Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi (PMAS-AAUR) and Indus Consortium, Islamabad signed Memorandum of understanding (MoU),  here on Tuesday with the objective to make joint efforts to address food security in Pakistan in order to increase knowledge of youth regarding climate change and food security so that policy discourse can be generated.

Both organizations also agreed to jointly carry out various activities in order to achieve objective of the project titled “Harvesting Global Food Security and Justice in the face of climate change” under the GROW Campaign supported by Oxfam Novib, funded by SIDA (Swedish International Development Cooperation) and being implemented by Indus Consortium.

Prof. Dr. Rai Niaz Ahmad, Vice Chancellor PMAS-AAUR and Mr. Hussain Jarwar of Indus Consortium Islamabad signed MoU on behalf of their respective organizations. Under the MoU both parties agreed to develop coordination & communication mechanism to Collaborate in matters of common interests addressing the program objectives.

Both parties also agreed to exchange/collaborate the information and identification of resource material for establishing resource centers to increase the effectiveness, efficiency and quality of the initiatives.

Under the MoU it was also decided that both parties will organize discourse/seminars/conferences, Drawing/Art competitions, Food Mela/s, Climate Change Mela/s, Sufi Festival/s, Policy dialogues at provincial level, and National Youth Conference  to promote discussion on Climate Change & food security. They also agreed on Inter-provincial exposure visit of youth student in Punjab and Sindh to learn impacts of climate change on river line and coastal communities.

In order to increase the awareness about the Food security and justice in youth/students in the face of Climate change, both parties also agreed to facilitate the participation of faculty/students of various disciplines in exposure visit, policy dialogues, national youth conference, essay writing competition, documentary competition, and exposure visits, internship, and utilization of resource centers.