Add us as your preferred source on Google to see more of our content in Search.
Add to Preferred SourcesThe Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in the framework of its on-going EU funded project, has organized a one-day workshop to establish the resilience programming network for agriculture sector in Syria. The workshop took place in Damascus on June 12th 2017 and was attended by directors and experts from the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform (MAAR), and key line Ministries of water resources and environment, UN Agencies, National and International NGOs.
“The objective of this workshop is to provide a platform to stakeholders to exchange knowledge and information, lessons learned and best practices in order build a resilient agriculture system for food and nutrition security of Syrian people. Resilience can be described as the capacity of systems, communities, households or individuals to prevent, mitigate or cope with risk, and recover from shocks. In our context agriculture system is resilient when it is less vulnerable to multilayer shocks, biotic (pest and disease systems) and abiotic (drought, water stress and others) across time, and can recover from them. Syrian people with over 7000 years of civilization and farming experience have proven to be resilient over the centuries. In the face on the ongoing crisis, our role, as actors and experts is to ensure that the agriculture system is protected and efficient, to ensure a sustainable production of crops, livestock, forestry and fishery products for an improved livelihoods of Syrian people.” Mr. Adam Yao, FAO Syria Representative.
The workshop has been an opportunity to highlight the main conceptual features of resilience-building programming, and to share good practices, recommendations and lessons learned after one year since the start of this comprehensive Agriculture Resilience building programme in Syria, funded by the EU.
Mr. Haitham Haidar, Director of the Planning and International Cooperation Directorate at MAAR commended the efforts made in the context of this project in supporting vulnerable farming households to continue producing and to provide food for themselves and their families during the crisis, and improving their skills and abilities to establish their small businesses. He also highlighted the importance of renewable sources of energy, such as the biogas plants introduced by this project, as a sustainable way to manage natural resources.
“We look forward to expand the scope of this project to include livestock re-stocking and more pronounced natural resources management, moreover; we look forward to more regular meetings with all the concerned stakeholders to find solutions together to overcome the current challenges.” Mr. Haitham Haidar, Director of the Planning and International Cooperation Directorate at MAAR.
The fruitful participation of FAO’s partners lead to share their conception on resilience and the activities they carried out in this regards. UNDP’s Deputy Country director, Ms. Akiko Suzaki, stressed on the importance of addressing different risks and vulnerability of affected people to plan sustainable solutions for longer impact.
FAO partner NGOs, (GOPA, AKF, Zainab Charity) shared their experiences through nutrition sensitive agriculture, crop production, rural employment and income generation activities, that contribute to reduce vulnerability and strengthen the resilience of beneficiaries’ households and communities on the ground.
Source: Reliefweb. Read full article here.
20 June, 2017