FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative Mario Lubetkin presented the initiative at the World Food Forum in Rome.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mario Lubetkin, presented the region’s new training program, FAO Campus. In the presentation, made in the framework of the Regional Youth Assembly of the World Food Forum taking place in Rome, Lubetkin stressed that the objective of the new program is “to promote innovation, active knowledge management and close collaboration with academia, research centers, the private sector, and civil society.”
FAO Campus is a new platform and partnership mechanism that seeks to facilitate the exchange of experts and lessons learned among multiple actors from different countries and regions based on capacity building, the generation of evidence, and the identification and dissemination of good practices through inclusive and participatory processes.
“In the last decade, FAO has trained more than 260,000 people in Latin America and the Caribbean, and today, we offer more than 60 virtual courses dedicated to the region. We want to broaden and deepen this work,” said Lubetkin.
He added: “Rural youth play a fundamental role in the mission of connecting traditional and ancestral knowledge with innovation, digitalization, and new forms of sustainable production. FAO Campus aims to create new bridges and to expand the scale of our actions in the region”.
Four areas of work
The new program, which will begin to be implemented in the coming months, aims to respond to the training demands of FAO programs and projects to meet the needs of the countries, in addition to strengthening networking with the different regions based on four areas of work:
Regarding academia, the objective will be to strengthen FAO’s links with universities and teaching and research institutes in the region and to promote diploma courses, master’s degrees, research, academic events, and internships. The aim is to enable specific topics, such as sustainable production and climate action, to enter more forcefully into the region’s curricula and educational programs.
Regarding capacity building, we will seek to guarantee the quality, sustainability and scalability of training processes in the region, and ensure that social and environmental standards are met.
Thirdly, the multimedia area to develop mass campaigns and audiovisual teaching materials specially designed for educational institutions, ministries, and other partners.
Finally, the area of courses and workshops to expand the current training offer in different modalities in four languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese, and French).
“This is an ambitious program, but necessary. We have proposed to reach 1 million people with our courses and workshops in the region and to exceed 500 training actions in the next decade. We also want to increase the participation of women, indigenous peoples, and Afro-descendants, who have proven to be true guardians of natural resources and ancestral wisdom and productive practices,” said Lubetkin.
