Daouda Toure
© n/a
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Country Resident Representative in Nigeria, Mr. Daouda Toure, has said that climate change in form of extreme weather events, floods, production shocks, population growth, increasing global affluence and natural resource constraints will all impact on food prices.

Mr. Toure, who made the disclosure last week at the World Environment Day celebrations, said that 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted every year and this amounts to the tonnes of food produced in Sub-Sahara Africa, including Nigeria.

Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki - Moon also disclosed in his own address that the problem of about 870 million people who are undernourished with millions of children who suffer from childhood stunting has become a silent pandemic.

Ban ki-Moon said that we must ensure access to adequate nutrition for all, double the productivity of small holder farmers who show the bulk of food in the developing world.

He regretted that one third of all food produced fails top make it from farm to table and this represents a massive environmental cost in terms of energy, land and water.

The Secretary-General also linked the problem of food wastage to climate change because in advanced countries, food thrown, away end up in land fills where they release significant quantities of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that causes global warming.

Nigeria's UNDP Resident Representative, Daouda Toure whose address was read

by Ms. Ade Lekoetje Mamonyane, Country Director, regretted that one in every seven people in the would go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of five die daily from hunger.

Toure said that the UNDP is determined to help Nigeria to combat its challenges and that was why the UN systems in Nigeria had supported major policies such as; National Environment Policy, National Policy on Drought and Desertification, National Biodiversity Strategy, Climate Change Adaptation and National Erosion and Flood Control Policy.