Interview with FAO Representative in Lebanon, Nora Ourabah Haddad
Nora, you are the FAO Representative (FAOR) in Lebanon, and before that, you were the Organization’s Representative in the Sultanate of Oman. Can you tell us a bit more about the job of an FAO Representative?
I had the privilege to serve as FAOR in the Sultanate of Oman until June 2022 when I came to Lebanon to take up the role of FAO Representative. I consider both of these positions exceptional, each in its own way.
I arrived in the Sultanate of Oman in 2016 at an economic downturn situation caused at the time by the decline of oil prices.
When I started my work in Lebanon in June 2022, the country had been, and is still facing multi-faceted crises (socio-economic, financial and political). Crises that have aggravated the food security situation in the country.
In both cases, the role of FAO has been key at such critical times.
Regardless of the country context, three key competencies are required in my view. Competencies that most of us do not necessarily master from the start! These are a broad set of technical, diplomatic, and managerial skills. A challenging necessity for any FAO Representative (FAOR) to perform effectively.
First, in representing the Organization, the FAOR should embrace a 360-degree vision of FAO’s mandate. This demands strong diplomatic skills and vision to ensure we respond to the country’s needs.
Second, the FAOR must master the main technical themes of the Organization. Without being an expert in all areas under our mandate, they should have a global vision in order to propose the best of FAO’s expertise – and in doing so to strengthen the credibility of FAO.
Third, the FAOR needs to be a good manager who can create a conducive working environment while motivating staff and managing the office resources effectively.
Upon my arrival in Oman and now in Lebanon, I quickly realized that finding the right balance among these three skills – with the full support of the FAO country team – would become the main challenge to deliver successfully.
In Oman we focused on working in close collaboration with national donors including the private sector. We also widened our partnership network by mapping the “resource partner ecosystem” and ensured that FAO’s expertise and comparative advantages were well known by all stakeholders in the Sultanate.
At the same time, we worked on strengthening our technical capacities in the country office and bolstered our technical network within FAO to develop new and innovative projects.
Moreover, we invested in communication and outreach, which led to positioning FAO as a unique source of expertise in food-security related issues.
Based on my experience in Oman, I embarked on developing a large program in Lebanon, as the task is immense and the potential for FAO to support the country is enormous.
Building on my experience as FAOR, here are some key elements to erect a strong FAO program in a country. Look beyond the traditional donors and seek opportunities through innovative partnerships with the private sector and foundations. Demonstrate FAO’s comparative advantage and specific technical expertise, which are key to attract new partners and funding agents. Identify champions in various partner institutions to support in delivering the country’s objectives. Be persistent in your efforts, build trust and look beyond your comfort zone.
What are FAO’s current country priorities in Lebanon?
The FAO Lebanon Office was established in 1977, making it the FAO’s first country office. Since then, FAO’s assistance has focused on promoting the sustainable development of the agricultural sector, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and other relevant partners from both the public and the private sector, as well as civil society and academia.
Since the start of the Syria crisis, FAO in Lebanon has been supporting the coordination and planning mechanism for humanitarian and stabilization assistance to Lebanon. Under the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP), FAO is co-leading with WFP the Food Security and Agriculture Sector.
Furthermore, a key priority for FAO in Lebanon is to build a solid integrated program that allows us to move away from a project-based approach to a programmatic one; thereby effectively responding to the multi-faceted crises affecting the agrifood sector.
In fact, since 2019, the currency depreciation led to a gap between revenues and production costs. The high dependency (up to 80%) on food imports resulted in fiscal challenges, especially given the local currency depreciation, and limited foreign currency earnings. As a result, the agricultural sector is suffering from a severe drop in its production capacity due to a sharp decrease in agricultural investments, increased production costs, shortage in imported agricultural inputs and reduced water supply. The situation is further aggravated by institutional challenges, difficulties to access bank credits, and low levels of public expenditure in agriculture (less than one percent of the total public expenditures since 1995).
FAO Lebanon continues its support to the Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with other line ministries and development partners contributing to the Strategy of the Ministry of Agriculture (2021 – 2025), the Lebanon National Forestry Programme (2015 – 2025) and the Strategic Roadmap in Support of Fisheries and Aquaculture in Lebanon (2014 – 2019).
Our project portfolio has been steadily growing and our priorities aim at enhancing local productivity in a sustainable manner, while focusing on key value chains, revolving around three main areas:
(1) Supporting the transformation of agrifood systems to boost investment in agriculture;
(2) Assisting small-scale Lebanese family farmers in their efforts to enhance productivity and resilience; and
(3) Supporting the sustainable management of natural resources through the agro-sylvo pastoral approach.
Lebanon hosts a large amount of vulnerable communities. FAO Lebanon will be launching an EU-funded project to improve living conditions and resilience of refugees and host communities. What are your expectations for this project?
This joint project, implemented with one of our strategic partners, the World Food Program, will contribute to improving the living conditions, food security and resilience of both Lebanese host communities and refugees living in Lebanon. Through this project, we expect to see an increase in local sustainable production, thereby contributing to food security and import substitution. We are envisaging three types of interventions aiming at improving the productive capacity of farmers, increasing availability of arable land and agricultural assets, as well as building the institutional capacity of seed production and other agricultural inputs. We foresee using proven and tested FAO tools including grants, as a financial incentive, capacity development methodologies, such as farmers’ and cooperative business schools, and other technical methods to sustain local production.
Many United Nations Agencies are active in Lebanon. Could you tell us how FAO collaborates with them?
Indeed, Lebanon hosts many international organizations including several from the UN family. Our UN country team is very large. As FAO in Lebanon, we collaborate with numerous sister agencies notably through joint projects in various areas such One Health, agro-business, gender, value chains, decent work and addressing child labour, among others. Beyond project implementation, we are also focusing our efforts on joint resource mobilization to avoid duplications and to build on respective comparative advantages.