The food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has concluded the conduct of the face-to-face component of the Blended Learning Programme on “enhanced screening for responsible investment in agriculture and food systems.
Investment screening is one of the policy mechanism a government uses to pursue questions of viability of a proposed investment.
A government does this by conducting due diligence on the prospective investor and investment to gather information and analyze whether the proposal will lead to a responsible investment in agriculture and food systems. That is an investment that performs in three directions; economic profits, environmental sustainability and beneficial to society.
The five-day workshop was held in two phases, with 15 government participants attending from Monday, November 7-9, 2022, while 30 business representatives attended from Thursday November 10-11, 2022.
The learning program is aimed at strengthen capacities of states and non-state actors to apply the principles for responsible investment in agriculture and food system (CFS-RAI principles). The principles were developed following an inclusive multi-stake holder process in the UN Committee on World Food Security.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, FAO representative in Liberia, Mariatou Njie, described the learning program as another milestone in FAO’s effort to enhance the capacities of members to promote more responsible investments; and that the initiative is part of a multi-year program implemented with support from the Federal Republic of Germany.
Njie said she was honored to open the face-to-face event which is a direct follow up to the learning program “creating and enabling environment for responsible investment in agriculture and food systems” organized last year by FAO.
She added that one of the three pillars of the Liberia National Action Plan developed as part of that program is to mainstream the CFS-RAI principles into existing policies and processes.
According to her, the program aims to contribute to the implementation of that pillar, working together with you-members of the RAI multi-stakeholders Platform-which was launched during that same program.
At the end of the program the participants developed a draft screening tools for Liberia, which was an achievement Njie looked forward to seeing from the outcome of the collective work of the participants.
FAO is committee that support in identifying ways to ensure the outtake and application of the tools.
The learning program was organized after the COVID-19 pandemic, when progress made to reduce poverty and hunger was severely jeopardized, with an FAO estimate putting under nourishment in the Liberian population to 38.9 percent.
Workers particularly young women and men lost their jobs and farmers incurred substantial income losses, situation which lead to increase poverty globally as estimated by the World Bank after the pandemic.
To change the situation, Njie noted that FAO is committed to supporting its members in ‘building back better’ requires more responsible investment in agriculture and food system, the principals sources of income and employment.
Learning goals of the program includes the importance of through investors screening towards enhancing responsible investment in agriculture and food systems, understanding the roles, responsibilities and right of key stake holders in the context of investment screening in Liberia and analyzing the current screening processes and policies in Liberia and identify potential gaps in relation to the CFS-RAI principles.
