FAO Subregional Office for Eastern Africa

The FAO Conference, at its 33rd Session held in Rome, 19- 26 November 2005, approved further decentralization within the framework of the reform agenda. The Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia-FAO Agreement to establish the Subregional Office for Eastern Africa (SFE) in Addis Ababa was signed on 31 January 2007 and the office established in February 2007.

The FAO Subregional Office for Eastern Africa is a technical hub which supports 8 countries in Eastern Africa and has a core team of professionals with multi-disciplinary expertise. It is responsible for developing, promoting, overseeing and implementing agreed strategies for addressing sub-regional food security, nutrition, agriculture and rural development priorities.

The office also plays a very important liaison role to the African Union Commission (AUC) and the United Nations Economic Commissions for Africa (UNECA) as well as Regional Economic Commissions (RECs) and to a large number of important development partners based in Ethiopia and within the sub-region. FAO plays a key role in the development of the Agricultural sector.

The importance of Agriculture in Eastern Africa cannot be underestimated.  Key related priorities include land policy, food safety, fisheries and aquaculture, resilience, forestry, natural resource management, climate change and livestock as indicated in SFE Country Programming Frameworks (CPFs). 

Following FAO new strategic framework and its regional initiatives, the Office will serve as a technical resource base for agricultural policy development in the sub-region, supporting our member states and regional economic communities on agricultural development; contributing to resilience building in agriculture; enhancing resource mobilization for agriculture; development of agribusiness and agricultural value chains; as well as developing standards and sharing of best practices in agriculture and food security among others.

In this way the Office can contribute to ending hunger in Africa in 2025 and ultimately to FAOs overall goal of ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in the world, through the improvement in levels of nutrition, the betterment of rural livelihoods, the improvement of agricultural productivity as well as through contribution to the sustainable growth of the world economy.