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OPENING REMARKS 

by

Hiroyuki Konuma Assistant Director-General and

Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific

delivered at the

ADB-FAO-WOCAN

Asia and the Pacific Regional High-level Consultation on

Gender, Food Security and Nutrition Ensuring the Other

Half Equal Opportunities

Bangkok, Thailand24 to 26 J uly 2012

H.E. Yukol Limlamthong, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives, Thailand,The Honourable Ahmed Shafeeu, Minister for Fisheries and Agriculture, the Maldives,H.E Fathimath Sheereen Abdulla, Minister of State for Gender, Family and Human Rights, Ministry of Gender, Family and Human Rights, the Maldives,The Honourable Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, Minister for Agriculture, Sri Lanka,Ms Shireen Lateef, Senior Adviser (Gender), Asian Development Bank,Ms Jeannette Gurung, Executive Director, Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and NaturalResource Management,Dr Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food

Distinguished participants and resource persons,Dear Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, 

It is my great pleasure to extend a warm welcome to each honorable representative of the participatingcountry institutions to Thailand and to this first regional consultation organized in collaboration with ADBand WOCAN on Gender, Food Security and Nutrition. FAO would like to first acknowledge and thankthe Asia Development Bank (ADB) for initiating the idea of this important gathering and for the generousresources extended to support it. We would also like to acknowledge the supportive role of our partnerWOCAN in advancing gender equity in food and nutrition security programming in the Asia-PacificRegion. We are very pleased to have forged this three-way collaboration on promoting gender equalityfor enhancing food and nutrition security. Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge the inspiration forthis event – the report by our colleague, the UN Special Rapporteur for Food Security, Dr. OlivierDeSchutter, which will be launched together with a press briefing today.

Ladies and gentlemen, 

 The main objective of this High-level consultation is to strengthen awareness and knowledge of thegender dimensions of food and nutrition insecurity and their implications for national agriculture and ruraldevelopment. Our goal is to identify the short and mid-term priority actions to enhance food and nutritionsecurity, in a gender and socially equitable manner, and we have a model for a consensus documentbased on the UNGA Resolution 66-129 that was adopted by the sixty-Sixth Session of the GeneralAssembly in 2012. I am pleased to note that participants for the workshop come from some 18 countries

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covering the entire Asia-Pacific region. Exchanging your experience and expertise on the most effectivepolicy and programming frameworks over the next three days will help us to forge a collective effort toimprove food and nutrition security in our region. I encourage you to share openly and be equally open tothe viability of replicating and upscaling Good Practice from each other’s country experiences.

Ladies and gentlemen, 

Asia and the Pacific Region continues to share the highest proportion of 62 percent of the world totalchronic hunger population. The vast majority of them live in developing countries and they becameincreasingly vulnerable to food price hike and external shocks. In addition, micronutrient malnutrition, orso-called “hidden hunger” is also affecting additional two billion people worldwide with serious publichealth problems, especially children and women in developing countries. The immediate causes of malnutrition are complex and multidimensional. They include inadequate availability of and access tosufficient, safe and nutritious food; lack of access to clean water, and inappropriate child feeding andfamily diets to which women may play a key role at the household levels. Gender inequality is animportant underlying cause of women’s under-nutrition and is further exacerbated by poverty and lack of access to resources. Addressing malnutrition, therefore, requires integrating gender dimension into actionand complementary interventions in agriculture and the food system in general as well as in broaderpolicy domains.

Ladies and gentlemen, 

In FAO, gender equality is considered a central component of FAO’s mandate to achieve food security forall by raising levels of nutrition, improving agricultural productivity and improving the lives of ruralpopulations. Further support to this was the roll out last year of the FAO Gender Equality Policy, and itsendorsement during conference in J une of this year. Gender mainstreaming in all areas of its work isalso ensured as a cross-cutting objective in FAO’s new Strategic Framework. FAO prioritizes thestrengthening of our member countries’ capacities to integrate gender in all agriculture, food and nutritionsecurity efforts and to work toward gender equality in policy, programme and project efforts.

Ladies and gentlemen, 

 The agenda of this consultation should offer you many opportunities to share and to enable learning fromeach other on strategies and techniques for enhancing gender equality. As I have already mentioned, Ihope you would make use of this opportunity and, more importantly, to transfer the knowledge and skillsback to our countries so that together, we can promote gender equality and enhance food and nutritionsecurity situation across our countries and the region.

I wish you the pleasant stay in Bangkok.