Namibian President Geingob welcomes FAO’s Hand-In-Hand Initiative

FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu today briefed the President of Namibia Hage Gottfried Geingob on FAO’s new Hand-In-Hand Initiative during a meeting on the side-lines of the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly.

Geingob noted how his country faces major challenges related to climate change like drought and flooding that impact negatively on attempts to boost agricultural development.

He and the FAO Director-General agreed that the country needs to diversify its agriculture sectors with the aim to add value to the Namibia’s natural resources.

In this context he expressed great interest for the FAO’s new Hand-In-Hand Initiative which prioritizes targeted work that benefits people in the world’s most vulnerable regions including small island developing states, least developed and landlocked countries.

In particular, Geingob, lauded the concept of “matchmaking” which is central to the Initiative and aims to bring together countries with the highest poverty and hunger rates with developed countries to achieve several SDG 1 and SDG 2 targets.

“Matchmaking is also very important at our level as African countries,” Geingob said, noting that a country like Namibia can offer niche services to some of its landlocked neighbours, including facilities such as dry ports for their development corridors.