About the office

The FAO Subregional Office for Southern Africa supports 15 countries predominantly in Southern Africa. These countries include; Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The FAO Subregional Office for Southern Africa (SFS) is a technical hub established in 2006 and is hosted in Harare, Zimbabwe.

The principal function of the subregional Office is the overall identification, planning and implementation of FAO's priority activities based on the needs of the member countries in the subregion. It does so by ensuring a multi-disciplinary approach to agriculture programmes based on the FAO strategic objectives; identifying and implementing priority areas of action for the Organization in the subregion.

The subregion 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, forestry, fisheries and rural development priorities.

The FAO Subregional Office for Southern Africa also plays a very important liaison role to the Regional Economic Integration Organizations (REIOs) as well as to a large number of important development partners based in the subregion.