COP27: Water Pavilion: Climate Smart Agriculture for Food Security, Adaptation, Sustainability

8 - 18 November 2022. Livestreamed through the Water Pavilion’s website. The aim is to raise awareness of the role of water for climate, highlighting powerful but under-utilized water-related solutions. Each day will have its own theme, and the combined programme will span a broad range of topics, from sanitation, food and energy, to gender, development and biodiversity.

The 2022 iteration of the Water Pavilion is led by the Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation and mobilizes 40 different organizations committed to driving action on Water for Climate.

Extract of the programme: 11/11 Thematic Day 4: Climate Smart Agriculture for Food Security, Adaptation, and Sustainability.

Opening Session: Climate Smart Agriculture: From Science to Policy, Governance and Finance

It aims to kick start the science-policy dialogue and outreach and to accelerate the mutual exchange and adoption of proven effective and sustainable climate smart agriculture solutions that are already available. It will also promote innovation and sustainable finance as important tools for rising political momentum toward more coordinated action to achieve climate, food, and water security. The session will also address irrigation governance at the crossroads of irrigation, local authority and other sectors and will look into how multi-scale irrigation development and coordination can be realized.

• Eman Sayed MWRI-Egypt 
• Antoinette Kome SNV Development, The Hague, Netherlands 
• Mure Agbonlahor African Union Commission (DARBE) 
• Jean Marc Faures FAO 
• Maria Helena Semedo FAO Mark Smith IWMI

Agriculture in Water Scarce Contexts

This session will discuss potential global actions for Agri-food systems transformation through climate resilient agricultural practices, maintaining ecosystems and maintaining seed genetic diversity, towards more integrated and systemic approaches. Advancing inter-sectoral collaboration, Innovation as well as financing opportunities for improved water and food security will be discussed. The anticipated outcome from this session is an outline of a roadmap for collective global action for Transforming food systems by tackling old assumptions and finding new leverage points.

• Aly Abousabaa ICARDA 
• Amgad Elmahdi Green Climate Fund Ambassador 
• Shahira Wahbi The League of Arab States (LAS). 
• Ibrahim Adam Dukheri AOAD 
• Mohamed Al-Hamdi FAO
• Marcela Masiarik Federal Foreign Office of the Government of Germany 
• Yon Fernández-de-Larrinoa FAO

Launch of the State of Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture Report for the Near East and North Africa Region

Climate change is one of the major drivers of changes in water- and land-use. This flagship publication of FAO’s Regional Office for the Near East and North Africa presents up-to-date information and analyses on the current state, trends and challenges facing two of the most important agricultural production factors: land and water.

High Level Session

Innovation, Technology and Digital Agriculture

This session aims to discuss the importance of technological innovations, digital agriculture and market-based instruments, in improving water use efficiency and natural resource management in the agricultural sector. It will address topics related to precision farming being the next agriculture revolution in dry areas; Digital agriculture solutions for social impact and will discuss Nexus experiences towards addressing water and energy nexus and facilitating the adoption of innovative water and energy-saving technologies. Session Partners: ICARDA, MOA-Iraq, Zr3i, IWMI, NWRC-Egypt and EAD 

• JeanMarc Faures FAO 
  
  
  
• Mohamed Dawood Environmental Agency- Abu Dhabi, UAE. 
• Rawya Al-Azzawi Ministry of Agriculture, Iraq. 
• Mohamed Shaban National Water Research Center, Egypt. 
• Vinay Nangia ICARDA 
• Walid Nasr Zr3i Foundation 
• Youssef Brouziyne IWMI

Building Climate-Resilient Agri-food Systems

This session will explore climate resilience at the intersection of water and food. High-level speakers will provide a global-scale assessment of the food-water nexus, discuss opportunities and challenges for building resilient food systems and explore the role of groundwater management. Case studies from Uganda, Egypt and Central Asia (Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) will showcase how this work is playing out on the ground. Sessions Organizers: IWMI, TNC, AWS, IFPRI, WWF, EC IFAS, WFP Egypt,

• Melissa D. Ho WWF-US 
• Adrian Sym Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) 
• Moshood Tijani AMCOW 
• Claudia Ringler  IFPRI 
• Inga Jacobs-Mata IWMI 
• Mansi Shah Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) 
• Praveen Agrawal WFP
• Saswati Bora The Nature Conservancy

Stories from the desert

The main objective of this social event is to provide an opportunity to learn about the knowledge and territorial management systems of nomadic Indigenous Peoples who have lived in the desert for hundreds of years. It aims to identify current challenges, as well as practices and knowledge that can contribute to nature-based water scarcity solutions. It will also provide an opportunity to meet and network with members of the Water and Agriculture Community of Practice.