Germany launches €20 million programme with FAO and UNDP to boost the agriculture sectors’ role in addressing climate change

The German Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety through its International Climate Initiative announced it is providing €20 million for a new programme co-led by FAO and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), to accelerate climate change action in developing countries’ agricultural and land-use sectors.

At least 10-12 countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa will stand to benefit from the programme which aims to assist them strengthen policies, adopt innovative approaches and remove key barriers related to information gaps, governance, finance, gender mainstreaming, and integrated monitoring and reporting.

Countries will develop capacities to own and lead processes to develop agriculture and land use – including water and forestry – and meet targets set out in their Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

“Too little attention has been paid to land use and agriculture in international discussions on climate until now, despite the fact that soil is the largest carbon sink on the planet after the oceans,” said Svenja Schulze, Germany’s Minister for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety on the sidelines of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid.

FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu, said: “An innovative approach to agriculture and land use is essential if we are to confront the current climate emergency and deliver on the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The funding from the German government will support FAO and UNDP in their work with developing countries and help create initiatives in agriculture and land use for the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The German-funded initiative, “Support Programme on Scaling up Ambition on Land Use and Agriculture through NDCs and NAPs implementation”, will also help governments identify adaptation and mitigation options and prioritize solutions that will build capacity and resilience. Every country’s climate change concerns are different and support needs to be individually tailored to help each country develop their agriculture and land use sectors in this context.

The initiative comes as the UN and the scientific community is highlighting the need for enhanced action to address climate change as extreme weather events, from heatwaves to droughts and floods, are becoming more frequent.

The new partnership with Germany announced builds on the success of the FAO-UNDP Integrating Agriculture in National Adaptation Plans programme, which supported 11 countries to strengthen their capacities in climate resilience and planning, and is expected to conclude in 2020.

FAO and UNDP will work closely together to implement the initiative, and support and serve countries based on their comparative advantage.

Germany is an important partner for FAO and its contributions support a wide range of programmes including development cooperation, emergency response and resilience building.

Original source: FAO
Published on 11 December 2019