FAO and WFP joined the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests today in Khartoum to celebrate World Food Day under this year’s theme Social Protection and Agriculture: Breaking the Cycle of Rural Poverty.

This year, World Food Day also comes on the heels of the UN Global Development Summit held in New York in September, where 193 countries agreed on a new Global Agenda for Sustainable Development and committed to eradicating hunger by 2030. Sustainable Development Goal 2 aims to “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”. One key component of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda is the need to expand access to social protection programmes, which are considered a crucial instrument to lift communities out of poverty, especially for the rural poor.

“Meeting the target to end hunger by 2030 will be fundamental to achieving the other sustainable development goals. Because health, education and economic development cannot be improved without better food security and nutrition,” said FAO Representative in Sudan, Dr. Abdi Adan Jama. “It will be important for us to continue to collaborate and work towards reducing rural poverty by increasing rural families’ access to the supports that they need to produce nutritious local food and generate income to meet their basic needs.”

FAO collaborates with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to develop and implement programmes that offer greater investments in the livelihoods of the rural poor in Sudan, including smallholders, family farmers, rural women, internally displaced persons and other vulnerable people, in order to address the multiple constraints and risks that poor and vulnerable rural families face in growing enough food to feed themselves and generate they income that they need to meet their basic needs.

One example of this work includes FAO’s collaboration with the federal Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and state ministries to ensure that vulnerable smallholder farmers have access to a sustainable source of the sorghum, millet, ground nut, sesame and vegetable seeds that they need to grow food for their families and for local markets. Additionally, FAO completed a very successful project with the Ministry to facilitate access of vulnerable farmers to improved rainwater harvesting techniques through training, information-sharing, and the provision of inputs and support to enable rural families to achieve a two- to three-time increase in their crop yields, and increase their incomes by 20-50% depending on the crop. The project is currently being adapted for expansion to other parts of rural Sudan.

Recently, FAO is also supporting the Government of Sudan through the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to finalize Sudan’s National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP), a five-year investment plan for Sudan that maps the investments and activities needed to achieve 6% annual growth for the agricultural sector by 2020, including activities to reduce rural poverty by 50 percent and generate job opportunities in the agricultural sector for women and youth.

WFP is also a key partner of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in its ongoing efforts to promote long-term food security and self-reliance amongst communities in rural areas.  As lead partner of Farmers to Market, WFP is implementing a package of innovative activities through a tripartite agreement with the Central Bank of Sudan and the Ministry of Agriculture.  The project is designed to help traditional smallholder farmers improve food security and income by connecting them to insurance market, credits, markets for extension services and markets to sell their produce. 

WFP also supports women in rural areas through its SAFE Access to Firewood and Alternative Energy (SAFE) programme which contributes to improvement of food security and creation of income-generating activities that enable rural women cater for their families. Additionally, WFP provides an emergency safety net to one million children across Sudan, both in filling short-term hunger gap and in promoting intergenerational food security through its school feeding programme.  The programme also ensures that children, particularly young girls receive primary education to which they are entitled to. 

“WFP in Sudan is joining the global community’s call for action to help ensure the world achieves zero hunger by 2030.   We need to plant the seeds of growth now so that when 2030 comes, Sudan is ready to join the rest of the world where there is no hunger and undernutrition,” said WFP Sudan Representative and Country Director Adnan Khan.

Today’s ceremony at Friendship Hall marks the official celebration of World Food Day by the Government of Sudan. Both Future University and Afad University for Women will host World Food Day events on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.