2018 Global South-South Development Expo
Thematic Solutions Forum
From fragility to resilience in rural settings - The role of South-South and Triangular Cooperation

Dongxin Feng, Deputy Director, Partnerships, Advocacy and Capacity Development, FAO

 

 

Good morning, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

 

Let me begin by talking about FAO’s Resilience Strategy and the Corporate Framework to support sustainable peace in the context of the 2030 Agenda.

 

FAO’s Resilience Strategy

 

• According to this year’s FAO flagship report “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World”, the main cause of hunger in the world is still conflict. The report also shows the rise of the world hunger, as the absolute number of undernourished people has increased from 804 million in 2016 to nearly 821 million in 2017. This information demonstrates that we still have a long way to go in fighting hunger, and resilience is a key aspect to address that.

 

• This is why resilience is such a major component of the 2030 Agenda, and several SDGs have targets related to increasing resilience work in agriculture, rural development, as well as food security and nutrition.

 

• As the lead UN agency for agriculture and rural development, FAO’s activities and programmes on addressing fragility and fostering resilience are at the core of the Organization’s work. In fact, “Increase the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crisis” is one of the five Strategic Programmes (SPs) of the Organization.

 

• Let me shed some light on FAO’s work on fostering resilience. 

 

• In 2015, 25% of countries in which FAO provided support under SP5 to increase resilience of livelihoods were experiencing active conflict. In 2016, FAO’s ongoing field programme delivery in OECD’s 15 most fragile countries in the world was valued at USD 212 million.
• For example, FAO is working with its partners to strengthen food security and resilience in a number of countries including Colombia,  the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen, to name a few. In the case of the Syrian Arab Republic, even in the midst of the conflict, FAO is operating in 13 of the 14 Governorates and helping families produce food to feed themselves and their communities. With improved seeds from FAO, in 2015, despite enormous challenges and constrains, Syrian farmers produced 2.4 million tons of wheat (around 60% of the pre-conflict average). 

 

SSTC in Resilience

 

• Now, how FAO uses SSTC in fostering resilience. Let me share a few concrete examples.

 

• FAO’s Knowledge Sharing Platform of Resilience (KORE) is a platform that provides a rich source of information on tools, approaches, programmes, analyses and methodologies on resilience implemented by FAO and key partners.

 

• These knowledge products and platforms serve as a basis for promoting peer learning and knowledge sharing. For example, in 2015/16, FAO facilitated an SSC exchange between Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic to strengthen the agricultural sector in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. With the technical cooperation of Cuba, the two countries benefitted from strengthened surveillance of classical swine fever in border zone countries. Training and specific technical assistance were provided according to the needs of each country, but also seeking the harmonization of measures and protocols for the control of the disease. Indirectly, this initiative promoted the preparation of a binational programme for the strengthening of agricultural health, as it made visible the difficulties of continuing to work individually for the control of agricultural pests and diseases.

 

• In terms of SSTC at the institutional level, one of the most notable examples is the FAO-facilitated knowledge exchange on building resilience between CILSS (Permanent Interstate Committee for drought control in the Sahel) and IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development in Eastern Africa). Following two share fairs on Resilience, an MoU between the two organizations was signed in 2013. It aims at promoting information exchange and strengthening cooperation between the two regional bodies and the two regions.

 

• FAO is supporting the operationalization of the MoU through SSC knowledge sharing activities between the two organizations, which includes: (i) a gender and resilience sharefair held in Nairobi in 2016; (ii) the facilitation of study tours from IGAD to CILSS to learn experience on food security and nutrition regional governance mechanisms in 2017; (iii) the support to documentation of good practices in the IGAD region to operationalize its knowledge management platform.

 

• What I mentioned above is only a small part of the activities that FAO has been implementing in addressing resilience through SSC. But from the examples I provided, you can tell that FAO has developed a considerable expertise and a distinct comparative advantage in working in conflict and fragile situations, and SSTC serves as a very valuable tool, not just for lessons learnt and knowledge sharing, but also in the uptake, adaptation and replication in countries undergoing similar challenges.
• My response to your question is completely positive.

 

Would it be possible for the three RBAs to develop a joint strategy to promote SSTC with and in support of fragile States? 

• The Rome-based Agencies share a joint vision on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and are enjoying a very productive cooperation in a variety of areas through different mechanisms, including SSTC.

 

• The three agencies have enjoyed a long history of collaboration in broad areas, including resilience. For instance, in 2015, a conceptual framework for collaboration and partnership among the RBAs on strengthening resilience for food security and nutrition was drafted. As a first step, four areas were selected as potentials for better collaboration to strengthen resilience: policy dialogue; analysis and planning; joint programming; monitoring impact and measuring resilience.

 

• As you might be aware, to further strengthen their collaboration, the three agencies have developed a joint Roadmap on SSTC, which was launched during the last GSSD Expo in Turkey.
• The Roadmap presents a shared action plan for enhanced collaboration among the RBAs in the area of SSTC through outlining the working mechanisms and shared priorities.

 

• The Roadmap sets the basis for the realization of joint projects, activities and events for the three agencies to explore and showcase SSTC best solutions.

 

• The final goal of the Roadmap is to strengthen the RBAs collaboration in SSTC for effectively achieving the SDGs.  

 

• In fact, after the launch of the joint Roadmap, the RBAs have joined force in diversified areas and through different modalities to enhance their collaboration in SSTC, including: (i) the joint organization of an event for the UN SSC Day; (ii) in collaboration with China, the joint organization of the Ministerial Level Forum on SSC; and (iii) the development of a monitoring and evaluation toolkit of SSTC by a joint group.

 

• Joint projects in the field are another focus for materializing the joint Roadmap. For instance, the RBAs are now jointly implementing a project on resilience, launched in 2017. It is a five-year project (2017-2021) funded by Canada (CAD 50 million) which objective is to strengthen the resilience of livelihoods in protracted crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger and Somalia. The project focuses on meeting the immediate food needs, while sustainably increasing food security and strengthening the resilience of food-insecure households affected by protracted and recurrent crises, with a specific focus on vulnerable women and children.

 

• Each RBA will bring to the project its comparative advantage. For example, FAO’s resilience index measurement and analysis model will be used to measure the impact of the interventions to household resilience. It will analyze the main determinants of resilience and how they evolve over time during programme implementation. Lessons learned will allow to improve the quality and impact of joint RBAs resilience programming in the three targeting countries, as well as in many other countries, especially by documenting and sharing experiences though SSC.

 

• In terms of RBAs collaboration on SSTC with fragile States, I believe that this project will provide some good experiences and lessons, allowing the three agencies to improve the quality and impact of their collaboration in this area.