A Professor of veterinary public health and preventive medicine from the University of Ibadan, Olanike Kudirat Adeyemo, has been elected as part of the 10 eminent members of the Steering Committee of High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) unveiled by the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS).
On Thursday, in their inaugural meeting, the Steering Committee elected Akiko Suwa-Eisenmann as the Chairperson and Iain Wright as the Vice-Chairperson of the Panel. This leadership team will guide the HLPE-FSN’s efforts in providing scientific evidence and recommendations to inform CFS policy guidelines, assessing and analysing the current state of food security and its underlying causes, and helping governments prioritize future actions to end world hunger and malnutrition.
“As we stand at the crossroads of global challenges, the urgency to place food security at the forefront of the political international agenda has never been more critical. Our responsibility as the UN-mandated science and policy interface on food security and nutrition has never been so pressing. Today, more than ever, we need to place the right to food at the core of the international political agenda,” Akiko Suwa-Eisenmann explained during the election day.
“The world is looking to us. Ignoring the urgency of food security jeopardizes the foundation of stable societies and equitable progress. Now, more than ever, we must work to ensure that the battle against hunger becomes the top priority on the global political stage and that science makes the right contribution to it,” Iain Wright added.
Akiko Suwa-Eisenmann, a national of Japan, is a senior scientist in INRAE, France, and a professor at the Paris School of Economics. Iain Wright, national of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is the Deputy Director General-Integrated Sciences at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), one of the CGIAR research centres, based in Nairobi.
The newly appointed Steering Committee members are Olanike Adeyemo, Marie-Josèphe Amiot-Carlin, Sayed Azam-Ali, Mahmud Duwayri, Ruben Echeverría, Cecilia Elizondo, Hilal Elver, Evan Fraser, Elisabetta Recine, Hettie Schonfeldt, Rachid Serraj, Akiko Suwa-Eisenmann, Stefan Tangermann, Patrick Webb, and Iain Wright.
Chosen for their outstanding contributions to food security and nutrition-related disciplines, these experts, according to the UN, bring a wealth of knowledge and experience.
“Their appointment reflects a commitment to a balance of regional expertise and gender representation, ensuring a diverse range of perspectives and cross-disciplinary knowledge. The selection process underlines the commitment to generating credible and legitimate scientific evidence for global food security and nutrition.”
Membership to the Steering Committee is renewed every two years. They work with an extensive network of over 2,000 experts and participate in their individual capacities and not as representatives of their respective governments, institutions or organisations.
Experts were appointed by the Bureau of the CFS, following a proposal by an ad hoc technical selection committee comprised of members of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Programme (WFP), CGIAR and the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism for relations with the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CSIPM).
