FAO written statement – ECOSOC Meeting on the Transition from Relief to Development

 

ECOSOC Meeting on the Transition from Relief to Development

Roundtable Session 2 

Recurrent crises and sustainable solutions: building resilience and addressing rising displacement

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is well recognized that sustainable solutions to forced displacement not only require a humanitarian response, but must also look to longer-term development and peace outcomes. 

The agriculture sector has a critical role to play in both meeting immediate needs and as a means to turn humanitarian-development-peace nexus approaches into impactful solutions on the ground. 

Agriculture is the main source of income and food security for many refugees, IDPs and returnees around the world, and as such must play a key role in strengthening their resilience and recovery. 

Linked to this, greater effort is needed to integrate displaced populations and their voices into national development plans and enable them to make an active contribution to their host communities.  

FAO strongly believes that durable solutions to internal displacement can only be achieved with a joined up, humanitarian-development-peace nexus approach, moving beyond a narrow focus on short-term assistance needs. This includes increased investment in and support for agriculture-based livelihoods, ensuring inclusive accessto land, natural resources and employment and social protection in rural and peri-urban areas, and in peace responsive programing, including the management of resource-based conflicts and climate change adaptation. 

Coordination mechanisms at the national and local level (such as the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework) provide a valuable platform for host governments, UN agencies and civil society actors to work together towards collective solutions to displacement. In countries like Uganda, such mechanisms allow FAO and other organizations to actively contribute to a more holistic and comprehensive response, capable of providing sustainable solutions to displacement.

Engagement with the private sector also presents significant opportunities. Partnerships with private sector entities such as one of FAO’s valued partners, the IKEA Foundation, for example, have provided innovative and practical solutions to economic integration of displaced populations into local communities. 

FAO is committed to continue working with host governments, other UN agencies, private sector and civil society, towards collective outcomes to ensure comprehensive support to the forcibly displaced that promotes their longer term self-reliance.  

Thank you.