In an effort to address the worldwide grain crisis, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) are celebrating their 25 years of collaboration with a $5.5 million initiative

A program aimed at enhancing food security

The two heads of institutions also officially announced the new $5.5 million package of technical support to improve food security in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, the West Bank, and Gaza.

The collaborative project, which will get underway in January, is a timely reaction to the grain market crisis, which has made the world’s food security more vulnerable.

For example, the program will help governments review some of their agrifood policies by making the grain value chain more stable over time.

The package encourages both public and private investments to improve how the country imports grain by making it more modern. This includes building better infrastructure for buying and storing grain.

The effort will also help countries reevaluate their own food production capabilities, taking climate and environment into account, and find ways to get the most out of what they make, especially by diversifying their trade.

The EBRD’s financing for these nations is complemented by this new technical assistance package. In response to the crisis in the world markets, Tunisia, for instance, has been given a loan of $150.5 million to purchase foodstuffs.

“To change agrifood systems, a wide range of technical solutions, policies, and investments are needed.” FAO Director-General Qu said, “Leaving no one behind, FAO has been helping Members advance on all three fronts at the same time with the help of the EBRD and other partners to ensure the Four Betters: better productivity, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life for all.”

He also said that this was done to strengthen the country’s 25-year relationship with the EBRD and help reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“We will keep making our partnership stronger in the near future,” said Renaud Basso, the president of the EBRD. “We are pleased with the work done together with FAO over the past 25 years.”

“Improving food security is one of the EBRD’s top goals, and by working with the FAO, we can use our combined knowledge of financing and technological solutions to the advantage of the regions in which we both do business.” “The new technical support initiative in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean is the most recent example of this,” she said.

Twenty years of collaboration

Since 1997, when FAO and EBRD first collaborated, 200 combined technical support projects totaling $60 million have been made possible.

EBRD and FAO have worked together to help create sustainable food value chains in Eastern and Central Europe, Central Asia, and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. This has been done by combining FAO’s technical and policy facilitation skills with the EBRD’s investment capacity and knowledge.

The President of the EBRD and the Director-General of the FAO both said that they are still committed to the long-term projects they are working on together. They also pointed out that to change agricultural systems, their institutions usually need to work together to offer a mix of financial and technical solutions that take advantage of their relative strengths.

Recently, the EBRD and FAO have collaborated to analyze and comprehend the ongoing issues with global food security and how they affect particular nations and areas. The two organizations put on a panel at the EBRD’s 2022 Annual Meeting, a joint event with the World Trade Organization, and a panel at COP27 in Egypt, among other things, to move the global discussion on food security forward.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).