Rain clouds over a farming village near Iringa, Tanzania (photo on Flickr by United Nations /Wolff.)

A Hunger-Nutrition-Climate Justice Conference is in its second day of deliberations today (16 Apr) in Dublin. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, head of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), in southern Africa, and chair of the board of trustees of the Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), spoke today earlier on the need to focus on small-scale food producers and sellers, particularly women.

Unusually, the event is exploring links between climate change, hunger and nutrition. Unusually, it is placing farmers at the centre of development efforts to help eradicate global hunger and malnutrition. Unusually, it aims to do this by enabling global leaders, policy-makers and scientists to listen directly to the representatives of communities from Africa, Asia and Central America.

Frank Rijsberman, CEO of the CGIAR Consortium said, ‘We must focus on the needs of smallholder farmers – they have the least capacity to adapt and will be the most affected by climate change’.

Listening to the voices of those on the ground is vital in shaping the post-2015 sustainable development agenda.

Former US vice president Al Gore is speaking, as well as the president of Ireland, Michael Higgins; Mary Robinson, president of the Mary Robinson Foundation; and Ertharin Cousin, executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

To optimize the input of stakeholders from around the world, Rijsberman hosted a panel discussion, ‘Starting the dialogue: Reality check’, today (16  Apr). This session aimed to ensure that farmers voices are heard by high level representatives and included a live voting device to ensure everyone has a say in issues discussed.

The Hunger–Nutrition–Climate Justice 2013′ Conference has been designed to generate practical recommendations to support vulnerable households as the world reviews the UN Millennium Development Goals.

The Conference is supported by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF).

Global leaders and policy-makers attending the event include:

• President of Ireland Michael D Higgins
• Frank Rijsberman, Chief Executive Officer of the CGIAR Consortium
• President of the Mary Robinson Foundation, Mary Robinson
• Former US Vice-President, Al Gore
• Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director, United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)

For more information, go here.

Follow the conference on Twitter by searching for #HNCJ.

Watch a short (3.32-minute) animated video from Ireland, a country that should know, on modern links between great hunger and climate change.

About CGIAR and CCAFS
CGIAR is a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future. Its science is carried out by the 15 research centers who are members of the CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. http://www.cgiar.org

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) is a strategic partnership of CGIAR and Future Earth, led by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). CCAFS brings together the world’s best researchers in agricultural science, development research, climate science and Earth system science, to identify and address the most important interactions, synergies and tradeoffs between climate change, agriculture and food security.