NEW YORK ( Halbeeg News) – The Kingdom of the Netherlands has announced the contribution of $28 million to back FAO’s work to boost the resilience of food systems in Somalia, Sudan, and South Sudan.
The support is part of a new initiative to scale-up resilience-based development work in countries affected by protracted crises.
The funding agreement was signed by the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation of the Netherlands, Sigrid A.M. Kaag, and FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu on the side-lines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“Countries and regions affected by protracted crises are often reliant on humanitarian aid and too frequently written off as places where agricultural and rural development cannot take place at scale. Our work shows that is not true,” Qu said. “We know it can. This is why this project includes a robust learning agenda that will help capture successful case studies that can be replicated in other communities facing similar challenges”.
“This is a major step forward in our collaborative effort to build on the Security Council’s ground-breaking resolution last year on conflict and food security. Through FNS-REPRO, we’ll be operationalizing a new way of working in humanitarian contexts, one that recognizes that sustained rural development initiatives — even in situations of protracted instability — have a key role to play in preventing and mitigating food crises,” said Kaag.
The new FAO project is based on the premise that humanitarian, development and peace building efforts must be complimentary and mutually-reinforcing.
Food security responses consistently make up the largest share of UN-coordinated humanitarian appeals, representing more than one-third of global humanitarian requirements at $7.4 billion in 2019.
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