FAO’s humanitarian assistance strengthens the resilience of endangered Palestinian Bedouins

JERUSALEM, 31 August 2022 — With political and economic shocks further imperiling food and nutrition security in rural Palestine, FAO is distributing essential inputs and equipment to help sustain the livelihoods of almost 40 000 members of underserved Bedouin communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

About 1.8 million people in Palestine are estimated to be moderately or severely food insecure. This includes the vast majority of Bedouin herders in Palestine and their families, who are particularly vulnerable to rising inflation, high agricultural input costs, and the negative impacts of the occupation.  

In August 2022, FAO completed an 18-month project funded by Japan that provided local Bedouin communities with drought-tolerant fodder crops, small-scale farm inputs such as animal health items and energy blocks used by herders and their families for heating in wintertime. The project also constructed, rehabilitated or provided more than 76 water cisterns; 100 mobile plastic water tanks; and 277 animal sheds. To enhance resilience, FAO implemented trainings for local herders, women and youth aimed at helping them overcome structural barriers that prevent their effective engagement in the livestock value chain.

In July, under a separate project funded by the European Union, FAO distributed 155 tonnes of barley fodder to 155 households in Masafer Yatta, where movement restrictions and the threat of forced evictions posed an imminent threat to their livelihoods. The support is helping the herders feed their small ruminants for an average of about six weeks. Over the next year, the project will also provide herders across about a dozen communities with plastic sheds, energy heating blocks, dairy processing units and cisterns.

These recent activities come after FAO distributed more than 2 300 tonnes of fodder, barley and wheat bran to almost 5 500 households in the Gaza Strip. The project was implemented with funding from Belgium through FAO’s Special Fund for Emergency and Rehabilitation Services.

Through its emergency programming, FAO is protecting the livelihoods of highly vulnerable groups such as Bedouin herding communities, with an emphasis on supporting women and youth.

In the face of political, environmental and economic shocks, FAO provided 155 tonnes of barley fodder to increase the resilience of more than 150 households in the West Bank area of Masafer Yatta.