The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has received a US$83 million contribution from the United States of America, designed to bolster the agency’s emergency and resilience programmes across Africa.
The beneficiaries countries include, Ethiopia, Sudan, Burkina Faso, the Sahel, the West Africa region as well as Afghanistan, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The new contribution is designed to improve the availability and access to food in crises contexts, by supplying aid and technical assistance to smallholder farmers and livestock-dependent communities, focusing on crop and livestock production.
“We are grateful to the United States of America for this important contribution towards FAO’s mandate.
“Safeguarding the rural livelihoods of the vulnerable is central to averting catastrophe and saving lives through the development of local production. Such funding is critical to respond agilely and at scale in food crisis contexts,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu.
According to reports, FAO will dish out US$32 million in emergency support to Ethiopia to improve crop production in the Tigray region, where conflict is a key driver of severe food shortages.
The organization is already scaling up the urgent delivery of fertilizers in the northern Ethiopian region to help farmers sow their fields in the midst of the crucial planting season.
The new funds will facilitate the targeted distribution of agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers and seeds, and the training of 344 000 households (involving an estimated 1 720 000 people) on fertilizer application and handling, good agronomic practices, post-harvest handling and value addition.
While US$15 million have been earmarked to bolster food security and livelihoods in Sudan, while the remaining amounts will target people in need in Burkina Faso and the region of West Africa and help mitigate the impact of an outbreak of African Swine Fever in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
A further US$30 million of the USA contribution announced today have been earmarked for emergency livelihood assistance to safeguard food and nutrition security in Afghanistan, where local food production and the incomes of the most vulnerable rural families have been affected by multiple shocks, including back-to-back droughts and a deepening economic crisis.
More than 70 percent of Afghans live in rural areas, and millions of men, women and children could face catastrophe in 2022 unless agriculture and livestock production are continuously supported.
FAO plans to use the funds there to improve the food and nutrition security status of 2 065 000 vulnerable and marginalized people through the distribution of winter wheat cultivation packages, a livestock protection package for herders in areas affected by drought, and multi-purpose cash transfers to households without access to land and limited labour force within the family.
