Director-General emphasizes the need to make sure science, technology and innovation is suitable, accessible and affordable for all

New York – Science, technology and innovation offer “vast” potential for progress in ensuring food security and nutrition, reducing poverty and safeguarding the environment while boosting sustainable agriculture, QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), said on Thursday.

“It is extremely important that we make sure the technology is suitable to individual needs and specific contexts, and that it is accessible and affordable,” he said in remarks at the ninth annual Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), convened in New York.

The 2024 theme for the STI Forum is keyed to tackling challenges in times of multiple crises, with an emphasis on effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions. While Artificial Intelligence is expected to play a major part in future initiatives, it is especially important for any and all STI solutions to be made available where they can be particularly transformative, particularly in the lives of rural, indigenous and local communities where questions of poverty , food security and nutrition are deeply intertwined.

STI holds the potential to unlock employment opportunities, empower small-scale producers, family farmers and rural youth and women, and bridge the rural divide, Qu noted. Use of STI should also include careful consideration of their potential impacts, benefits, risks and trade-offs before they are adopted and scaled up, he added.

“While the potential of STI in bringing about transformation is great, using them can be challenging and costly, and exacerbates disparities if not accompanied by the right enabling environment and basic public goods, particularly for developing countries,” the Director-General said.

FAO’s commitment

Qu highlighted FAO’s efforts to bring STI closer to Members over the past four years, including by crafting an innovation model that promotes incubators and innovation hubs, foresight analyzes and work to transform and strengthen national agricultural research and extension and advisory services. Specific initiatives include FAO’s 1000 Digital Villages Initiative, the Hand-in-Hand Initiative and its Geospatial Platform, FAO’s participation in the Digital Public Goods Alliance and in particular FAO’s championing of the Science and Innovation Forum as one of the key pillars of the World Food Forum since its inception.

It is essential to ensure adequate financing to use STI for the SDGs successfully, he added. That will entail ending the decline in the fall of public investments in agricultural research, tapping into innovative funding and financing opportunities, expanding South-South and Triangular Cooperation and promoting participatory approaches for co-creation of technologies and innovation, he said.

Qu spoke on a panel alongside entrepreneurs who have developed innovative solutions including an accessible milk pasteurization tool and new approaches to clean and affordable transportation.

The STI Forum is closely aligned with the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development to be held in July 2024 under the auspices of the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) with a particular focus on ending poverty, ending hunger and combating climate change and its impacts,