United States Mission to the United Nations Agencies in Rome (USUN) is organising a media tour of Burkina Faso from September 14 to 20, 2014.
Journalists from five African countries including Cote d’Ivoire, Niger, Uganda, Mali, Ghana and the host nation, Burkina Faso, have been selected by the US Embassies in their respective countries to participate in the tour.
The tour would be led by Ambassador David Lane, the US Ambassador to the UN Agencies in Rome, Italy, to showcase how the US had engaged the three UN affiliate organisations; the World Food Programme (WFP), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to advance the UN’s efforts of emergency food aid, food safety standards, Aquaculture, fisheries, forest, and financing for rural development in Africa.
It will also highlight both the challenges and the positive impact that Feed the Future, the US government’s global hunger and food security initiative, and the UN agency-sponsored humanitarian aid and agricultural development programmes are having in Burkina Faso.
The tour is also to afford the participants the opportunity to learn how the US, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), collaborates with the Rome-based WFP, FAO and IFAD and other development partners, to build national and household capacities to face natural disasters, build food security, and promote sustainable agricultural development.
The tour, being organised in conjunction with the US Embassy in Ouagadougou, will highlight the US Government’s commitment to multilateralism and achieving measurable results in its fight to achieve global food security; a key component of the Obama Administration’s global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future.
As part of the tour, the journalists will observe firsthand, the impact of food and agricultural programmes at the grass-roots level and interview international and local development professionals, beneficiaries, farmers, livestock traders, teachers, students, micro-entrepreneurs, small-business owners and local community and political leaders.
This will also enable the journalists to file news reports that will raise awareness of the US Government’s ongoing commitment to help Burkina Faso and Africa as a whole achieve food security.
