Food security, defeating hunger and malnutrition are the focus of the Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Solutions Forum which gets underway on Monday in Apia.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (F.A.O.) and the Government of Samoa through its Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has invited world leaders from Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific, as well as heads of technical and resource partner organisations and countries to attend the Forum.

Hundreds of public policymakers and practitioners, community leaders, farmers, entrepreneurs, private sector stakeholders will also join the event to discuss and present creative Pacific-based solutions and opportunities for innovation in efforts to defeat hunger and malnutrition for all.

Under the theme “Working together to leave no one behind” the 2022 Pacific SIDS Solutions Forum is organised to follow up and build on the global SIDS Solutions Forum of 2021 through identifying country-specific and regional successes (good practices), challenges and next steps within the context of advancing the achievement of the SAMOA Pathway and 2030 agenda in the context of COVID-19 and the 5F crisis (food, fuel, feed, fertilizer, and financing) recovery.

Throughout the Forum, participants will be provided with new analysis, tools and knowledge to develop country-specific follow-up action points on: COVID-19 recovery efforts and strategies to address impacts of the war in Ukraine war; the progress and lessons learned from the work linked to national food systems transformation; identification and expansion of innovative digitalisation in agro-food systems; South-South and Triangular Cooperation in action in the Pacific; creative approaches to addressing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the Pacific; and learning about and promoting the multidimensional Vulnerability Index.

The event will also present an opportunity to launch the first Pacific overview of the situation of nutrition and food security report as well as present the FAO Pacific Multi Country Programming Framework for 2023-2027.

The January 2022 tsunami in Tonga, which nearly destroyed the entire economy of the country, is only but one example of the devastating context of natural disasters confronted by Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

Like other S.I.D.S.s, Pacific S.I.D.S.s (the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu) are challenged by their remoteness, high vulnerability to climate change-induced disasters, dependence on imported foods, and a high incidence of diet-related diseases.

The impacts of COVID-19 are significant for the Pacific, largely because of their economic (import, tourism and remittance dependence), agricultural (short value chains) and health (diet-related diseases) context. Governments’ preventive measures such as international and domestic border closures, restricted government and business hours, unintentionally triggered near total economic paralysis.

The tourism sector collapsed with far reaching ramifications for agriculture and food security. In addition, COVID-19 recovery efforts by Pacific SIDS are being undermined by the disruption of global supply chains linked to the war in Ukraine.

For example, in Samoa, petroleum prices from May to June 2022 increased by 11 per cent and 20 per cent for unleaded and diesel respectively. These impacts are reversing critical successes and progress made in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (S.D.G.s) and the SAMOA Pathway in the Pacific S.I.D.S.