that we can show about his wonderful point that he did there. While the technicians are doing this up I think it is this this the change of how we are how we work and talk with young people, rather than about young people I think that is something that we are in the learning process in many ways but that all our institutions really need to think about when we want to have the kind of engagement that you're suggesting. And I think this is being done much easier perhaps at the country level at the field level where you are directly working with the young farmers family farmers with those who have the indigenous knowledge indigenous solutions and so on. It is much more complicated sometimes at the regional at the national sub perhaps even as well unless there is a Ministry of Youth that can facilitate. Even at the national level can be difficult at the at the regional at the global level it is really difficult to to facilitate that kind of dialogue so here the communication on both sides perhaps needs to adjust a bit but what we really need to learn as in global institutions is how can we better make sure that it's understood is the video coming yeah. And then I stopped and stopped talking then I tried to bridge here to the video okay and here much more important victory FAO director general distinguished guest and all of humankind. The planet's one plan for sustainability to militate against hunger pains and humanity. The trail of human misery and degradation makes a war of starvation linger upon this generation. Not of machine guns but intestinal sounds not of bullet wounds but soft from belly punks not of rubble but stomachs rumbling and ironicals on spoken grief with definite silence. We lavish on war yet the post tried to eat some wasting away with my nutrition order shockily overweight we are trapped in this cycle of unrighteous anger blotted out by the pangs of emptiness and perils of anger. If this visual cycle of poverty prevails a blooming economy will soon become still we are destroying our land that produces food for all then throwing it away as if it's never existed at all. If the system designed for maximum production is broken how do we get quality over quantity of what's edible. The nitty gritty of human survival is good nutrition. Strengthened by the arms of sustainable agriculture to thrive from dawn to dusk with ecstatic satisfaction that nourishes the body with vitamins for action. So everyone should learn and earn without inferiority in pursuit of sustainance equality is a priority. What's good is food availability if it is void of accessibility. What essence is it to bank on good nutrition if we've got to break a bank. The worst thing about anger isn't just the rippling effects of war the politics or outbreak of disease but the silence we do not resist. So let's take the weight off our shoulders to prepare the feast that brings us together. To eliminate deficiencies in the land of milk and honey is to give up exchanger resources for a penny. The earth is warming, oceans are rising, creatures must thrive and humans must keep on living. Our world is so concerned with economic numbers yet grapples to solve the puzzle of world anger. So let's take the weight off our shoulders to prepare the feast that brings us together by stretching forth our arms towards our mandate of what at stake with no food going to waste. When all of heaven is filled with cloud terrain, if the universe isn't the barrel of hurricane, streaks of bliss will surely blow some on our ecosystem till the crust of drought flourishes with food system. So let's take the driver's seat on the wheel of production till earth's vegetation sprouts diversification. If food security is our priority against instability, productivity is a recovery opportunity from calamity. One planet, one plan, year is food for thought. No more empty talk that doesn't reduce food loss. Youthful will power is the strength of transformation, creatively propelled by inclusive contribution. Young stars should thrive innovatively in the sand of time to erect the building blocks of change for a lifetime. And if we genuinely live with a healthy diet, then we can't die yet. Thank you. Thank you, Victory. And with that, immediately I'm going over here to my colleagues Anna and Leticia and perhaps before we are going to this is an interactive part. So we really want you to start the discussion that you will hopefully have over lunch perhaps after this session. And with that, if you get a little bit up out of your chairs and take your mobile phone away for the next three and a half minutes that we have this exercise. And perhaps also the young colleagues were hiding behind the, the screen here if you can also come in for that. I think, yeah, over to you guys. And thanks a lot. Thank you, guys. Now that we've warmed up and have some discussion we want to do some popcorn brainstorming. So please propose a topic and those who raise your hands, you will have one minute. So please, we don't have that much time to try to be concise proposed concrete actions and try to stick to one minute as much as you can. The first topic we want to bring to the table is, how can youth be more involved in global alliance for climate smart agriculture and climate smart agriculture in general. So let's start the conversation. Abdullah, thank you. Thank you for giving me the floor but the time is constrained so I would stick to the point. So, you would have been given the chance to represent in different events different events but one thing we now need is local action. In local action we have to more focus on community based project where youth will go to their community, find out the problems, we know already problem climate change but it's not that simple it's complex, based on different countries different cities. So you will go to their community, and find out the problem to solution so sometimes solutions can be very simple. You are very enthusiastic and they are. They can bring out solutions that won't need a lot of money so it can be we promote climate information service just giving farmers a call or SMS. So it's that simple to warn them about upcoming climatic hazard or events and there is another thing I would like to propose that is establishing youth advisory committee in different activities so I think that's very crucial to give you the proper flow not acting, as a proper partners in your activities. If you give them opportunity to advise you. Maybe it will provide us when will be old, a good future. So thank you. Thank you Abdullah. Please try to stick to one minute everyone. We are now going to give the floor to Francesco. Francesco from the World Farmers Organization. Just one single suggestion on our side. We must sort of change the paradigm. We must instead of trying to to sort of impose the top down solutions and see if they work for you. Let's go to the field. Let's go ask the youth what their needs are the young farmers what their needs are what their expectations are. What do they mean by climate smart agriculture instead of imposing a definition with some time is not clear to us and I guess not evenly to people working on the field. And let's build the definition starting from, from a consultation with youth and young farmers. Thank you so much. Thank you Francesco for that brief statement we're now going to give the floor to the young man. I'm Rajiv. I'm Rajiv Pandey. I would just say, let's make it lucrative for youth. They will come. Thank you for that brief statement. I'm going to now give the floor. Hi, my name is Allison chocolate or John and from Cornell University. I would suggest or recommend strongly that we reach out to current youth agriculture organizations in the United States we have for age. It's established around the world. We also have future farmers of America. We also, I don't, I think it's established globally. It would be great to go to them and ask them to get involved with climate smart agriculture. Thank you very much for that contribution. Yeah, thank you very much. I might add it's okay from Nigeria. The first thing which I propose is the introduction of a good policy. That we have smart agriculture in each of the countries. There's a gap between the policy and the farmers, the policy orders. So they need to promote a policy that will force that will forcefully allow farmers to work on smart culture. Another aspect is a station services. The station services have to be streamlined in terms of dissemination of information of the new technology in most of the cultural practices, and the farmers need to document what they are doing. So the case studies whereby can be replicated and government can also going to provide the enable environment by funding the station services so that the information can go around the farmers can able to adopt it. Then the youth can also key into a culture. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for everyone that engaged. We love to see that you're so interesting in having this debate with us. And our final question before we all live to lunch. So we can have a further brainstorming on the topic. It's what concrete actions can your organization institution government and entity do and, in fact, to involve youth more effectively. We can start break the silence. It's becoming very concrete. So it's going to be more difficult to talk. It's always, but I see some open. Yes, please. Hi everyone. Hello, this is Julia from the word farmers organization. Just to say that, for example, we have a capacity building program on young farmers which is called the gymnasium and you're going to talk about it more tomorrow. So we are having our general assembly in a few weeks in South Africa, hosted by one of our members organization, and we will have consultation about kind of smart agriculture as well. We specifically participate participation from youth young farmers from all across the world, and we will make sure that their voices will be mainstream throughout our general assembly. Thank you. Thank you so much Julia. Now I hand the floor over to you. Hello, don't forget they have been hands online. Online audience. So, for, you know, for every country. So we are either the next generation we need to involve them in the agriculture activity. So as you know the now the young generation they don't want to work with every country sectors. Because therefore we need to encourage them to attend the agricultural activity. So I think that we need to to create enabling environment for the young people and young farmer to involves in the agricultural activity. The first thing is very important. The second thing is we need to set up the some star start up program. So this program in the involves the young farmer young people to to to to to agricultural activities. And then I think that we need to conduct capacity building program and also the sharing the technology and the knowledge for the young people and then they can support them to to to do the agricultural activities. Of course, we need to have a policy and strategy to promote young generation to attend in the country activity. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much for your contribution. I think we're kind of running a bit out of time. No, thank you so much for for this we would have liked to have much more time for the brainstorming exercise but I think it shows the rich discussion about these the importance as well of youth inclusion in agricultural activities and climate smart agriculture. In the end we're talking about 50%, but depending on statistics that that are being taken 50% of the world population is youth. Some, some are putting the age level a little bit higher which I'm always in favor of, but the, the, what, what we also see is that if you look at the less than 18 year olds, 85% live in developing countries, so the inclusion of youth in developing countries in particular is a question as the title suggests of the future for for the country so how we are systematically involving youth is definitely something that beyond the session I hope Gaxa is going to discuss and I'm sure with fans, you will have these discussions for sure on the agenda. And that leaves me to invite you once again. I hope to see all of you as individual Gaxa members but also as as a, and as a network at the World Food Forum in October. And with that hands, I hand back over to you and also leave you your chair again and thank you so much for having us. Thank you so much. Youth Team Kazuki and your team for the excellent session. It was lively. There were more requests for the one minute pitch. But it shows the interest the youth has in becoming an active or being an active member of Gaxa. And invite everybody to join the World Food Forum in October. Certainly, the Alliance will be active there. And based on the remarks made we have to see how we can involve you more in the work of Gaxa. Thank you so much. Give him again a big applause. I think we have had an excellent morning. We are a little bit over time, but I think it's now time for to look for internal food security to relax a little bit. And come back at 230 sharp in this room because then we go to the action to the action groups with Allison Ernie and Rosa Maria Rosa. I was to name says they will lead us into the action. Have a very good lunch. And for those who are not familiar in this building, I would say go to the eighth floor. Because there you have different possibilities for lunch. And one thing is, you have the most beautiful view of Rome, and it's already appetizer for the reception this evening. So have a very good lunch. Thank you so much. We see each other at two o'clock sharp back in this room. Thank you.