The Cameroon Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Gabriel Mbairobé and FAO Representative, Athman Mravili jointly signed a Technical Cooperation Project document on May 27, 2022 in Yaounde.

The targeted initiative will support the sectoral planning process or priority investments related to food security, resilience to climate change and wealth creation, through the roll out of specific studies such as agricultural typology/mapping of food systems at the national level aimed at identifying regional level opportunities, bottlenecks and investment gaps.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and improve the lives of people everywhere, while opening up opportunities for them. Adopted in 2015 by all member states of the United Nations as part of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, they define a fifteen-year plan. Today, progress have been made; however, a lot is yet to be achieved.  

It is in this global context that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) adopted a new initiative “Hand in Hand (HiH)” at the end of 2019. This Initiative aims to accelerate the structural transformation of agriculture and sustainable rural development in order to eradicate poverty (SDG 1), as well as hunger and malnutrition in all its forms (SDG 2). The initiative targets geographic areas where there is significant agricultural potential, high levels of poverty and chronic food insecurity. Generally, these regions have a large number of small-scale agro-sylvo-pastoral fish and wildlife operators. The objective is therefore to reduce poverty through agriculture, livestock, fishing, forestry and other income-generating activities.

As indicated by Dr Athman Mravili in his speech during this ceremony, “FAO will work with its partners to address any technical, policy and governance gaps. The Initiative will unlock the development potential of agriculture in the poorest, most vulnerable, low-income and low capacity countries”.

In the same line, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Gabriel Mbairobé pointed that “the government and the FAO must work with all actors in the rural sector to accelerate the structural transformation of agriculture and rural development, in order to eradicate poverty in Cameroon”.

During the course of project implementation, FAO will support Cameroon in establishing multi-stakeholder and inter sectoral partnerships, to ensure a strong commitment of the country with its development partners. It also intends to attract private investment by providing information and evidence on priority areas of investment for development. It is an opportunity to have tools for planning, coordination, advocacy and decision support in order to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of interventions in the agricultural sector for the achievement of sustainable development goals.